Chapter 71 Love You Too, Dean Bean

Chapter 71 Love You Too, Dean Bean
Instead, Echo gasped, wiping the sticky, sugary mess from her face. But rather than yelling, she blinked up at him, her dark eyes wide and fluttering with exaggerated, angelic innocence.
"Dean Sterling," she gasped softly, placing a sticky hand over her heart. "You're just mad you didn't think fast enough to flick it back at me!"
Dean let out a loud bark of laughter, his grip tightening around her waist so he wouldn't accidentally drop her in his amusement.
"I thought we could play a little muck tennis," Echo continued, her voice dripping with fake sweetness as she batted her eyelashes at him. "Is it my fault you have a terrible backhand, Bean?"
"Muck tennis?" Dean choked out, shaking his head in disbelief. "You used a telekinetic fastball to blast swamp water up my nose, Echo! That's not tennis, that's a war crime!"
"I call it a strong serve," she retorted, finally breaking her innocent facade with a brilliant, triumphant smile. She reached out and tapped the clean side of his cheek, leaving a tiny smudge of residual marshmallow behind. "Next time, keep your eye on the ball."
"You two are entirely too much work to take anywhere!" Puck hollered from the beach, laughing so hard he nearly dropped his own hot dog into the fire. Willow and Miri were cheering for Echo's flawless defense, while Franklin and Leo just shook their heads at the sheer chaos of their friends.
Knowing he was thoroughly beaten—both in magic and in banter—Dean finally waded back to the dry sand and gently set Echo down.
"Alright, Witch, you win this round," Dean conceded, pulling a napkin from his pocket and gently wiping the marshmallow off her cheek, his eyes softening as he looked at her in the firelight. "But only because I don't want to explain to the Town Council why the head of the Oversight Committee smells like roasted sugar and swamp mud."
Dean leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her nose, which tasted overwhelmingly of sticky, toasted marshmallow. He pulled back just enough to look at her, a low chuckle vibrating in his chest as the cool night air off the lake blew past them.
"I think we should probably be heading back," Dean murmured, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked from Echo to the dying embers of the fire pit. "Before the Town Council decides to draft us into building them a new town hall from scratch."
The drive back up the mountain was quiet, filled with the comfortable, heavy silence of a job well done. The students in the vans were practically asleep against the windows, smelling of woodsmoke and fresh lake air.
By the time the tires crunched over the gravel of the main drive, the Academy was waiting for them, standing tall and glowing warmly against the dark, star-filled sky.
The "Big Six" came dragging back into the McFarland Wing, their boots scuffing heavily against the grand floorboards. Their muscles ached from the rakes and the heavy lifting, but the usual tension that used to follow them through these halls was completely gone. They murmured a chorus of tired, lazy goodnights, splitting off into their newly reclaimed rooms.
As the heavy oak door of the Master Suite clicked shut, Dean didn't even bother turning on the main light. The moonlight streaming through the arched windows was enough.
Echo had barely kicked off her muddy boots when Dean stepped up behind her. He wrapped his arms securely around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, and rested his chin heavily on her shoulder. He let out a long, deeply contented sigh, all the weight of the "Sterling Heir" melting away into the quiet dark of their room.
"Night, Witch," he whispered into her hair, his voice rough with sleep and absolute adoration.
Echo leaned back into his solid embrace, her hands coming up to rest over his. She closed her eyes, a soft, sleepy smile spreading across her face as she let the peace of the McFarland Wing settle over her.
"Love you too, Dean Bean."
The murmurs in the Town Hall didn't stay quiet for long. The shock of Elias Jorne’s confession quickly gave way to a loud, angry wave of overlapping voices. Decades of resentment bubbled to the surface as the townspeople realized just how twisted the Sterling and Dorset schemes really were.
Dean and Franklin sat frozen at the table, the weight of their fathers' sins pressing down on them so hard it was a wonder the floorboards didn't crack. They had spent two years trying to clean up the mess, only to find out the rot went even deeper.
Before the anger could turn into an uproar, Echo stood up. She didn't bang a gavel or shout. She simply stepped around the table, placing herself directly between the agitated crowd and the two boys she loved like family.
"Listen to me!" Echo’s voice cut through the noise—clear, authoritative, and steady. The room slowly quieted down, the townspeople turning their attention to the young woman who had fought so hard for them over the last two years.
"What was done to Mr. Jorne, and to this town, was unforgivable," Echo said, her eyes sweeping across the crowd. "But it is not unfixable. You all already know where my family stands. My parents have agreed to keep every single one of you afloat as needed. We can't instantly pay back every cent those men stole, but the McFarland estate is your safety net while the lawyers track down everything that was taken."
The crowd nodded, the reminder of that established lifeline easing the panic in the room. Dean looked up at her, his heart hammering against his ribs. Her presence was a shield, absorbing the town's anger before it could strike him or Franklin.
"But tonight isn't about the bridge fund," Echo continued, her voice softening just a fraction as she looked at Elias. "It's about the offshore accounts we just cracked. We have a choice to make about this specific money."
She turned back to the crowd. "Why not start fixing this one business at a time? We’ve looked through the recovered ledgers. The money they just found is enough to completely pay off this one massive mess—to clear Mr. Thorne's predatory debt, return the stolen scholarship funds to the Academy, and give him his life's work back."
She paused, anticipating their hesitation, and addressed it head-on. "If we do this, there is still enough left in that recovered fund to budget out a stimulus for the rest of you. It will still give you all breathing room—just not as much breathing room as an even split."
Echo walked over and placed a hand firmly on Elias Thorne’s shoulder, a physical anchor in the storm.
"The Oversight Committee could have sat back in the McFarland Wing and decided the fate of this money ourselves," Echo told the room, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. "That’s what the old regime would have done. But we don't operate in the dark anymore. We wanted to give you a voice."
She stepped back, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Dean and Franklin, intertwining her fingers with Dean's under the edge of the table. His hand was shaking, but her grip was like iron.
"We can give everyone a slightly bigger check today," Echo concluded. "Or we can save a man from drowning tonight, and keep fighting together tomorrow. It’s your town. We're asking you to vote."