Chapter 3
The next day, as Taylor walked into City Hall, waving to Abe, the security guy at the front desk, it was quiet.
Usually the day after the tree lighting it was, but it felt especially quiet as he walked through the halls towards his office. Most of the offices and desks he passed were unsurprisingly empty.
At least until he got to his own, and when he walked in, Mona was sitting in the chair opposite his desk, teacup in hand, concern written across her face.
“What’s up?” Taylor asked, flopping into his chair and pulling a can out of the little fridge underneath his desk. Popping open the energy drink made him think, inevitably, about Rocco Moretti.
Not that since their conversation last night, he’d left Taylor’s mind much.
In fact, it kind of felt like he’d taken up semi-permanent residence there.
Mona leaned forward. “I wanted you to be the first to know, Taylor. Someone new applied for the city manager job today.”
Taylor’s insides froze. “What? Who?”
“His name’s Steve Mills. He grew up here, then left for college at eighteen. Finished, built a business, retired early, and came back here. He could be a serious candidate. Serious.”
Taylor was trying not to panic. “So he’s from here. Okay. But he hasn’t lived here since he was eighteen. That’s surely not ideal, either.”
“He’s forty-five, and I looked him up on social media—he’s got a wife and three daughters.” Mona made a face. “They’ve got all those family pictures up, you know, where they’re all wearing matching outfits.”
Taylor leaned back in his chair. He was panicking now. Undeniably. “Shit.”
“I asked around. It seems like he sees this job as a way to boost his future political aspirations. To take my job eventually? Then to use it to run for state senator? Possibly.”
“I . . .no.” Taylor didn’t know what to say.
Would he have stepped aside if this Steve Mills guy was good for the town?
Maybe he might have. Because even more than he wanted to be the one to help lead Christmas Falls into more decades of prosperity, he wanted it to happen, period.
If Steve Mills was the person to make that happen, he’d have conceded.
But if he was only looking at the job as a way to move up the political food chain . . .well, Taylor wasn’t going to let that happen.
He cared about his career prospects, sure, but he cared about this town even more than that.
He’d fight with every tool in his arsenal before Steve Mills used this town to get ahead.
“We’re going to fight him, of course,” Mona said tightly. “We both will.”
“Yeah, we will,” Taylor said. “But how? This isn’t an elected position.”
But Taylor already knew what he was thinking. What he hadn’t freaking stopped thinking about, since Rocco Moretti had brought it up last night.
“This Mills guy is smart so he’ll be around.
At all the events. I guess he was at the lighting last night.
You’ve got to match him. Remind everyone why you’re the best candidate for the job, because you care so much about the future of this town.
That maybe you weren’t born here, but that it’s in your blood now and in your heart.
And if . . .” Mona trailed off, then shook her head.
“No, I feel bad about trying to push Heath at you last night. You shouldn’t need a family to look like you can successfully run a family oriented town.
You do it now, and there’s no real difference. ”
“But,” Taylor hedged, “it would look better, right?”
She looked surprised. “It would, but Taylor, don’t date someone just for this. Date someone because you genuinely like them. Because you don’t want to bury yourself in work for the rest of your life.” She shot him a reprimanding look.
Taylor couldn’t say whether or not he genuinely liked Rocco. But he could say, at least, they’d be on the same page. And he did not bury himself in work, thank you very much.
“I’ve got a possibility in mind,” Taylor said.
She looked shocked. “Heath, after all?”
“Not Heath.” Though God, he would have been a hundred times easier and better at this, probably. Still. It wasn’t like Rocco Moretti would be bad at this. He’d just be . . .complicated.
“Then who?”
“I’ve got this handled,” Taylor said. If he told his boss the truth, that he and Rocco weren’t going to be falling madly in love but only pretending to fall madly in love, he had a feeling what she’d say.
No, to everyone else it needed to look totally legit.
And what would be more legit than heading over, first thing in the morning, to Jolly Java?
It was decently busy for a Friday morning, especially after a big event.
The town—and its tourists—needed a shot of sugar and caffeine after a late night partying at the tree lighting.
Rocco split time between the register, playing at the friendly, charming new business owner in town, and the shiny rose gold espresso machine he’d had installed when he’d bought Jolly Java.
It was a serious upgrade over what the prior owners had, but of course, not a single soul had mentioned how much better the coffee was.
No. They’d only mourned the loss of pumpkin freaking spice.
