Chapter Twelve
“You ready?”
“No.”
“On the count of three.”
“I’m not ready,” Nush says loudly from above me. Her legs are wrapped around my shoulders, and she’s squeezing me like she wants to snap my head off.
“One.”
“I take back what I said. I don’t agree to this.”
“Two.”
“Katie, seriously don’t—”
“Three.”
She yelps as I rise from my crouch, hitting me in the face with the feather duster in one hand, while her other grips my hair like a rein, holding on for dear life.
“You’re going to pull my hair out,” I snap.
“Well, you’re going to drop me.”
“I’ll only drop you if you keep pulling my hair! Just— ow . Nush!”
“Katie?” I blink rapidly as the feathers sting my eye and glance to my right to see John Joe at my elbow. “Can I have a word?”
“I’m a little busy right now,” I tell him, and his gaze goes up.
“Oh, hi, Anushka.”
“Gross,” Nush complains, ignoring him as she swats at a cobweb. “Gross, gross, gross.”
“It won’t take a second,” he says to me. “I heard a rumor you were looking for some fireworks.”
“It’s not really a rumor,” I say, as Nush wobbles dangerously, trying to reach up into a corner. “I’m going to close the festival with them.”
“Right. Well, I wanted to let you know that I know a guy who might be able to help with that.” He lowers his voice for the last bit, and I frown.
“Fireworks isn’t a code word for some new drug, is it? Because I don’t really—”
“It’s my cousin,” he explains. “Colin. He could use the job. Between Paddy’s Day and Halloween, it’s a little barren, gigs-wise.”
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. It’s not that I don’t like John Joe, but I definitely don’t trust anyone who tells me they know a guy . “The last thing we need is to have the guards on our case. Glenmill would have a field day if something went wrong.”
“It’s all perfectly legal,” he assures me. “He’s got a license and everything, but he’s up against the big event people, and it’s a struggle. Really, he’s a bit like us if you think about it.”
“Uh-huh.” I wince as I clutch Nush’s ankles tighter.
“He could also get you a discount,” he says, as my attention goes back to Nush. “Thirty percent off the market rate.”
Thirty percent? I pause, thinking it over. I really want fireworks. People love fireworks. I love fireworks. But fireworks are expensive. “And it’s definitely legal?”
“He can show you all the paperwork.”
“And he can organize them in time?”
“He’s already sent over some ideas,” John Joe says quickly, knowing he has me. “He can do hearts and everything. Big bursting hearts in the sky. You know, because of the romance.”
Because of the romance. I sigh, wincing as Nush grabs my hair again. “Alright,” I say, and he beams. “But I’m trusting you not to screw me over on this, okay?”
“You’ve got it, Katie. He’ll be thrilled. Really. You won’t regret this.”
“I want to see his license before we agree to anything,” I call after him, as he walks off, bringing his phone to his ear. “And make sure he’s— ow .”
“Stop wobbling,” Nush huffs.
“I’m not wobbling. You’re wobbling.”
“Because you keep shifting around. I need to get higher. Stabilize your core.”
“My what?”
But she’s already moving, planting both hands on my head as she slowly climbs until she’s standing on my shoulders.
“ Nush .”
“We’ve got insurance, right?”
“Not for this!” I exclaim, shuffling closer to the wall. She uses one hand to balance herself against it and reaches up to bat at a particularly large cobweb in the corner, only for me to almost drop her on the first go.
“I said stabilize!”
“I don’t know what that means!”
“What the hell are you two doing?” I jump as Adam’s furious voice thunders behind me, and the predictable happens.
Nush’s sneakers dig painfully into my shoulders as she teeters back and forth before hurtling to the ground, only for her screams to cut off as Adam catches her. Meanwhile, I go tumbling to the hard concrete as she knocks me to the floor on her way down.
“Do you want to get yourselves killed?” he snaps, as he sets her on her feet.
“I almost had it,” Nush grumbles, dusting off her hands before helping me up.
It’s all hands on deck day, a new holiday I made up last week, where I get everyone in the village to give up their Sunday morning and help me finish the barn so we can start mapping out how we want to decorate it.
A surprising amount of people showed up, and we’d gotten the final few things cleared out and brought to the dump. We were almost there.
Nush steps back, sizing Adam up. “Maybe if I stand on your shoulders,” she begins, but before he can respond, Gemma approaches, her coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. The latter she passes to me.
