Electrify Me (The Fireworks Series Book 1) Read Free Page A

and since this isn’t a public danger situation, your priority is going to be low.”
    “Can we get to another center?” a girl’s voice asks.
    “It’s in Olympia. But they only have enough set-up for their staff.” Rainbow Man steps into the circle of light, and I can see he’s a buff black dude in leather pants. “You can’t fix it?” he asks me.
    “Sorry. We need a cherry picker and parts that I don’t have.” I become aware that Gloria has been rather quiet. When I turn to look for her, she’s nowhere to be seen. I swing my flashlight around a bit but can’t find her. “Can you excuse me? I’ll just go and put in the service call for you. Has someone got a cellphone number I can give them?”
    Rainbow Man, whose name is Baxter, gives me his card. “ Father Baxter Jefferson.” I’ll be damned. I wonder what the pope would have to say about those pants.
    Gloria is outside, standing under the street lamp, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her puffy coat. I quickly dial Dispatch and put in the service call before joining her. “You are scared of the dark, aren’t you?”
    “Only in the sense that it makes my heart race and gives me chills,” she says. “How long before the lights come on?”
    “I’m afraid it will be hours. I take it you don’t want to wait with them in the dark. Can you get home? Do you have a car?” I’m hoping she’ll say no, so I’ll have an excuse to offer her a ride.
    “I have a car but…” She looks back at the church, uncertainly.
    “You don’t have a party to go to or something?”
    She takes so long to answer maybe I’ve hit on some sore spot. Like she doesn’t have any friends or she just got dumped yesterday or she’s got social anxiety. But none of those seem very realistic for such a funny and cute girl.
    “Do you have a boyfriend?” I ask, on impulse.
    She sighs and puts her hands in her pockets, looking back at the church. “No…despite my best effort, I am currently un-escorted.”
    “Good. I mean…uh…look.” I backpedal a bit, trying to be much cooler than I actually am. “Why don’t you tell your people inside you’re going to bail until the power comes back? Then you can ride with me. Dispatch will tell me when the box is fixed, and I’ll bring you back here. Sound fun?”
    She smiles that kind of half-face smile that always gets me. The smile that says, “You’re talking crazy talk, but I like it.”
    “That does sound kind of fun but I probably shouldn’t.”
    “Why shouldn’t you?” I ask.
    “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
    I stand there, trying to look harmless, in the hopes that I won’t have to get on my knees and beg this girl to save me from another boring New Year’s Eve spent working alone. Because that would be really weird, especially since we just met. “Come on,” I say instead. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
    She starts to laugh. Like really laugh.  I laugh with her, though I’m not really sure what’s so funny.
    “Let’s go tell them I’m leaving,” she says at last, wiping tears from her eyes.
    I try to be chill about it but I’m pretty sure I grin like a baboon.
    When we break it to him, Father Leather Pants doesn’t seem too worried about losing one of his staff, and the other people appear to be having some kind of bacchanalian feast. Only one of them manages to even say Goodnight and Happy New Year. And that’s with half a quesadilla in her mouth.
    Gloria and I practically run to my truck. She throws her giant purse into the back with my tools and buckles in like she’s eager to get moving.
    “So, where are we riding?”
    “Dispatch wants me to check a power surge in Ballard.”
    “Ballard? God, won’t that be a giant party?”
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing!”
    She thinks about it for a minute, then reaches back for her purse. “I better put on lip gloss.”
    Wow. Her lip gloss smells like root beer. I think I might be falling in love.
     

Chapter three –