By ten, he and Rebecca had dealt with the crowd, then he turned to stocking the pastry case as Rebecca leaned against the counter and watched him.
“So,” she asked, “what did you do after the lighting? Please tell me you didn’t actually come back here and binge The Real Housewives of Duluth.”
“I . . .uh . . .actually, I went to Rudolph’s.”
He did not mention that after his single espresso martini, he’d come home. Thinking the whole time, as he got ready for bed and lay there, sleep eluding him, of the insanity he’d suggested to Taylor Hall.
Taylor Hall, that tall, quiet hunk of a guy who had set his pulse racing the one time he’d stopped by Jolly Java, to welcome him to Christmas Falls.
Rocco had remembered the way his quick, brisk handshake had felt for ages after. For someone who pushed paper all day, he had nice hands. Big and not too soft. Just calloused enough.
Rocco shivered again, thinking about them.
What had he been thinking?
That they could solve both of their problems, possibly, and also the third one, which was Rocco’s current dry spell.
“Oh yeah? Meet anyone interesting?” she asked casually.
Which told him that the bartender at Rudolph’s, had probably noticed him talking to Taylor and had mentioned it to someone else, who’d probably spread it to the whole town.
Rocco rolled his eyes. “Who told you?”
“Mrs. Lil mentioned it to me when I walked to work this morning.”
He’d assumed he understood the small town gossip mill from his time in Indigo Bay, but Christmas Falls had a whole other gear that he was still adjusting to.
“What else did she say?”
Rebecca grinned. “How cozy you two looked.”
If Taylor had agreed to Rocco’s plan, this would’ve been a great way to lay their groundwork. Spotted together once, and now the town was already ready to couple them up.
“We had one drink, and it wasn’t even like we came in together. He was there and I just sat next to him.”
“Lots of seats in Rudolph’s,” she pointed out.
And okay, yes that was true.
After they’d met for the first time, Rocco had done his research—easy in this town, where all you had to do to find out about anyone was ask—and discovered that Taylor Hall was gay and single and had not, in anyone’s memory, dated anyone at all.
If he was dating or even hooking up with anyone, he was being so discreet even the town rumor mill hadn’t learned of it, which meant that his dry spell was possibly quadruple Rocco’s own.
Knowledge Rocco told himself he wasn’t interested in and didn’t need to do anything about.
But then he’d gone and made that suggestion last night. Half of the blame rested firmly with his own desperation to make this business work, and half was almost definitely generated from the kernel of that knowledge, buried deep inside, that he’d been unsuccessfully attempting to ignore.
“He is cute,” Rocco allowed. There was nothing wrong with laying some groundwork just in case. Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t already told Taylor to his face that he thought he was hot.
“You should ask him out,” Rebecca said. Still casually. But he could practically feel her eagerness.
“I don’t think he’s interested,” Rocco said, but he didn’t know if that was necessarily true. Taylor had that interesting polite-but-cold front, but for a second, Rocco had sworn he’d felt the same attraction he did.
He’d just hidden it better.
Well, that made sense, because Rocco didn’t care about hiding it.
“You don’t know that he’s not,” Rebecca said encouragingly. “You two would be so cute together.”
“Not everyone wants to date,” Rocco said, which was true.
He’d hoped to be far too busy for a boyfriend. Yet, he’d gone and sat next to Taylor anyway, at Rudolph’s, and then had made that suggestion.
Really, he was lucky Taylor hadn’t looked at him like he was nuts and gotten as far away from him as possible. Okay, he hadn’t agreed, but he had said he’d consider it, in that quiet, considerate, restrained way of his.
That way that made Rocco want to know what Taylor Hall would be like when all that restraint melted away.
“You forget I saw you two the first time you met,” Rebecca added slyly. “There was definitely some kind of heat there. He stammered more than once. Taylor doesn’t do that.”
“Maybe he was massively embarrassed that I was making a pumpkin spice-sized mistake,” Rocco retorted.
“And you stared at his ass on his way out.”
“Have you seen his ass? It’d be a crime to not look at it.”
The front doorbell chimed, but before Rocco could straighten up and look at who’d come in, Rebecca said, “Keep telling yourself that, okay?”
“Why—”
But before Rocco could get the rest of the question out, he spotted why she’d said it in the first place, and why she’d said it all knowing and fond like that.
Because yep, there was Taylor himself, approaching the front counter.