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“Hi Austin, I’m not late for dinner yet, because our reservation is still thirty minutes away,” I said in lieu of a greeting.
Austin’s sigh reached my ears loud and clear over the line. “You’re the only person in the Glen who thinks we need a reservation to hit up Muggsies on a weeknight, but this is my ‘thirty-minute warning, Cole. Put down the paperwork and come join the people’ call. I’d prefer to not be stood up again.”
I winced. His comment was accurate. I had the tendency to get lost in numbers and spreadsheets and forget about bodily needs such as eating, sometimes at the cost of my friend’s patience and goodwill. Even when someone has been your best friend for almost two decades, it’s still nice to show up to dinner on time occasionally.
“Got it, bud. Your thoughtfulness and care are appreciated. I’m on my last spreadsheet. I’ll see you in thirty.”
As I hung up the phone, my eye caught on the picture of me and Austin that I kept next to the photo of me and my mom on my desk. The photo of with Austin was from a baseball game we went to last summer. Austin had on his signature flannel shirt as usual, sunglasses tucked into the pocket, his dark blond hair in its usual disarray, and his hazel eyes seemed to smile at everyone he greeted. Austin was just a happy, handsome guy. I was almost his opposite, standing next to him wearing a team shirt, my dark hair locked into place, with a smile on my face that didn’t quite seem to reach the brown eyes behind my square glasses. It’s not that I wasn’t happy to be at the game and spending time with my best friend. My eyes just didn’t light up on command the way his seemed to.
Glancing outside the window to the left of my desk, I was somewhat surprised to see that the sun had set, but it wasn’t unusual for me to leave the office after dark, especially in the days when the sun set before 5:00 p.m. I had gotten through everything I wanted to after my morning meeting with Blaire Greene, Holly Ridge golden child and potential savior of their Christmas festival.
The sooner this project was over, the better, not only so I could distance myself from the relationship between Winterberry Glen and Holly Ridge, but also physically distance myself from Winterberry Glen as well. The state audit office let me know that if everything with this situation went smoothly, regardless of the outcome—the state didn’t care if the towns were separate or together, they just wanted balanced budgets—there would be a job waiting for me in the state’s audit office operations. While my reasons for staying in Winterberry Glen for as long as I had weren’t ones I regretted, I was feeling like it was time to move on and move my life out of the stalemate it had been in for years. Was working for the state audit office and moving to the state capital my dream? I don’t even think I could tell you what my dream job was, but it would move me out of this town and all the terrible memories that went along with it and that would be worth it.
The only thing the state audit office was ultra-specific I had to do during the Holly Ridge oversight process was avoid any sort of personal relationship with Blaire Greene. I wasn’t going to let those blazers Blaire seemed to favor get in the way of my focus and concentration toward this opportunity, no matter how good her shiny brunette hair smelled from across my desk.
Besides, avoiding a personal relationship with Blaire wouldn’t be hard—you could ask Austin over a beer at Muggsies. He’d be glad to spill all of my secrets—I avoided all emotional connections when it came to relationships. I saw what marriage and commitment could turn into at the hands of my parents, and worse, I saw what losing even a toxic marriage could do to a person. I didn’t want to repeat that pattern any more than I wanted to stay in this town I grew up in.
Speaking of Austin, even with his thirty-minute warning, if I didn’t move now, I was definitely going to be late. I stood up from my desk, made sure that any papers that I hadn’t filed away throughout the course of the day were stacked neatly and spaced evenly along the surface of my desk. I grabbed my jacket from the coat tree just inside my office door, turned off the lights, and headed down the stairwell to the side entrance that hit the sidewalk in front of the Winterberry Glen government building. As I walked the two blocks to dinner, I took in Main Street. While it didn’t spark any warm fuzzies inside my hardened heart, I also couldn’t exactly see any major flaws that would lead to Holly Ridge feeling that their downtown was so much better. Sure, we had more of a main street vibe than a town-square-built-around-a-gazebo energy, but it still seemed to have the potential to be charming, if you got off on that sort of thing.
