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“You look good! Though, you always look good.” Rick winked at Blaire, apparently ignoring proper business meeting decorum. “Glad to see being back in Holly Ridge is treating you well.”
Back in Holly Ridge? I thought to myself. He knows her well enough to know where she’s from?
Blaire looked up at me and, seeming to read my mind, explained.
“Rick and I have worked together on a bunch of winter festivals all over the tristate area over the past several years. He’s the best in the portable ice rink business, and luckily runs his business out of the next county over, so he’s able to get us a rink without any time on a waiting list.”
“I make my own refrigerant and brine mixtures that set the ice in record time,” Rick added in. “Not that we usually have trouble in New England winters, but global warming is real, and we need to be ready for anything! The patent is pending on my mixture. I’m hoping to sell it to other companies to improve the ice rink game in general, and then get back in the lab to see what I can cook up next.”
I just blinked at them both, stunned by Rick’s chemistry prowess and by the way Blaire championed him. I hadn’t seen her do that with any of the vendors we had discussed yet.
Is there some sort of history between them? Is that the kind of guy Blaire goes for?
“Great, awesome.” I replied, aware that my tone was clipped. “Let’s show Rick where the parking lot is you want the rink in, so I can get out of this heat.” Wanting to be done with this meeting had nothing to do with me not wanting to watch Blaire and Rick together. Nothing at all.
Blaire glared at me for my tone, but nonetheless turned away and walked next to Rick toward the parking lot right across from the town square. I tried not to notice how Rick threw his arm around Blaire’s shoulders as they walked, making small talk. Her body language relaxed in a way it had never been during any of our meetings, except maybe across the table at Pepper’s.
Guess that is her type then.
After Rick declared the parking lot location “totally rad” for one of his best rinks, he got ready to head to his next consult.
“I’ll send you a proposal by next week for the rink we discussed, with the Blaire Bear discount thrown in.”
I felt my eyes threaten to move into one of Blaire’s signature eye rolls, but I kept my poise. I felt her eyes on me as I watched him get in his truck to leave.
“Okay, let’s have it.”
She squared her shoulders like she was ready to battle over Rick and his rink.
Where to start? The fact that your apparent ex-something is one of our vendors?
“The Blaire Bear discount?” I asked her. “You know you’re not supposed to be using the town’s situation in advertising—that goes for securing discounts as well. I also don’t think the state would appreciate you using personal connections with exes to get discounts, either.”
“The Blaire Bear discount,” her cheeks flushing pink as she said that ridiculous phrase out loud, “is nothing new. I’ve brought in Rick’s rinks to every town I’ve worked with on their winter festivals over the past seven years. I’m happy to show you contracts that reflect the same discount if you think it’s going to be an issue with the state. And, not that my personal life is any of your business, but Rick has been with his partner, Steve, since college. We had to sit with one of his rinks overnight because of a potential rain issue at a festival and he heard my dad call me Blaire Bear on the phone. He thought it was hilarious, so he took on the nickname too.”
I felt something loosen in my chest I hadn’t even realized was tight when I realized Rick wasn’t an ex-anything of Blaire’s, but it felt good to fight with her in-person again.
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea to take up the largest parking area near the town square with an ice rink.”
If possible, Blaire’s chin raised even higher as she took a step closer, brandishing her clipboard as a buffer between us.
“We’ve been through this, Cole. We don’t want cars coming through the town square, anyway. I’m going to petition the City Council to make the streets around the square pedestrian only during the festival’s open hours. We’ll be very clear in advertising that the festival is walkable, and we’ll have handicap parking available. It’s a much better use of that square of pavement to have an attraction than to fill it with cars and create gridlock with people trying to see if they can snag a spot.”
Maybe it’s because we were physically standing in the town square, but I could see her point about the gridlock. Having a fully walkable festival would be safer and more visually appealing and keeping the road closures to festival hours would still allow the businesses along the square to receive their deliveries in the early morning hours.
Begrudgingly, I admitted, “Okay, I see your point. If Rick can give us a workable financial proposal and I decide to approve it, the rink can go in the parking lot. No more arguments from me.”
I could tell Blaire wanted to smack me with that clipboard at reminding her I had final financial approval over her entire festival plan, but instead her eyes fixed onto something behind me.
“Oh! That’s Tanya! She’s, like, an hour early! Shit, I thought I had more time before she arrived.”
I turned around to watch a blond woman confidently walk toward us wearing wedge sandals, a sundress, and the largest hat I had ever seen balanced on her head. The woman, who I now knew as Tanya, wiggled her fingers at us and yelled “Yoo-hoo!” across the square.
“Who’s this again? I thought it was just the two vendors this morning.”
“You were only on the schedule to meet the two vendors this morning,” Blaire murmured out of the side of her mouth as Tanya approached. “Tanya is the most influential small-town blogger in New England. I’ve been working to get her to cover Holly Ridge’s festival since I took the job in March. She finally agreed to see the town today.”
I wasn’t quite sure how a festival blogger could make the usually cool and professional Blaire so nervous, but this was something I had to stick around to see.
