Chapter 41
Lily
I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Or the one that followed. Or the one after that. Turns out, once you start… well, you don’t exactly want to stop.
At the bookstore, he brushed past me “by accident,” his hand settling low on my back long enough to make my pulse skip.
In the stacks, he caught my wrist when I reached for a misplaced flier, tugging me into the shadow of the shelves for a quick kiss that left both of us grinning like thieves.
High fives over finished checklists somehow turned into his fingers lacing with mine.
By Thursday, we weren’t even pretending anymore.
And honestly, I was happy. Glowy, giddy, can’t-hide-it happy. Which was a problem, because August was still coming. And with it, my exit.
So I buried myself in work. Festival contracts, vendor calls, sponsor check-ins.
Music blared from the stereo as I settled in at the old desktop Ethan had dusted off for me earlier.
The tower hummed like it hadn’t been turned on since dial-up was invented, but it worked well enough for me to fire off emails and wrestle the chaos into something that looked like progress.
We had a rhythm going—half business, half something we pretended was still business.
Until the email hit.
The subject line might as well have been a gut punch: Regarding Willowbrook Summerfest – Headliner Hold.
I stared at the screen, reading and rereading each line until the words blurred together.
The Get Up Kids—my crown jewel headliner, the band that would put Willowbrook Summerfest on the map—were backing out.
Their agent's email dripped with false regret.
Scheduling conflicts. Budget concerns. An additional two thousand dollars in transportation expenses.
The message was clear: find the money by Friday or find another headliner.
The one thing we’d built the festival buzz around—gone. Just like that.
I closed my eyes, pressing my fingers into my temples. Without them, vendors would start to wobble, ticket sales would stall, and the whole thing could implode before it even started.
Ethan walked in carrying two coffees and froze when he saw me. “What’s wrong?”
I pointed at the screen. “They’re out unless we pay more. A lot more.”
He leaned on the counter, brow furrowed as he scanned the message. “Two thousand?”
I nodded, my throat tight. “We don’t have it. Not unless I can pull a miracle out of my back pocket.”
Silence stretched between us, broken only by the hum of the air conditioner and the buzz of a fly against the window. I wanted to scream. Instead, I reached for a marker and marched to the whiteboard, my armor against panic.
I underlined Plan B so hard the marker squeaked. An emergency fundraiser, anything loud and flashy enough to scrape together cash fast. Maybe I could beg Mayor Davis to dip into some discretionary fund, or take one last desperate shot at Sullivan’s Hardware or Neely’s for a corporate sponsorship.
And then there was Plan C. Smaller regional acts lined up back-to-back, spun as “double the music” to soften the blow.
Lean heavier on the hometown angle—choirs, the school band, maybe even a barbershop quartet if I could bribe them with pie.
Package it all up with a shiny new label: Hometown Spotlight.
The board filled with frantic ink until I was boxed in by lists. None of it was enough. None of it would deliver what I’d promised.
“This isn’t what they hired me for,” I muttered, capping the marker with more force than necessary. “I told them I could bring in a real act. Something that would pull people in from the whole state. If we lose that…”
Ethan’s voice was steady, softer than I expected. “Then we pivot. You’re not the kind of person who lets a festival crash just because a band bailed.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s not just a band, Ethan. It’s the headliner. It’s the thing people circle on the calendar and drive two hours for. Without it, Summerfest is just another church picnic with better signage.”
He didn’t argue. Just stepped closer, coffee still in hand, eyes flicking from the whiteboard to me. “So… what’s first?”
I stared at the board, the black-and-blue scrawl blurring. “Plan B. I try to raise two grand in less than a week. Sell my soul to Neely’s if I have to. And when that fails—because let’s be real, it will—I move to Plan C. Hometown Spotlight. Local talent carrying the night.”
Something flickered in his expression—admiration, maybe. Or worry. Maybe both.
“You’re not alone in this, Harper,” he said finally. His hand came to rest on my shoulder, warm and steady, his thumb brushing once like he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
The touch shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. Heat crept up my neck, and for one dizzy second, the whiteboard blurred, not from panic this time, but from the fact that Ethan Calloway was grounding me in a way no marker ever could.
“The town will show up. They always do.”
My laugh came out sharp. “The town? Ethan, they couldn’t even keep a parade running last year. Now I’m supposed to convince them to write checks?”
“Not just checks,” he countered, hand dropping back to his coffee like he hadn’t just lit my whole body up. “Time. Ideas. Energy. You’d be surprised what people will give if you let them feel part of it.”
I opened my mouth to snap back—because I’d been burned before, because needing people felt like a risk I couldn’t afford—but the words tangled. He wasn’t wrong. He was just asking me to gamble. Again.
