"For your help," he grunted. It was clearly a struggle for him to be civil.
"Thanks, Sergeant," I said, taking the bottle. "You know, for a minute there in the beginning, I really thought you were going to arrest me."
He almost smiled. "Still might. But my computer boots in under thirty seconds for the first time in five years, and Miller has stopped asking me what a gigabyte is. So, for now, we're even."
He gave a curt nod and walked back to his car, leaving me on the porch with the bottle of whiskey. It was the most touching gesture of gratitude I had ever received.
Later that night, I poured myself a glass of Davis's peace offering. The scotch was smooth and smoky—the taste of a crisis averted. I sat in my Herman Miller chair, my sanctuary restored, and did something I knew I would regret: I opened my laptop and navigated to the neighborhood Facebook group.
The digital town square was still buzzing. The threads about Brenda's arrest had thousands of comments, but it was the post pinned to the top of the page that caught my eye. It was a poll created by my neighbor Tom from down the street: Who should be our new HOA president?
There was only one option listed: Alex "The Fiber God" Evans. It had 317 votes.
I stared at the screen, at my own name, and took a long, slow sip of whiskey. My greatest victory had created my worst nightmare. I had saved the village, and now they wanted to make me the mayor.
I slammed the laptop shut. "Nope," I said to the quiet room. "Not my circus, not my monkeys."
I walked over to the window and looked out at the perfectly manicured street. Across the way, a new family who had just moved in were out on their lawn. The husband was hammering something into the grass.
It was a bright pink plastic flamingo. Hideously, gloriously, defiantly pink—a clear violation of at least four different HOA bylaws. I watched as he adjusted it to the perfect tacky angle.
A new battle was brewing in Serenity Springs. A new threat to the aesthetic cohesion was rising. But the green lights on my network switch were blinking steadily. My connection was stable. And for now, that was all that mattered.
I took another sip of scotch and smiled. Let them have their flamingo wars. I had a network to architect.