Page 25 of Run to Me

I’ll be at your show.

Tate

Yay! Stay healthy, guys.

I drop the phone on the vanity table and bend at the waist to rest my pounding head on my forearms. The door to my trailer pops open.

“Harmon, you’re up!” Graham’s assistant shouts before the door swings shut with a bang. The sound echoes in my throbbing brain.

Rolling my head to one side, I peek at the makeup chair to find Harmon staring at me. “You’re still here,” I say.

“Yep.” His knees sway lazily back and forth, as if he doesn’t have somewhere to be.

“Get out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says before rushing out the door.

I let out a long sigh, miserable from the hangover and wondering what deity cursed me with countless reasons to drag my butt back to Walford.

9

JENSEN

“A little higher on the left,” Tom says.

I raise the corner of the new sign for his awning a fraction of an inch. My biceps burn from holding the plastic monstrosity in the air while balancing on a ladder. We’ve been at this for a while, and my body’s stiff because it’s the end of February and too cold to be outdoors.

“That’s too far. Down a little,” he instructs.

Wrangling my frustration, I lower the corner to the starting height from half an hour ago. I’ve held the sign in this exact spot at least twenty times.

“Perfect!” he shouts, as if I didn’t already know. “Now everyone will stop calling my bakery a donut shop.”

“You’re the one who left the donut on the building for twenty years after you bought the place,” Lydia says from below me while holding the ladder.

I stand on my tiptoes to screw the sign into place. Thankfully, I’m steady and light on my feet for a guy my size, a trait developed from years of running drills on the football field.

Tom makes a harrumph sound. “It’s a bakery, and now everyone will remember.”

“You still sell donuts,” Eddie points out. Tendrils of cigarette smoke snake through his nostrils. The skinny military veteran co-owns the Noon Moon Café with his wife, Sonja, and he takes countless smoke breaks each day.

“And pastries, cakes, and muffins,” Tom reminds us.

I climb down the ladder and stand beside the group on the curb. Any activity on Main Street, no matter how exciting or mundane, becomes a spectator sport, drawing all the business owners out of their stores.

We cross our arms and stare at the sign. No one says a word because we’re not brave enough to suffer Tom’s ire should we crack jokes about the giant pink muffin displayed above his shop. What’s worse, he was going for a tan shade so it appears baked, but the paint came out looking more like peachy flesh.

“Looks good,” Menchy says. He tilts his head to one side and rubs his stubbled chin. “Adds character to the street.”

Lydia turns away to smother her giggles with a glove. The muffin sign has to be the tackiest thing any of us have ever seen.

“I need to get back to my kitchen.” Eddie crushes his cigarette butt on the edge of a trash bin and tosses it inside. He waves over his shoulder as he strolls away.

“Same here. My muffin’s getting cold,” Lydia says, snickering.

I chuckle and shake my head. “You’re terrible.”