How We Became Us

Chapter 3

Heather dropped the boys off in front of the gate of her house since Connor lives beside Matt and Heather lives across from them. They live deep in the neighbourhood, and their houses and properties are the biggest on the street, with large black and gold gates around the entire land.

The walk from the gates to Matt's mansion of a house is long, but Matt doesn't notice as his mind is lost in what he can remember from the file.

When he enters the house, he briefly greets Robert and pops his head into the kitchen to greet Cassie before going to his room and hiding straight for his closet. There's a trapdoor on his floor where he hides things he doesn't want the maids or his parents to find. Not that his parents ever come into his room unless it is to yell at him, but he wants to be cautious.

Matt pulls out a file, sits back, and goes through it.

~~~

Matt pulled out of his concentration on the file when his bedroom door burst open. Matt jumps on the floor in front of his French doors—that lead to the balcony—where he had migrated when he needed more space to lay out all the paper and grab some of his law books.

"So change of pl- woah," Heather started but stopped when she noticed Matt was sitting in a circle of paper and books. "What's all this?"

"The neighbourhood destruction," Matt said. "I took the file because it felt important. Seeing Darden made me remember it, so I pulled it out, and when I did, I started noticing discrepancies. There's a case here," Matt said, shaking the notepad he had on his lap. I don't know exactly what, but I'm close. I can feel it."

"Wait, so your father planned never to finish what he started?" Heather asked, walking over and reading some of the papers laid out.

"No, that's the thing. He destroyed an entire neighbourhood as a show of power. Someone who lived on that street wanted to run for mayor this year, but it was someone my father couldn't control. So, instead, he demolished all their homes as a threat to him to stand down. My dad wanted the current mayor because he is someone he can manipulate, and I guess my dad thought that if this candidate ran, he would win. But I need to find who was involved and more important evidence," Matt said, already looking back down at his papers and getting sucked into the work again.

"How would you even get your father to finish this?" Heather asked, getting confused by all the law books.

"Not me, the public," Matt said, barely looking up. "I'm going to need you to leak the story to one of the journalists who works for your mother, which would cause a public outrage. All this mainly points to the mayor and my father, but if there's enough public pressure, the mayor is easier to sway than my father. Then Casey's clients from the law and construction companies might leave or threaten to leave, which would pressure my dad to act on something. I would then try to trick him into thinking that it would be his idea to rebuild the neighbourhood—make it nicer, for the same price—to keep his clients and potentially get new ones."

"Devious," Heather said with a proud nod.

"Thanks," Matt mumbled.

"Anyways," she said, jumping onto Matt's bed, and the blond looked up at her. "My parents may or may not think we are going on a date tonight." Matt's eyebrows shot up, and Heather squirmed. "Look, they kept saying how good of a guy you are and how great we work as friends, and all these nice things about yo- oh shut up." She said when she noticed Matt's grin.

"I didn't say anything," he protested, but Heather rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but your eyes did," she grumbled, and Matt laughed but motioned for her to continue. "Then my mom called your mom, and there was so much pressure that I just blurted that we are going on our first date tonight, and we didn't say anything because we weren't sure it was going to work. You know, with the friends-to-lover transition and shit. I told them I would meet you here since your parents aren't home, and once again, we didn't want to make a big deal out of it and wanted to keep it a secret. So, you are driving me to pick up Andy and Kelly. Then, you will drop Kelly off at his place, Andy and me off at the park, and hang out around the area. I'll call once Andy and I are ready to go, and then you'll pick us up, drop Andy off, drive up my neighbourhood, walk me to the door so my parents can see what a gentleman you are, and then off you go."