Jason
Four weeks earlier
“That’s the fifth call this week,” I grumbled aloud, as I slowly got out of the SUV and shook my head at the scene in front of me. Political signs had been randomly showing up on people’s yards. Normally, it wouldn’t be a big deal since it was campaign season.
But these signs were of Max Emory and his megawatt smile, with two thumbs way up. And the tagline? I’m not running for anything. I just wanted a sign too!
With our damn luck, he was somehow going to get voted into office, and that would be the beginning of the end. One day, mayor of the city, the next day President of the United States. My body gave an involuntary shudder — God forbid. I needed a damn piece of wood to knock on. Hell, make that a salt shaker and a freaking box of Lucky Charms.
Grunting, I pulled the stupid sign out of the yard and tossed it into the back seat of the still-running SUV.
My phone rang.
It was as if he knew.
He being Max.
What did he do? Put tracking devices in the signs? I was almost afraid to ask, because the explanation would most likely be extensive, and I had a dinner date.
Correction, I had a hot dinner date.
With Blanche.
One of my grandmother’s best friends — the one who still miraculously had all her teeth and only one hearing aid, bless her heart. I called her hot because she used to give me Hot Tamales candy when I was a kid, and when my mouth burned and went tingly all at once, she said that meant I was on a hot date.
Don’t ask me how long I associated candy with hot girls. Let’s just say the damn woman classically conditioned me to salivate whenever a chick walked by. It took me years to get over that embarrassing condition that my best friend Colton often told kids in our class was an allergic reaction to my own spit.
Asshole.
“Yeah?” I barked into the phone.
“You’re moving my signs again,” Max said in a bored voice. He was the CEO of the Emory hotel empire and clearly had way too much time on his hands. Recently married, you’d think he’d be too busy to eat lunch, let alone put up signs ninety minutes from his penthouse apartment in Manhattan.
“Max…” I prayed for patience. “…I’m an officer of the law. I deal with thugs, drugs, prostitutes, and murder.”
“You forgot speeding tickets.”
“Max… ” I warned.
“Speeding is an offense too. So is stealing. What about the kleptomaniacs? They don’t even get an honorable mention?”
“Why?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why put up the signs? You do realize it’s a waste of my time and your money.”
He burst out laughing; it sounded more like an evil cackle. “That’s funny — you’re funny. You know that? Waste of money.” He continued to laugh. “And time? When was the last time you had an arrest, Jason?”
I clenched my teeth. “We had a streaker after the Yale game last night.”
“You get shot?”
“No.”
He sighed. “That’s too bad.”
“That I’m alive?”
A loud yawn echoed across the phone. “Anyway, enough of your life. It makes me too depressed. Did you get all the signs yet?”
I glanced at the yards around me. “There are more?”
“According to my GPS, yes.”
“You’re wasting taxpayers’ money!”
He was silent and then said very slowly, “Jason, you need to get the final sign. The future of our very world depends on it!”
I climbed into my SUV and slammed the door. Sarcastic nightmare. “Goodbye, Max.”
“Yes!” he yelled. “Now you’ve got it. We’ll be saying sayonara to the planet Earth if you don’t go get that last sign.” He was exaggerating, being a pain in the ass, and costing taxpayers money. The guy literally just wanted to make a sign with his name on it. Apparently owning the biggest hotel empire in the world wasn’t enough — well that, and he said he was going to make my life hell until I settled down and found happiness, as if I wasn’t already happy! I clutched my phone tightly, nearly breaking it in half. I was DAMN happy. Damn it!
“Where is it?”
“How should I know? Do you really think I actually drive down there and put those little suckers in the ground? I could get a sliver, and those little shits hurt.”
“The horror.”
“No…” he sighed, completely ignoring me, “…I pay my new assistant to do that shit.”
Never thought I’d feel so sorry for an individual I’d never met.
“Okay fine, I’ll tell you.”
“Wait, I thought you didn’t know.”
“I lied.”
“Max!” A headache was coming on already; a Max-induced headache that I, and my circle of friends, had nicknamed a Maxache. Nothing worked on it, not even the strongest of drugs.
Alcohol took the edge off.
But being drunk at work was frowned upon.
“It’s a small red house just off Main and First. You can’t miss it. There’s a flag in the front yard, waving proud the red, white, and blue. I swear it just evokes feelings of patriotism.”
“The red house?” My stomach clenched. “With the flagpole and white porch?
“Hey!” Max said, a little too cheerfully. “You know it, then?”
“Max.” Yup, definitely a Maxache. “What the hell did you do?”
“Do?”
“She lives there.”
“She?”
“I refuse to say her name out loud.”
“Ah, it’s one of those Bloody Mary things, got it. All right then, have fun and take some pictures of the sign. I’m working on my Twitter campaign this afternoon.”
“Go to Hell, Max!”
I hung up.
And stared at the steering wheel.
The bastard was sneaky, I’d give him that. He always came off as slightly stupid and way too arrogant for his own good. But he was brilliant.
That, my friends, was the problem.
Nothing good came from a multimillion-dollar genius with unlimited resources and time on his hands… A genius who just so happened to think playing with his friends’ lives was an actual hobby.
It all started at my wedding last year.
A wedding, I’ll admit, Max saved me from.
A marriage from Hell would be a generous understatement.
He’d shown up, pretended to be my sister’s fiancé, helped Colton my best friend, finally see the light about my sister, Milo, and ended up almost drowning me in the pool.
By the end of the weekend I had two black eyes, a limp, and on Sunday, woke up drunk in a water fountain, with a frog sitting on my chest and a hangover that pounded my skull for two straight days.
I still think he drugged me.
He still claims all whiskey tastes that funny.
Regardless, somehow that solidified his spot in our family. He went on a dating show, compliments of my own personal revenge for nearly killing me, and I’d been biding my time until it all came back to haunt me.
Never in my wildest imagination did I think he would stoop this low, though.
Never.
With sweaty palms, I put the SUV in reverse, turned around in the subdivision, then slowly crept along, prolonging the inevitable… when I would have to see Ethel.