Page 6 of The Best Christmas Choir Ever

No! He didn’t need those feelings surging through his blood right now. Even back then, he’d known better than to get close to people, but Charlie had slipped past his defenses, and in the end had ghosted him.

Whatever her reasons then, it didn’t matter now. He’d learned his lesson, and he didn’t need to dwell on thoughts of summer sun against his skin or the way she used to hum against his lips right before she kissed him.

Julian swallowed hard. Charlie had knocked him completely off his game, and he suddenly felt like anyone who looked close enough would be able to see the flush in his cheeks or hear the unsteady beat of his heart.

“Frank!” Julian said, greeting an older man who was working his way toward the dining room in his wheelchair.

Frank lifted his hand for Julian to shake like he did every day. “Short rib today,” Frank said.

Frank was the keeper of all things. The time. Glendale’s weekly menu. Room assignments. If you wanted to know what dinner would be three days from now, he could tell you. If you wanted to know where Mrs. Abernathy’s suite was, he could point you in the right direction. He wasn’t the greatest conversationalist, but if you wanted to know the score of game six in the 1987 World Series, he could also tell you that. Which was pretty remarkable as far as Julian was concerned.

“Want a ride to lunch?”

Frank lifted his hands into his lap, and Julian pushed him the rest of the way to the dining room. Frank pointed at a half-full table of residents, and Julian wheeled him over, nodding and lifting his hand in greeting as people acknowledged him.

“Julian?” Maggie Shiplake, busybody extraordinaire, called. Nothing happened in this place without Maggie knowing about it first. As a former high school secretary, she made it her business to be in everyone’s business. “How’s the outing to the community center looking for tomorrow?”

“It’s a go as far as I’m concerned,” Julian said. Maggie sat with Harriet Childs. He could never be sure what would come out of her mouth. Right now she was stuffing it with a raspberry Danish.

“Won’t you join us for lunch?”

“You know I’d love to, Maggie,” Julian said. “But I am most definitely late for a meeting.” He clapped Frank on the shoulder in goodbye.

“They work you too hard,” Maggie said.

“You tell Diane that the next time you see her,” Julian said. “I also wouldn’t mind a raise if you want to start dropping hints.”

“We always do,” Maggie called after him.

Julian hurried out of the dining room and down the hall, pausing outside an office that belonged to Diane Clark, Glendale’s executive director. She was the constantly-frazzled-but-excellent-at-her-job type for which she blamed going gray in her midforties. Besides her actual children, Glendale was Diane’s baby, as was evident by the very old, very worn sweater she donned every day with an image of Glendale on the back and her name embossed on the arm.

Diane was in charge of the facility’s financial health, managing staff and making sure Glendale met local and federal regulations. Today Julian was most interested in the financial part.

He knocked on the partially open door and waited to be invited in before pushing the door open the rest of the way. “Good afternoon, my favorite person ever.”

Diane gave a great sigh, looking for her phone in a landslide of paperwork. “Is it already afternoon? I swear I just checked, and it was nine.” She found her phone, glanced at it, then dropped it back on her desk. Looking up at Julian, her nose wrinkled. “What do you want? I don’t have any money to give you.”

Originally from Long Island, Diane’s accent jumped out when she was exasperated. Today would probably be one of those days. Julian dropped the stack of sheet music he’d been carrying onto her desk.

Diane rolled her eyes and unwrapped a candy cane from a bowl on her desk. She crunched on the end before offering him one.

Julian declined. “Isn’t it a little early for those?”

“Never.” She motioned with her chin. “What’s all this? More paperwork?”

“It’s an opera.”

“Is this your new strategy? Bury me in sheet music until you get your way?” Diane paused for a second, distracted by something on her computer screen. She started typing furiously. “If you’re trying to butter me up, start bringing me coffee. Black. Like the void I want to shove my desk into.”

Julian sat down on the edge of said desk. “I’m a little concerned about your caffeine intake.”

“I think it’s replaced the blood in my veins.”

“That’s the worrying part.”

“Too late to go back now.” She stopped typing and leaned back in her chair, regarding him over the rim of her glasses. “Now, what can I do for you? And remember you only get three asks a year. I’m like a genie. Use up all your wishes, and I’m going to stop taking your meetings.”

Julian picked absently at the edge of the folder he was sitting on. “I would actually like some money—”