Page 93 of Made for Mayhem

Stevie

As Shannon says, she’s a bitch, not a liar.

Shannon

Glad you remember.

Emmy

You know what, Daisy? I’ll do you a favor and remove you from the chat. Feel free to block us.

Shannon

Please don’t. This is fun.

Daisy

Let me think about the auction and get back to you.

Stevie

GASP! THAT IS NOT A NO!

Tate

Well, I can guarantee the only one you’d be going on a date with is Ty because he will lose his freaking mind.

Emmy

I can’t even argue with that.

Shannon

And here I was thinking I didn’t want to go…

Two weeks slipped by faster than I expected. Between the smell of sawdust and the hum of construction at Violet’s place, the days blurred together. With a new job on my plate, I hired a contractor to wrestle the wiring and drywall into submission. It swallowed what little money I had left in my savings account, but Stevie’s husband worked in construction and called in some favors to help me out.

With their help, the house was looking like a home instead of a disaster zone.

At the rink, I’d thrown myself into the marketing role like my sanity depended on it—which, maybe, it did. Tate was thrilled to have me on board, claiming this was the first decision the guys had ever forced on her she agreed with. Each day I spent with her, a little more of her personality showed itself. She was sarcastic, whip-smart, and unbothered by anyone with an inflated ego.

I hadn’t met the infamous Mason Conway in person yet, but judging by the way Tate’s jaw tightened every time his voice chimed in on a conference call, there was history there.

Junie had settled into a rhythm too—either at the rink with me, at the ranch with Ty, or with Stevie and her crew. If Ty or I got stuck working late, Emmy swooped in or one of the Mayhem players lined up to babysit. For the first time, the perks of small-town life were easy to see.

Grief didn’t hit all at once anymore—it hung around the edges, just waiting for me to stop moving.

So, I didn’t.

I kept my hands busy and my mind busier—anything to make the silence a little less sharp.

Pulling off a summer carnival in two weeks was ridiculous on paper, but Linwood had its own brand of magic. Or, maybe more accurately, the Conway brothers refused to take no for an answer.

Between their name recognition, their contacts, and the way they tossed around money, the whole town seemed to fall in line. Permits that should’ve taken months cleared overnight, sponsors crawled out of the woodwork to have their names on everything, and famous friends showed up in droves.

And Ty… God help me. Nothing else had happened between us; the moments we were alone were few and far between. I could tell he was waiting me out, but I was tired of feeling fragile.

By the time carnival day rolled around, I was running on Diet Coke, adrenaline, and the stubborn belief that sheer grit could pull a carnival together.