Then he blinked and stepped away. Gulls resumed their cries, vendors began their yelling, and the moment was broken.
“Let’s get you to a sink,” he was saying as he leaned past me for some more posters. “Or I could just dip you in the ocean?”
The air between us cooled, reality slipping back in.
I cleared my throat and smiled. “Funny. A sink will do just fine.”
We found a public restroom near the square, where a busker played under a striped awning and kids splashed in the fountain. When I looked in the mirror, I almost wished I hadn’t. Sugar was crusted around my lips and my hair, though up in a ponytail, was darting in twenty different directions. Sighing, I washed the stickiness off my hands and face and reworked my hair into a semi-respectable bun.
Rhett was waiting outside in the plaza, leaned up against a pillar.
That was when I saw it.
Glossy and enormous, splashed on the screen behind the glass of a real estate agency’s office.
The Founders’ Gala: An Evening of Elegance and Tradition—Presented by the Steele Group.
A sketch of a ballroom framed by gold swirls, with sponsors’ names printed in bold across the bottom. Our posters—colorful and hand drawn by a classroom of high school art students—looked like a kindergarten project in comparison.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring before Rhett appeared behind me in the reflection.
“What’s the Steele Group?” I mumbled, chest tight.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s her family’s agency.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means…” Rhett’s shoulders drooped. “It means she’s using this as a way to make a mark there. And it also means she’s not going to give up.”
I blinked back the tears and turned to him with a nod. “Well, guess that means we’ve gotta get back to work.”
The words came out light, but inside, something stung.
We pressed on, plastering posters wherever we could find space. There was a bulletin board in a coffee shop decorated purely in black-and-grey and brimming with suits. Then, the window of a general store, where we had to negotiate with a clerk who insisted we buy something first—Rhett walked out with anewspaper, of all things. We found a bar, where the owner gave us a free drink after Rhett fixed a loose hinge on her swinging door. I chose a Shirley Temple.
At one point, I tried to staple a poster to a telephone pole and ended up stapling my sleeve instead. Rhett did an admirable job fighting back his laughter while he helped me untangle myself.
By the time we finished, the sun had sunk low, and the sidewalks grew shaded. The sky turned soft pink and orange, gulls circling above the harbor like scraps of paper on the breeze. Rhett leaned against the bed of his truck and slipped his newspaper inside the cab.
“This was productive,” I said, sidling up beside him.
“Sure was.” He stretched his arms out across the side panel. “How you feeling about it now?”
I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to ignore the warmth of his sleeve against my back. “Better. At least if it all goes wrong, I can say that I did my best.”
He grinned. “Anyone ever told you that you’re a hopeless optimist, Wheeler?”
I laughed, then fell quiet, watching the cotton candy sky glitter on the water. “Grandma Marigold, believe it or not, thoughtIwas the realist.”
Rhett glanced at me, his expression softer than usual. “She must’ve been fun to grow up with.”
The words warmed me more than he knew.
“She was the best,” I replied. “So spirited, y’know? There was no challenge too great for her. I always wanted to be like that.”
“Look at what you’re doing. Howaren’tyou like that?”
I couldn’t contain my smile. I didn’t want to.
