Fakers (Licking Thicket 1)

Then there was the other side of the coin. The vulnerable woman who was terrified of ending up alone. The timid Southerner who was reluctant to speak up to her own boss when her paycheck was a couple of hundred dollars short. The scaredy-cat who crawled into bed with me every Halloween night “just in case” ghosts were real.

I loved both sides of her, but I also knew how unpredictable she was. You never knew which side the coin would land on next.

The following day the tiger came out with claws extended. It seemed she’d had the entire night to stew about it, and she’d dragged me to Monday’s Lickin’ planning meeting with a storm cloud of laser-focused revenge thundering over her head. I was still half-asleep and hugging my coffee from the local cafe when we approached the town hall building.

“I’m going to expose him if it’s the last thing I do,” she said under her breath.

I grabbed her elbow and yanked her into the vestibule just off the entryway of the small community center.

“Say what now?” I hissed.

“You heard me. While I was trying not to puke my guts out this morning, it occurred to me why this is bugging me so much. Brooks shouldn’t just get to come back here and lead the Lickin’ Committee like he did nothing wrong, Mal! He didn’t just leave me, he left the whole town, and my mom says he’s only seen his family in person, like, six times in ten years, when they visit him. This is bullshit. What if you’re wrong and everyone else was right? What if Brooks isn’t even gay? What if that was just an excuse for Mr. Perfect Ad Executive to leave Licking Thicket because he thought he was better than the rest of us? The Thicket deserves the truth.”

Now I was pissed, but I tried to keep my voice down so no one could overhear us as other people began filtering into the building for the meeting. “He is gay. Stop that nonsense and trust me when I say I know what I’m talking about.”

“But, Mal—”

“No! You listen to me and listen good. Get your shit together, princess. You got me? I’ll be damned if you’re going to be the one making a scene in this little fucking—”

Suddenly my T-shirt was choking me, and I was forcibly removed from the vestibule and tossed out into the morning sunshine. A very angry Brooks Johnson stared daggers at me.

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat and tried not to strip off my clothes and throw myself at his feet. Why the hell did I have to find asshole alpha-male bullshit so sexy?

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

5

Brooks

“What about a celebrity endorsement?” I mused as we drove down Walnut Street bright and early Monday morning. “Some up-and-coming country star, maybe? Or someone from NASCAR?”

Paul said nothing, clearly stunned by the brilliance of my idea… or simply not paying attention to me at all.

I smacked his arm lightly. “Focus.”

He glanced up from the papers in his hand and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Brooks, you’re not just on the Lickin’ Committee, you’re the head of the committee. You get that, right?”

I stifled a sigh. We were on our way to the final Lickin’ Committee meeting before the festivities kicked off at the Lickin’ Lope the next day, and while I was really glad Paul had managed to unearth my Lickin’ itinerary from whatever corner it had landed in Saturday night, I really wished he’d concentrate on our actual work. Pamela was less than thrilled by how little we’d gotten done over the weekend, and I needed to step things up if I wanted my bonus. I was glad to be here to stand in for my dad and help my family, but I was not going to let it derail my career or my future, either.

“I’m literally wearing a shirt that says Head Licker,” I reminded Paul. “I’m aware. But it’s all ceremonial. So maybe get out the ideas notebook, and we can spend a few minutes brainstorming so we’re in a better position to work flat out all afternoon, okay? General Partridge wants us in Nashville Friday, and we still haven’t come up with a tagline or a theme.”

Paul wanted to build off the old-fashioned jingle the General had liked the other day, but I felt like we needed to do something different. Something fresher. I was having trouble thinking of anything fresh here in Licking Thicket, though.

“Yeah, about that,” Paul said. He tapped the pages in front of him. “Friday you’re judging a football throw, emceeing a bachelor auction, and doing a bunch of stuff in between. How are you gonna be everywhere at once?”

“I’ll just have to skip some stuff, I guess.” I remembered my dad really enjoying being Head Licker when I was a kid, so he couldn’t have been running around doing everything, right? “I’ll emcee the auction, but that’s at night. We’ll just have to see if we can have the meeting with the General first thing, then get back early. It’s two hours each way, give or take, plus maybe an hour for the presentation… It’s doable.” It had to be.