Page 8 of Harvest Heat

Apparently, he was incapable of being in the same space as Caleb and not making a fucking fool of himself. Tessa would just have to tell him what happened at the meeting. There had to be a way to sneak out the back of the town hall so no one would see him.

The bathroom door swung open, and he froze until he saw it was Finn.

“Are you okay?” Finn asked

“Yes. No. I will be. Tessa sent you, didn’t she?”

Finn nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. She told me I have to get you back out there.”

“No way. This is twice in one day I’ve looked like the biggest fool in front of Caleb. I’m not going back out there.”

“He’s sitting on the opposite side of the circle from us. You’ll be fine.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll have to look right at him.”

Finn frowned. “Do you usually look up much during these meetings?”

Rhys typically spent the meetings looking down at his notebook, pretending to take notes while he was bored out of his mind. “No, but⁠—”

“Agnes is freaking out. She says everyone has to be here. She sent someone to go get Lisa from the gift store.”

The woman was acting even crazier than usual. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He rolled his eyes. “I wish I was. You don’t want her to come back here looking for you.”

Great. He could face Agnes’s wrath or give himself another chance to show Caleb how inept he was. “Help me get out of here. I’ll find a place to hide where Agnes will never find me.”

Finn laughed. “Then I’ll be in trouble with Tessa. Why does Caleb make you so nervous?”

“He’s a hot, fun guy everyone likes who could ruin my business.”

“Hot?” Finn raised his brows.

“You know he is.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I have eyes, but you don’t usually get flustered over things like that. You’re pretty cute yourself, you know?”

Rhys rolled his eyes. “You don’t see him falling down every time he sees me.”

“You fell down once, that’s all.”

“I suppose Tessa told you about this morning.”

“She did, but it’s all right. Just come back out there before she comes and gets us both. I promise I’ll make it really easy for you to get away at the end of the meeting.”

“Fine.” Rhys wished his heart weren’t pounding so hard. He felt like he might pass out. He was really not at all sure he was capable of handling this. What if he keeled over in the middle of the meeting? What if Caleb tried to talk to him again? Maybe he’d learned his lesson about that.

Just breathe and don’t look at him. You’ll be with your friends.

Tessa had made everyone move so Rhys could sit between her and Finn. She leaned over to whisper to him. “I’m proud of you.”

“For making an ass of myself again?”

She scowled at him. “For coming back out here.”

Before he could say anything else, Agnes called the meeting to order. “As you all know, the Seacoast Harvest Festival will be taking place in Frostwick Harbor on October tenth and eleventh. That’s only twenty-seven days away. This is such an important moment for our town. We’ve been slowly increasing tourism here, but we want to keep that up. I want to see all your businesses thrive, and I know you do too. One of the best ways to gain interest in our town is for us to win as many festival awards as we can.”

“I’m pretty sure this is more about doing better than her sister’s town,” Finn whispered. Rhys fought the urge to laugh. The last thing he wanted was Agnes’s attention on him.