The Vendor Walk #2
"Don't blame Chloe," Sloane said. "That display has been up since Sunday. Your timing is simply aggressive."
Nathan looked at the sign. "Subtle."
"Subtle doesn't sell paperbacks during tourist season.
" Sloane handed Emily the flyers. "Author reading on Saturday moved from four to three because the children's pirate parade is louder than projected.
Also, if the festival is collapsing, tell me now before I order extra chairs.
Last year I overestimated literary stamina and had to store twenty folding chairs in my nonfiction aisle for a month. "
"Festival isn't collapsing," Emily said. "Saturday reading moves to three. Chairs: order twelve extra, not twenty. I will reroute pirate parade drums past the marina instead of Main Street between three and four."
Sloane made a note on her wrist in pen. "Good. And your fiancé?"
"Doesn't affect chair count."
"Everything affects chair count." Sloane looked at Nathan. "Are you staying for the reading?"
Emily braced for a polite no.
Nathan said, "If the pavilion inspection doesn't conflict."
That wasn't a yes. It was also not nothing.
Sloane's gaze sharpened. "The old pavilion by Lighthouse Point?"
"Festival pavilion," Emily said. "Temporary stage and light rig, not Lighthouse Point."
"Pity. The Lighthouse Point pavilion has better kissing architecture."
"Sloane."
"Professional observation. I shelve romance."
A laugh came from behind them. Not Chloe. Worse.
Becca Lane from Grant's office stood near the insurance window with a phone in one hand and a paper coffee cup in the other. She wore Grant-adjacent navy and the careful expression of someone who hadn't planned to be seen noticing.
Emily angled her body between Becca and the cupcake box.
Sloane followed the movement and smiled in a way that suggested she had read this chapter before. "Picture for the bookstore feed? Festival director reassures local business, visiting developer demonstrates literacy, romance display benefits from accidental thematic relevance."
"No picture," Emily said.
Becca's phone tilted up a fraction.
Nathan noticed. Of course he did. He stepped closer, not enough to crowd Emily, enough that the sightline from the insurance window no longer had a clean angle on the cupcake box.
"Hand?" he asked under his breath.
One word. Quiet. Offered without pressure.
Emily had written the rule herself. Public touch only with consent. No taking. No performance without agreement. She hadn't considered that being asked would be its own kind of problem.
She put the bakery box under her left arm and slid her right hand into his.
His fingers closed around hers with careful, maddening restraint.
Not possessive. Not loose enough to look fake. Warm from the afternoon sun, palm slightly rough in a way that didn't fit the man who reviewed legal documents in six-minute billing increments.
Sloane's eyebrows rose.
Becca's phone lowered, then rose again. Worse angle now. Less useful.
Emily smiled at Sloane with all the calm authority she could assemble while half her attention had relocated to her right hand. "A business photo later, with vendors as a group, after we confirm Saturday logistics. I won't have individual shops turned into engagement content."
Sloane's face softened around the edges. "That is annoyingly responsible."
"It's my brand."
Nathan's thumb didn't move. Emily appreciated that. She resented appreciating it.
Sloane tapped the flyers. "Fine. No photo. But I do require one answer as a citizen."
"No."
"You don't know the question."
"That has never improved your questions."
Sloane looked at Nathan. "When did you know?"
Emily forgot the answer sheet she had prepared because the question wasn't on it.
How did he propose, yes. Was her mother thrilled, yes.
Ring timeline, unfortunately yes. When did you know sat in a different category.
Too soft for logistics. Too public for honesty.
Too easily overheard by Becca Lane, who had taken a fascinated sip of coffee.
Nathan didn't answer quickly.
That helped more than a perfect line would have.
He looked at Emily's clipboard, then at the flyers in her hand, then at the bakery box tucked under her arm. "I knew she was impossible to ignore when she corrected my access proposal and the grammar in the same sentence."
Sloane considered him. "That isn't romantic."
Emily found her voice. "It is extremely on brand."
"It is, unfortunately, believable." Sloane handed Nathan one sea-glass bookmark from the basket by the door. "Engagement discount."
"We are not accepting—"
"It's free with any purchase. He can buy a book."
Nathan picked up a local history paperback from the outdoor cart. Harbor Cove: Storms, Bridges, and Bad Decisions.
"Appropriate," Emily said.
"Research," he said.
"Hazardous."
He paid cash. Sloane put the bookmark in the bag and wrote something on the receipt before folding it.
Emily didn't look until they were back on the sidewalk.
On the receipt, below the total, Sloane had written: She likes acts of service. Don't make it weird.
Emily crumpled the receipt in her fist.
Nathan looked ahead. "Do I want to know?"
"No."
"All right."
He didn't ask again.
Emily adjusted her grip on the cupcake box.
Nathan glanced down. "Too tight?"
She nearly said no automatically. Then she realized his thumb was angled away from the inside of her wrist, making space. He meant his hand.
"No," she said. "It's fine."
"Fine as in operational, or fine as in you will later create a form about it?"
"There is already a form."
"Of course."
Mercer Supply smelled of rope, fuel, and cedar shavings. Owen Mercer stood behind the counter with a coil of marine line over one arm while Pete argued with traffic cones outside.
Owen looked at their joined hands, then at Emily's face, then at the cupcake box.
"I have questions," he said.
"About cold storage," Emily said.
"Some of them."
"Start there."
