Finding Mr. Superhero

Chapter Five

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My town is very strange.

            In the upper part of New York, you'd find the usual types sprinkled around. Businessmen and women, teenagers and paycheck-to-paycheck families. Doctors, dentists and day-carers... You get the gist.

            But one thing that unites the town and brings them all together is the town meeting. Where, once a month, the town meets together to discuss improvements, events and anything else anyone wants to bring up about our town. It's very Stars Hollow, I suppose.

            That afternoon everyone filed into the town hall, and I shifted uncomfortably against the current of everyone else. A tall man pressed into my back, and two giggling twins were to the left of me. Chloe was pressed on my other side, and I'd lost my parents in the crush of people, though I knew I'd find them later.

            Once we'd squeezed through the gaps and created a space for ourselves, Chloe and I took a seat up the front near the dais, and I saw my parents take a seat in the row behind me, settling into the high-backed plastic chairs, ready for the meeting to begin.

            Up the front people were setting up for the town meeting, and I suppressed a yawn and fanned myself with a novel I'd brought along in case this got boring, the stifling September heat seeming to melt my bones.

            "Looks like you've got the same idea as me."

            I jumped at the unexpected voice and turned to the side, to find an unfamiliar boy sitting next to me. He had hair the color of the dead of night, eyes that resembled melted chocolate, and a chiseled jaw with high cheekbones and bow-shaped red lips. He flashed a tentative grin at me, revealing pearly-white teeth I was infinitely jealous of.

            "Huh?" I asked unintelligibly, feeling like an incomprehensible person in this handsome boy's presence.

            He gestured to the paperback in my hands, and held up one of his own. "I thought if things turned shady I'd pull out a book and read."

            I smiled. "Great minds think alike."

            He laughed, a warm, musical laugh as smooth as velvet. "I suppose so."

            "I haven't seen you around before," I said, squinting at him and trying to make out his features, to know if he was someone I'd come into contact with before. His handsome features were definitely something I should remember, and, though they may have looked even vaguely familiar, he was not someone I'd ever come into proper contact with before. "Are you new to Sterling?"

            He smiled. "Nah, I moved here a year ago to start my freshman year of college. But, believe it or not, I've never dropped into one of these town meetings before. Always been too busy. Nevertheless, I prevailed to make it here tonight."

            I held out a hand, which was decorated in sparkly pink fingernail polish and an array of silver rings—my favorite accessory. "Well, I'm Violet. Violet Rose."

            "Like your eyes," he said, holding out his hand to shake. It was warm, and his palm was rough, his fingers calloused. Guitarist's hands. "I'm Sam Thorne."

            "It's nice to meet you, Sam," I replied politely, smiling at him.

            "You, too, Violet Rose."