Page 9
FINN
I leave the meeting wondering how something that went well can feel this stressful.
The mayor said yes to almost everything. That’s the problem. Mayor Caldwell walked into that meeting with his gold-rimmed reading glasses, his cup of coffee, and the confidence of someone who’s been running this town for over twenty years.
Yes to the expanded market footprint.
Yes to the extra money for the evening lighting budget.
Yes to the ice-sculpture demonstration Meredith, our vendor and operations coordinator, has been quietly lobbying for since August.
Yes, twice, to specific vendors he’s already personally promised placement to.
I now have to find space for two more vendors who weren’t on the sixty-eight applications I was already failing to fit into the market square.
Then there’s Chief Morrison, the loveliest man in Winterberry and also the fire marshal, who spent the second half of the meeting looking at the map I’d printed with poorly-disguised concern.
“Griffin,” he’d said gently, after the mayor left the meeting, tapping at the southern edge of the square on the map with his pen. “You’re at capacity now.”
“I know.”
“You’re at capacity before you add anything the mayor just committed to.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to have to sign off on the final layout, and I want you to know now, before we get to that point, that I’m going to be strict about the emergency access lanes this year.”
“Understood, Chief.”
He’d patted my shoulder on his way out.
I put my head down on my desk.
I have seventy vendors, plus entertainment, minus the physical laws of the town square, plus—
Plus Foster Crue sitting in my apartment right now.
My head comes back up.
Fox handed me a travel mug with coffee, kissed me like it was a habit we’d had for years, and I walked out of my own apartment feeling as if I’d stepped into an alternate reality where I’d somehow acquired a boyfriend overnight.
Which is a thought I should not be having.
Fox is the bass player for Hall of Fame, one of the biggest rock bands in the world. The same band my older brother Bastian leads.
Fox is not my boyfriend.
Fox is my very-occasional, very-secret, very carefully arranged whatever-we-are. Fox is a man who books flights in advance, texts me the exact time he’ll be arriving with the band, and coordinates our meetups like a general planning an invasion. Fox does not just show up.
I’ve been trying not to think about it but failing miserably.
Because the thing is, if Fox is here now, does that mean he won’t be here with the band for Thanksgiving? Is this his Thanksgiving? Are we doing Thanksgiving now, two weeks early, in secret?
We’ve never…celebrated anything before.
And if this is his Thanksgiving, when will I see him again?
Christmas? New Year’s? Whenever the band schedules its next reunion?
