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“Tired, old man?” Boone asks. He’s thirty-two to my thirty-eight and has no problem rubbing it in my face.
I flip him the bird instead of answering and watch as Finch lays out the last two cards that do dick all for me.
We place our last bets, and again I raise the pot with my remaining chips. Duke folds, like I thought he would, and Rhett waves his hand at me while Boone smirks.
“Full house, boys. Beat that,” I crow, triumphant.
Rhett flips the last king, giving him two pair.
“Whatchu got, youngin?” I taunt.
Boone’s smirk is still firmly in place when he flips over a pair of fours.
“What the fuck?” I yell.
“Four of a kind,” he says with a smile. “I believe that beats your full house, isn’t that right?”
“You went from bluffing your way to a win to getting four of a fucking kind? What kinda bullshit is that?”
He leans forward to swipe up his pile of chips and officially clears me out.
I lean back in my chair and watch as Finch shuffles the deck to deal another hand and slides a glance in my direction.
“So, how’s it going with reelection?”
Immediate tension tightens my shoulders. I’ve been sheriff of Everette for the last six and a half years. My position is up for reelection this year, and while I should have been the only candidate, Cormac Lewis’s father recommended him for the position to the town council after Cormac moved back to Everette from Pocatello.
“It’s fine,” I say with a calmness I don’t feel. All I’ve ever wanted to be was the sheriff of Everette. Since I was a kid and Sheriff Denny came in to the school to talk about what it meant to be an officer of the law, I’ve had my sights set on the gold star I pin on my uniform each morning.
“Your face doesn’t say that it’s fine,” Rhett says.
“Come on man, you know Cornhole isn’t going to win,” Duke offers helpfully, using the same nickname they came up with for Cormac when we were all in high school.
I fucking hate Cormac Lewis. The hatred of him started in high school when I caught him pinning Jedd to his locker after Jedd accidentally bumped into him walking down the hallway. He’s nothing but a lazy bully who likes to belittle others for his own amusement. The animosity between us only grew from there. Cormac wanted everything that I worked hard for in high school — namely the quarterback position on the football team — but he didn’t want to put in the time or effort for any of it. His family is one of the founding families of Everette, and he thought he could coast by on that alone. After we graduated college and ended up at the police academy together, things only got worse.
I rub the muscles at the back of my neck. “I’m not so sure. Cormac is Phillip’s son. Phillip’s got some pull with the town council.”
“So what? You’ve been the sheriff for the last seven years and the crime rates in the county that were already low to begin with are all but nonexistent now,” Finch says.
And I know that. I’ve done good work during my time in office. I want to keep doing that good work. But that decision isn’t up to me, it’s up to the town council.
I can’t work for him. If he wins the vote, I’ll have to find a different job or move.
There couldn’t be a worse outcome for me.
“Cormac is such a sleazy asshat,” Duke says.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the reelection. The only thing that I can do is my job. It’s up to the town council whether they reelect me to my position or not.”
“You need to be careful,” Boone says quietly from where he’s been listening.
Boone was still young by the time I finished school. While he knows about the history, he and Rhett didn’t start high school until after I had already left for college.
“Why?” I ask.
“I overheard the mayor talking to someone the other day. I was at city hall filing a permit for the house, and I could only make out the mayor, don’t know who he was talking to — but if I had to guess it was probably Phillip Lewis. But they told the mayor that they hope they can count on the town council to run a fair and equal race — that things have a way of coming to light that might shock the council.”
“I don’t have anything to hide,” I say indignantly. If they want to dig into my past, they’re more than welcome to. I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that they could use against me.
