Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Aurora
By the following week, Founders Day has taken over my life in the most aggressively wholesome way possible.
There are sign-up sheets on every flat surface in The Hollow.
Community boards with handwritten notices and thumbtacks, and Dottie’s suspiciously decorative flyers.
Wild Reverie posters in the windows. Food specials being tested in the kitchen.
A running list behind the bar labeled THINGS WE STILL NEED that somehow gets longer every time I look at it, which feels like a personal attack from office supplies.
The Hollow is busy in a way that feels different now.
Families come in during the day to ask about the music schedule.
Local vendors stop by to see where they’re setting up.
Beau Hartwell appears twice to ask if there will be an open mic segment for “spoken word that challenges capitalist narratives,” which is somehow both exactly what I expected from him and still a lot for a Wednesday.
Even the people who were wary at first seem to be softening.
A smile where there used to be suspicion.
A longer conversation at the bar.
A “let me know if you need help with tables” from someone who definitely would have crossed the street to avoid Ryder a month ago.
Benjamin Wren’s little campaign hasn’t exactly disappeared, but it’s starting to feel thinner at the edges. More desperate. Less like concern and more like a man realizing he may not actually get to control everything just because he wears expensive shoes and speaks in complex sentences.
And Founders Day is helping. Because apparently joy is harder to kill than fear, and Coyote Glen seems to take that as a challenge.
By noon, I’ve done approximately six hundred things, and none of them feel finished.
I’ve confirmed Wild Reverie’s set time with Sloane, rearranged the bake sale set-up twice because it needs more space than previously anticipated, and listened to Finn and Arlo argue for seven full minutes about whether “festival wings” should be a different thing than regular wings or just “wings with confidence.”
I’m carrying three poster tubes, a clipboard, and my rapidly thinning grip on reality when Zane catches the door for me with that quiet, automatic way he does things, like he’s always halfway through taking care of something before anyone notices it needs doing.
“You ate?” he asks.
This is not a greeting.
This is a Zane Morgan wellness inspection disguised as casual conversation.
“Yes,” I say.
He looks at me.
I sigh. “A muffin.”
“Not enough.”
“I also had coffee.”
“That’s still not enough.”
“I’m sensing a theme with you people.”
He takes two of the poster tubes from my arms before I can protest. “It’s because you forget your body exists when you’re busy.”
“That is a rude and deeply accurate thing to say to me.”
His mouth shifts like he wants to smile but doesn’t fully commit. “Yeah.”
We head inside together. The Hollow is all movement, sound, and warm light, even in the middle of the afternoon.
Someone has propped the front windows open just enough to let in the mountain air.
It smells like pine, fryer oil, beer, fresh paper, and the weird little electric crackle of something good building.
Ryder is near the bar, talking to a supplier with that focused, impossible stillness of his, one hand braced against the polished wood, head slightly bowed as he listens. He looks up when I come in.
His eyes move over me once, quick and assessing in a way that should probably annoy me more than it does, then drop briefly to the clipboard in my hand, the tubes Zane is carrying, the fact that I’m clearly operating on momentum and misplaced optimism.
“You’re overdoing it,” he says.
I don’t even slow down. “Hello to you too.”
“That wasn’t a hello.”
“I noticed.”
“It was an observation.”
“Mm. Super charming one.”
Finn appears from nowhere like a golden retriever with criminal potential, sliding into step on my other side and peering at the clipboard over my shoulder. “What’s our crisis level?”
“Manageable,” I say.
He squints. “That sounds fake.”
“It’s not fake. It’s just… active.”
“That sounds more fake.”
I turn the clipboard so he can’t read it. “Go be useful somewhere else.”
He puts a hand to his chest. “Wow. After all I’ve done for this establishment.”
Ryder doesn’t even look at him. “She means it.”
“Traitors,” Finn mutters, but he falls into step behind us anyway.
This is how the rest of the day goes.
In bursts, lists, conversations that braid into one another so tightly I barely have time to feel the passing hours.
Lani drops off cake samples for the Founders Day menu, all of which taste way too good.
Ivy comes in with Pickle and a box of handmade table signs and somehow leaves with Finn assigned to move folding chairs, which feels like a victory for women everywhere.
Oliva sends over a revised drinks menu from her coffee truck.
Delaney offers to help with the kids’ corner setup.
