THE KNOCK SURPRISED HIM. He wasn’t expecting any visitors at this hour and he didn’t think Layla would be either. Not that it was a late hour. In fact, it was early, just about a couple of hours after sunrise, and whoever it was seemed to have urgent enough business that they seemed to think it was worth getting up early. Stepping out of his office and into the foyer of his house, he looked through the peephole and found himself doubly surprised when he saw it was none other than Tinsley. He tried to remember if he set up any sort of meeting with her, only to come up blank. (Besides, he was sure that he wouldn’t set anything up in his own house.) He was just about to answer the door when her voice carried through and he stayed his hand on the doorknob, a smile growing on his face as her words trickled through.
Finally, he swung open the door and gave her a nod of greeting. “Tinsley,” he said, her name uttered as a lilting tone on his voice. “You should check it again; you know me better than to think I haven’t donated.” Whatever was good for his image and all that. He made sure it was a hefty donation too, though not that big that it looked tacky or as if he was showing off. There was a careful balance to this sort of thing, and he liked to fancy that he was smart enough to know where the line was. He stepped out of the doorway and met her on his house’s porch. “I’m not that old that you need to teach me how GoFundMe works.”
Standing like this, they were almost close enough to touch. “Speaking of,” he said, his tone nary changing, “have we met the goal yet?” We, as if he worked for any of it when it was Tinsley doing all the heavy lifting. “I guess I could throw in some anonymous donations if that’s what you need.” A completed campaign, after all, met more publicity—and more publicity meant more effort funnelled into finding Cassie. Yet somehow he doubted that was what brought her to his residence. “Or,” Bill continued, giving voice to exactly that suspicion, “is this about something else altogether?”
“Mr. Mayor.” Tinsley returned the greeting with a shade of amusement in her voice, almost as if the formal title was simply an inside joke between the pair and not the very real reason she’d fallen into bed with him all of those years ago. “I’ll have to look again, I know something seemed off. I kept thinking that was so unlike you.” The words were said with such earnest that for a second she even had herself believing that his name hadn’t popped up on the donations list that morning.
One eyebrow arched as Bill stepped out on to the porch, the gesture suggesting she not go about one of her disarmingly Tinsley routines as she had planned. On the drive way over she’d imagined herself brushing past him and sauntering into the kitchen to making two strong cups of coffee like only she could. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was being left on the porch to feel like a fucking paperboy he was about to awkwardly tip for the holidays. She decided to rise above the slight, smile not faltering as she brushed her fingers through a few locks of his hair. “I dont know, Bill. The bridge ladies have mentioned you’ve been looking a little more salt than pepper these days.”
She looked past him and into the foyer, eyes returning to his face as if an afterthought. “We’re still a couple thousand short, but I’ll think we’ll be able to reach it in time.” Tinsley was not too worried about meeting the goal, and had planned on covering the difference and some. Tinsley Diaz had never spearheaded a campaign that didn’t surpass expectations.
“I figured you were also due for a social call. I’m big on killing two birds with one stone, you know that Bill.” She brushed passed him and stopped just short of the doorway. “So are you gonna let me make us some coffee, or not??”
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