So I picked up the marker, circled Plan B three times, and forced a breath. “Fine. We try. We see if Willowbrook can scrape together two grand in four days. And when that doesn’t work…”
I looked at Plan C. At the scrawled words: Hometown Spotlight.
I didn’t say the rest out loud, but I felt it lodge heavy in my chest: When that doesn’t work, I’ve failed this town.
***
The next few days blurred into a whirlwind of clipboards, coffee cups, and half-baked ideas. Kayla and Jason turned Scoops into fundraiser headquarters, their counter stacked with raffle tickets and donation jars.
“Pie-in-the-face booth?” Jason suggested, waving a marker.
Kayla smacked his arm. “You just want to nail Mr. Sullivan with a whipped-cream fastball.”
Jason grinned. “Tell me that wouldn’t raise at least two hundred bucks.”
At the bookstore, Rachel was hot-gluing sunflowers onto mason jars while Maggie wrangled Ian out of the paint supplies. “If we sell them at the bake sale, people will think it’s art,” Rachel declared.
“People will think you’ve lost it,” Maggie muttered, but she helped anyway.
Even Nate got involved, somehow convincing Joni from the diner to donate a month’s worth of free breakfasts for the raffle. “I’m telling you,” he boasted, slapping the ticket sheet down, “nothing motivates this town like bacon.”
Carol baked pies until her oven groaned, each one auctioned off before it cooled. Matt showed up with his grill and promised a cookout fundraiser by the weekend.
Everywhere I turned, someone was offering something—raffle baskets, quilt squares, fishing trips, gift certificates. The whole town was leaning in. And for a minute, I let myself believe we might actually pull it off.
By Thursday night, the whole crew crowded into Scoops after closing, the counter littered with donation jars, ticket stubs, and pie-auction receipts. Kayla had her calculator out, Jason hunched beside her like he was auditing the national debt.
“Okay,” Kayla said finally, tapping the screen. “Drumroll, please.”
Nate slapped the table. “We hit it?”
She bit her lip. “Nine hundred and twenty dollars. Total.”
Silence dropped like a stone. Rachel sighed, setting her pen down. Ben shook his head, muttering, “Not even half.”
The number landed hard. “It’s not enough,” I said. “We’re still more than a thousand short.”
Jason leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “So that’s it? All this for nothing?”
“Not nothing,” Kayla shot back, though her voice wavered. She tapped the calculator again, stubborn. “This can still go toward the youth programs we promised. New uniforms, supplies, maybe even a scholarship fund.”
Rachel straightened. “Or lights. We could put some toward more twinkly strands for the stage—make it magical even without a big name.”
Nate chimed in, shrugging. “Or get another regional act. Split it, double-book a couple smaller bands. Still gives people music.”
The air grew thick with disappointment. I pressed my palms into the counter, trying to think of one more call I hadn’t made, one more string I could pull. But for the first time since this all started, I came up empty.
Then Jason said it, casual as anything. “You know, my cousin goes to Ohio State. Says there’s this band, O.A.R.? They’re blowing up there. Packing frat houses, bars, anywhere they play. Might be cheaper than the Get Up Kids.”
Nate snorted. “A frat band? That’s your solution?”
But then Ben frowned. “Wait, I’ve heard of them. My buddy in Columbus said they’re about to get huge. Like… radio-play huge.”
Rachel perked up, tapping her chin. “Yeah, I read something in Spin about a jam band out of Ohio. Could be them.”
The table shifted, doubt turning into something that almost felt like hope.
I crossed my arms, skeptical but curious. “Okay. So they’re the next big thing. How does that help us?”
Jason shrugged. “My cousin says they’ll play anywhere if the crowd’s good. You want a band people will remember? Maybe this is it.”
For a heartbeat, the room hung quiet. Then something lit in me—a spark, small but insistent.
I sat forward so fast the chair legs scraped.
“Okay. Okay, yes. Maybe this is it.” My words tumbled over each other, faster, brighter.
“If they’re that good in Columbus, imagine what it would mean to snag them here.
People will talk. They’ll come. This could work. ”
The exhaustion of the past week fell away, replaced with that jittery, buzzing energy I couldn’t bottle if I tried. I was already reaching for my notebook, scribbling questions to ask, routes to check, contacts to chase down.
“I’ll check them out,” I said, almost bouncing in my seat. “See if they’re the real deal.”
Before I could second-guess myself, Ethan’s voice cut through, steady as a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll go with you.”
Our eyes met—his calm, my fire—and for the first time all week, the knot in my chest loosened. I grinned, breathless. “Then let’s go find our band.”