Not a minute too soon—these March evenings could be brisk—I opened the door to Muggsies and was greeted with a rush of warm air and the familiar sounds of my favorite brew pub. I nodded to Angela, the hostess on duty this evening, saying, “Is Austin already back at our booth?”
Angela smiled and nodded in the affirmative.
Even though Austin gave me a hard time about my reservations, it wasn’t because I was worried we wouldn’t get a table. It’s because I wanted my favorite table, the booth in the back corner. Being CFO of a small town where everyone knew your everyone, even when you weren’t employed by the town government, came with its...challenges, and since the Holly Ridge news had dropped last week, I anticipated there might be more interest than usual in grabbing my ear for a few minutes. Our back corner booth, at least, mostly eliminated pass-by traffic, and by sitting with my back to the wall, I could see anyone approaching us.
Austin was in the booth as Angela promised, and he had a beer waiting for me as well. I slid into the booth, picked up the draft, and cheersed him saying, “This is why I pick up your thirty-minute warning calls. Thanks for ordering ahead.”
“I figured tonight might be a two-beer event,” Austin replied, acknowledging how well he knew my moods and habits. “I assumed it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a beer waiting for you, so you could still be home and tucked in by nine.”
I chuckled at my best friend, whose regular in-person presence would be one thing I would miss most about the Glen when I moved on next year.
“And why would tonight be a two-beer event?” I asked, not bothering to correct him, but I wanted to be sure I knew what was on his mind, so I wasn’t tricked into revealing too much of myself for a casual Wednesday evening.
“Because you had to meet with someone from Holly Ridge today, and regularly for the next nine months, and those conversations will center on the Christmas festival,” Austin replied evenly.
I nodded in acknowledgment and took another sip of my beer.
“And your brunette weakness is definitely going to kick in over a certain Ms. Greene,” he added nonchalantly.
I suspected he had waited intentionally until I was mid-sip to drop that observation into conversation. Choking slightly before swallowing, I asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“C’mon, Cole. I know brunette is your type, and from what my date last night said, she was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in high school, so I’m sure her competence is going to only make her more attractive to you.”
Austin didn’t observe the feud when it came to his dating pool. Any interested girl or guy on either side of the river was fair game for him. This created some scandal among the older crowd of our fellow townsfolk. No, not that he was dating around, or dated on all ends of the gender spectrum, but because sometimes his dates were from Holly Ridge and Austin was born and raised right here in Winterberry Glen. These towns may be progressive in many ways, but dating someone from across the river? Now that’s just not done, according to many of the over-fifty crowd.
“She may have hair coloring that I sometimes find myself preferring on a woman,” I hedged, “but she’s from Holly Ridge, and we’re going to be talking Christmas and the festival for nine months straight, which is a boner killer if I’ve ever heard one. And anyway, the state audit office explicitly outlined that any personal relationship between myself and Blaire was completely off-limits.” I realized I was somehow at the bottom of my beer, and we hadn’t even ordered food yet.
“Besides, I may have insinuated that her dad was the only reason she got the job in the first place, so even if I was at all interested in a personal relationship—which we know I’m not, because falling in love makes a fool out of people and I refuse to be a fool—she definitely wouldn’t even be remotely interested.”
Austin grinned at me over his pint glass. “Thee doth protest too much, methinks.”
“I think thee might be an idiot.” Not my best comeback, but the beer and no dinner was getting to me.
“Can we drop this now and eat before everyone realizes I’m hiding back here and they ask me even more questions than you have about Blaire and the festival planning process?”
“Oh man, she’s forbidden and you’re already protesting this much after just one meeting? You’re done for,” Austin replied with glee in his eyes.
But to his credit, he did move the evening along with his next breath. “When I ordered these beers, I put in for potato skins for me and the hummus platter for you. I’m sure they’ll be here any second.”