Sloane texts to confirm sound check. Arlo says very little, as usual, but somehow the glasses stay polished, the deliveries keep getting where they need to go, and no one dies.
Honestly, iconic behavior from him.
By late afternoon, I’m standing on a chair near the front windows trying to tape up the Wild Reverie poster in a way that looks intentional and not like I lost a fight with adhesive when Ryder’s hand lands flat against the small of my back.
“Careful,” he says.
“I’m being careful.”
“You’re standing on a chair in boots you’ve already nearly broken your neck in twice.”
“That feels exaggerated.”
“It isn’t.”
I smooth the top edge of the poster and glance down at him. He’s close enough that I can smell leather and cedar and that clean, smoky warmth that always does unhelpful things to my pulse.
“You know,” I tease, “some people just say thank you when they have a genius on the team.”
His gaze lifts to mine. “Thank you.”
When I step down, his hand stays at my back half a second longer than necessary.
By the time evening rolls in, the rush has eased into something softer.
The after-work crowd is settling in. The lights outside are turning gold against the deepening blue of the sky.
Founders Day flyers are stacked in neat piles.
The chalkboard specials are updated. The sign-up board by the door looks full in a way that makes my chest squeeze.
It’s working.
That’s the thing that keeps catching me off guard.
It’s actually working.
People are showing up.
They’re choosing this place.
Choosing them.
Choosing us, maybe, though I’m still a little scared to look at that idea head-on for too long.
I’m in the back room rechecking tomorrow’s supply list when Arlo appears in the doorway and says, “We’re low on the black thumbtacks.”
Then he disappears again like a cryptic event coordinator ghost.
I stare after him.
Because obviously this means I have to go get black thumbtacks immediately, or the entire festival will collapse and civilization will end.
That is how my brain works now.
Very healthy. Very measured.
I find the supply box in the office and confirm, yes, we are almost out. There are blue ones, red ones, and something aggressively neon that looks like a craft store panic attack, but only three black.
Unacceptable.
I can already hear my own voice from earlier in the day insisting the flyer boards need to “look cohesive,” which is deeply embarrassing to admit even internally, but unfortunately still true.
So I grab my jacket, tell Zane I’m running down to Granger’s for five minutes, and ignore the look he gives me.
“I can go,” he says immediately.
“Zane—”
“Or I walk with you.” His voice is calm, but there’s no give in it. “You don’t go alone.”
My chest tightens, not from fear this time, but from something more complicated. “It’s thumbtacks. Not a hostage negotiation.”
His jaw shifts. “That’s not the point.”
“I know.” I step closer. “But I can’t live like I need an escort to breathe. Not here. Not when I’m trying to build something.”
“Five minutes,” I add. “Front street. Lights. People. I’ll be careful.”
Finn looks up from where he’s half sprawled on a stool, pretending his side doesn’t still hurt, and points at me. “Bring me candy.”
“You are a grown man.”
“I’m an injured grown man.”
“That feels manipulative.”
“It is manipulative. Still want the candy. And don’t take the alley, even if it’s faster,” he adds without looking up.
I pause.
“I won’t,” I say automatically.
He hums like he doesn’t fully believe me.
The evening’s cooler now, crisp against my cheeks, the kind of mountain cold that makes everything smell sharper. Pine. Woodsmoke. Damp earth. The alley behind The Hollow is dim but familiar, edged in shadow and the spill of light from the back door.
I should go around front.
I know that.
The front is brighter, busier, louder. Safer in the obvious, practical sense.
But Granger’s is just down the side street. Five minutes, maybe less. I’ve walked this route before. The town feels settled tonight, alive in that comfortable, low-key way it gets when people are drifting between dinner and evening plans.
My stomach tightens anyway, that lingering, stubborn echo of fear that hasn’t quite left since the attack.
But still, I go.
I cut down the street with my hands shoved into my jacket pockets, my boots tapping lightly against the pavement.
String lights dance in the distance over Main Street.
I can hear the faint hum of voices from the square, music playing somewhere farther off, the normal sounds of a town folding into evening.
And for one fragile, stupid moment, I let myself relax.
Enough that I’m thinking about thumbtacks and poster symmetry and whether Finn will count gummy bears as medical recovery support.
I’m maybe halfway there when I realize the street is quieter than it should be.