“The Laketon Hotel got back,” she says. “They’ve agreed to set aside some rooms.”
“They have?” I skim through the email, only to frown. “This says they’re only setting aside ten.”
“How many did you want them to set aside?”
“I don’t know. A hundred?”
“You’ll need to sell some tickets first, Katie.”
Nush’s eyes widen. “We haven’t sold any tickets?”
“We will,” I say confidently. “We haven’t even begun our press blitz.”
Gemma’s brows raise. “It’s a blitz now, is it?”
“ Gemma .”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m positive. Did you get a matchmaker yet?”
“Not yet,” I say, ignoring her groan. “Don’t worry. I won’t just use the list. I’ll figure something out.”
Adam frowns. “What list?”
“Katie tried to cut corners,” Nush says.
“I did not!”
“She found this big list of questions online to find our ideal partners. Gemma wants brown eyes,” she adds, looking up into his blue ones. “Tough luck.”
“I’ll try to survive,” he says, and Gemma scowls at him. “Why don’t you ask Maeve to matchmake?” he asks me. “Didn’t she meet your grandad at the festival?”
“No,” I say, still brushing the dirt from my clothes. “She met Grandad when he was cleaning the windows of her house and she opened the curtains naked, and he fell off the ladder.”
Gemma starts coughing into her flask.
“It was romantic!” I insist. “She nursed him back to health. He had a concussion.”
“You should still ask her,” Adam says, as Nush slaps Gemma between the shoulders. “I’m pretty sure she’s introduced a few people over the years. Could be a nice selling point. And you’ve got your parents too.”
My eyes snap to his. “My parents are not a selling point.”
“I know,” he says gently. “But it’s a connection. People might like that.”
“I guess,” I say, as my attention catches on a couple of the guys carrying the last crates out of the barn.
“We can repurpose those,” I call, as Adam and Nush go over to help. “Don’t just dump them.”
“Repurpose into what?” Gemma asks.
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” I glance around the barn, wondering what to start on next. “Okay, I need to—”
“No,” Gemma interrupts. “You don’t need to do anything right now. Take a break.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’ve been here for hours, and you’ve got work tonight. You can’t do full shifts at the pub and keep doing all of this. You’re going to burn out.”
“Yes, like a phoenix.”
“Like a cigarette butt,” she says. “Just take a walk or something. Five minutes. I promise we won’t burn the place down in your absence.”
“Why would you even joke about—”
“Goodbye.”
She pushes me toward the entrance, and I know she’ll just be on my case if I don’t go, so I announce my break and take off blindly through the trees.
I’m not worried about getting lost. I spent whole summers in this forest when I was younger and know it as well as anyone.
Glenmill have made a decent dent in the area on the other side of the barn, but this direction remains largely untouched.
For now, anyway.
I walk for a few minutes before stopping, not so much taking a break and becoming one with nature as counting down the minutes until I can get back to work.
I never really thought of myself as impatient, but it’s all I’ve felt in the last few weeks. There’s just too much to do and too little time to do it, and I’m almost growing used to the constant churn of anxiety that I wake with each morning.
Maybe I should take up yoga.
I close my eyes, inhaling until my lungs hurt, and open them again, only to freeze as I spy a flash of color between the trees. A second later, Callum emerges, unaware of me as he heads in the direction of the lake.
I am immediately suspicious. We called our truce last week, but then Jack revealed his plans for a new road, and Callum didn’t come around again.
I don’t really know where we stand, but I do know it’s a Sunday, which means the site is closed.
Which means he shouldn’t be anywhere near here.
They all disappear on the weekends. Like they can’t wait to get out of here fast enough.
It’s why I brought everyone to the barn today. So they wouldn’t know what we’re doing.
Without giving myself a chance to think about it, I take off after him, following the trail as it veers left toward the water.
I usually wouldn’t be so paranoid, but with Jack clearly going after other parts of the village, I’ve been on high alert, wondering what they’ll come for next.
There’s no reason for Callum to be in these woods.
Unless this is a reconnaissance mission. A little hey, why don’t we drain the lake to build an apartment block groundwork that they intend to blindside us with next month.
The more I think about it, the more I’m scared of it, and I pick up my pace, bursting through the trees, and— okay, I’ve lost him.
I huff as I glance around the empty lake, weirdly disappointed.
Maybe I hallucinated him. That would be fun. A fun little thing to add to my list of things to tell my doctor. Give her something new to discuss with me instead of just period pain and low iron levels.