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

Gloria
     
    Okay, so my 24th New Year’s is looking up. I’m probably not going to save any lives, but now at least I’ll have a couple of hours in a relatively unthreatening situation with a really cute guy. Maybe the New Year’s gods have something else in store in Ballard, but how bad could it be? I have a legit electrical wizard with me. At least I’m not likely to get electrocuted.
    “So what’s the deal?” Charlie asks, once we’re on the road. “Why was a young single girl giving up her New Year’s to…what was that anyway? A soup kitchen?”
    “Suicide help-line.”
    Charlie drives in silence for a moment. “Jeez.”
    “I know. Buzz kill, right? The thing is I always have such bad New Year’s Eves when I try to have a good time, I thought if I did something a little less shallow than a beertini party at the Pike Brewery and you know, tried to help someone, things might turn out better for me too.”
    “And how’s that going so far?”
    I smile out to the road ahead of us. “Pretty good so far. I mean, this is already more fun than either counselling suicidals or a beertini party at the Pike Brewery.”
    Charlie grins. He’s got a lovely smile–straight white teeth and kissable, bee-stung lips. Did I really just think the word “kissable”? That’s just sad.
    “What is a ‘beertini’ exactly?”
    “You don’t even want to know.”
    Ballard, as I suspected, is buzzing, already well into the throes of a burn-it-all-down New Year’s riot even though it’s only just after 9PM. We pull up across the street from a kind of run down but obviously partying house, and I can smell what I suspect is the skunk-scented cause of the power surge before we even get out of the truck. To make it even more obvious, there’s a pile of empty plastic flower pots in the recycling bin.
    “Ah, shit,” Charlie says. “I hate doing this.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “We have to call the cops. And I hate it because they come and arrest everyone. Even people who are just here to chill with a little weed.”
    “I thought it was legal here now.”
    “Not home grows. And anyway, from the power surge, they’re probably stealing power too for their grow lights. So, you know, they’re jerks. But their friends are just having a good time.”
    Charlie looks up at the house, frowning. There are people on the porch drinking beer and smoking various things. They look pretty harmless. Stoned but harmless.
    “Why don’t you put your light on?” I’d noticed the yellow light on top of the truck when I got in.
    “Why?”
    “You know, like flash the lights, and then everyone will be like, ‘It’s the fuzz! Cheese it!’ And then when the cops arrive, there won’t be anyone here to arrest.”
    Charlie looks at me, his eyebrows raised. “Cheese it?”
    “Admit it; it’s a good idea.”
    He shakes his head, reaching over to flick a switch. Yellow lights begin to flash all around us. Sure enough there are several cries of “shit” and “whoa” from the house, and then vast throngs of wasted hipsters pour onto the street, disappearing into the shadows on foot, bike or skateboard. It’s like the migration of the caribou. Beautiful. Almost sad.
    Once almost everyone has left, a tattooed guy appears on the porch, yelling. “Hey! Who the fuck are you?”
    “Oh, shit,” Charlie says. “Let’s cheese it!” He peels out, dodging hipsters as he careens away from the house.
    When he pulls over a minute later, I have to stifle my laughter in my lap while he calls in the report. Then we hit a drive-thru for celebratory smoothies.
    “Hey! I just thought of something!” I say, through a mouthful of mango froth.
    “What?”
    “I might have just saved someone’s life after all.”
    “How so?” Charlie pulls out into the sparse traffic on Market Street as I explain.
    “So someone at the party might have gotten the book thrown at them. I mean, maybe they had a previous arrest or something so they would end