Owen set the marine line down. "Refrigerated truck can hold until tomorrow noon. Ice order needs final by Friday morning if we're doing shrimp, chowder station, and the kids' bait-casting contest. Don't ask why bait-casting and chowder share a logistics sheet. I inherited this system."
"Truck path uses the waterfront-access lane if committee signs off tomorrow," Emily said. "If not, delivery enters from Harbor Lane before eight a.m. Tyler marks cones. Food vendors get first unloading window. No truck idling by the bookstore. Sloane threatened footnotes."
"She would." Owen looked at Nathan. "And the waterfront lane? That's Brooks property now."
Nathan released Emily's hand only after she shifted the cupcake box and gave him room to do it naturally. Her right hand noticed the absence before she permitted the rest of herself to comment.
He rested both hands on the counter where everyone could see them. "The temporary-use language goes to committee tomorrow. It covers festival week access, emergency staging, and vendor delivery. No construction equipment. No private security. No fees."
Owen watched him. "Your uncle promised public access too. Then he put up survey stakes and called them temporary."
"I remember."
Pete stopped fighting the cones outside.
Nathan took the hit without dressing it up. "This language has a removal clause. If any barrier goes up without committee approval, the town can pull access and Atlantic Coast sees the notice. I wrote the consequence into the document."
Emily hadn't seen that clause.
Owen looked at Emily. "You saw this?"
"I saw the draft. I haven't approved it. Nothing goes forward without committee review." She angled the answer toward Nathan as much as Owen. "But that clause would help."
Nathan gave one small nod.
No victory. No pitch.
Owen picked up the marine line again. "Fine. I'll hold the truck. But if Pete has to move cones twice because of Brooks paperwork, he's billing someone in clam cakes."
"Put it through my office," Emily said.
Pete called from outside, "I heard that and accept."
A text buzzed on Emily's phone.
Mom: Mabel says there is a cupcake. Is the cupcake symbolic? Also do I call Nathan's people? Does Nathan have people?
Emily locked the screen so hard the phone made a small insulted click.
Nathan, unfairly observant, looked at the phone and then away. "Hats?"
"Cupcake escalation."
"I'm sorry."
"You didn't frost it."
"No."
"Don't sound like you are considering frosting as a liability category."
"I wasn't."
Owen pointed the coil of line between them. "You two always like this?"
"Yes," Nathan said.
"No," Emily said at the same time.
Pete laughed outside. Becca Lane, now somehow across the street near the café window, looked down at her phone.
Emily saw the danger a second too late. The contradiction was small. Harmless to normal people. Harbor Cove wasn't normal people, and Grant Whitaker didn't need much to manufacture a concern.
Nathan glanced toward Becca, then back at Owen. "We are often like this," he said. "Emily has higher standards for accuracy."
Owen considered that, then nodded as if it explained both romance and municipal paperwork. "That tracks."
Emily hated that it did.
By the time they left Mercer Supply, Priya would hold breakfast, Sloane would adjust chairs, and Owen would hold the truck. Main Street had what it wanted too: three congratulations, one chalk heart, Becca's text, and a cupcake under Emily's arm like evidence with frosting.
Chloe met them outside the café with two iced coffees and a smile she was trying and failing to discipline. "Report."
"Bakery holds," Emily said. "Bookstore adjusts reading time. Mercer holds the truck. Pete may invoice clam cakes."
"So productive."
"Don't say it like that."
Chloe handed her a coffee. "Like what?"
"Like productivity has cheekbones."
Nathan accepted the second coffee when Chloe offered it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. You have powdered sugar on your cuff."
Emily looked.
He did. A small dusting near the rolled edge of his sleeve, probably from catching Mrs. Alvarez's boxes. He brushed it once and missed half.
Without thinking, Emily reached out and wiped the remaining sugar away with her thumb.
The sidewalk caught her doing it.
Not literally. Sidewalks didn't catch people. Harbor Cove did. Chloe stopped smiling. Mrs. Keane paused outside the post office. Aunt Mabel, half a block away, lowered her phone as if even she knew this one didn't need help.
Nathan went still beneath Emily's hand.
She dropped it. Too late, obviously. The sugar was gone. The town had seen tenderness where there had only been pastry residue and poor impulse control.
"That," Chloe said carefully, "wasn't on the route map."
Emily took a long drink of iced coffee and burned her throat on the fact that iced coffee wasn't hot.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time it was Tyler.
TYLER: Pavilion problem. South arch bracket cracked. Also two light strands dead. Also I am not saying panic but I am standing near Mabel's ladder and she just said "structural metaphor."
A second message appeared.
TYLER: Please come before she climbs.
Emily turned the screen toward Nathan because pretending this was only her problem would waste time.
His eyes moved over the text. "Festival grounds?"
"Festival grounds."
Chloe looked at the cupcake box, the coffees, Nathan's cuff, and Emily's face. "I can hold the cupcake."
"It is product testing," Emily said.
"I will test respectfully."
Emily handed her the box because the alternative was carrying congratulations to a structural failure.
Nathan stepped off the curb, then stopped and looked back. Not reaching this time. Waiting.
Emily adjusted the clipboard under her arm.
"We are walking to the pavilion," she said. "Logistics only."
Chloe looked at the chalk heart near the café arrow. "Sure."
Nathan fell into step beside Emily, close enough that no one measured this time.
Behind them, the cupcake box sat on Chloe's café table with Congratulations written in blue icing, and Emily had no idea how to return something the whole town had already decided was true.