Committee Assignments
That afternoon,while I was drinking coffee and staring out the kitchen window toward the Winters’ house for the better part of twenty minutes, wondering if Holly was settling in okay and whether her obvious mortification at seeing me earlier would fade into something more manageable. I wasn’t sure my own mortification had passed yet. I’d replayed the moment in my head a thousand times, and each time was more cringe than the last. “Join Matt,” I muttered for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Join fucking Matt.”
I knew the fated sisters were laughing at me when Matt’s name flashed on my phone’s screen, and I answered with the kind of grit that would normally be reserved for court.
“Please tell me you’re calling with good news about your travel plans,” I said by way of greeting.
“About that...” Matt’s voice carried the particular strain that meant he was about to deliver disappointing news. “I’m not going to make it home this weekend like I planned.”
I leaned back in my chair, already anticipating where this conversation was headed. Matt was supposed to be here to help with the annual Everdale Falls Christmas Festival—a tradition that had somehow become his unofficial responsibility since graduating from college.
“Work crisis?” I asked.
“The worst kind. Jacobsen Holdings is melting down, and they’re demanding all hands on deck through the fifteenth at minimum. Probably longer.” Matt worked for a mid-sized investment firm in Boston, the kind of place that treated December deadlines like natural disasters requiring round-the-clock disaster response. “I’ve been pulling eighteen-hour days since Monday, and it’s only going to get worse.”
“That’s rough, man. How’s your parents taking the news?”
“That’s... actually why I’m calling.” There was something sheepish in Matt’s voice that immediately put me on alert. “I haven’t told them yet. I was hoping maybe you could help me figure out how to break it to them without completely destroying Christmas.”
I had a sinking feeling about where this was going. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“Well, the thing is, Holly’s already having a hard time being back home. Personal shit, and now if I bail on festival planning too, she’s going to feel like everyone’s abandoning her right when she needs support.”
Personal shit?I’m more intrigued than I have any right to be. “Matt?—”
“But if someone stepped in to help with the festival coordination, someone she trusts and who knows the town, it might actually be a good distraction for her. Something positive to focus on instead of all the stuff she’s dealing with.”
The sinking feeling intensified. “Are you volunteering me for festival duty?”
“I’m suggesting you might want to volunteer yourself,” Matt said with the kind of careful diplomacy that meant he’d already made the decision and was just presenting it tactfully. “Think about it—you’re taking a sabbatical anyway, you know all the local vendors from growing up here, and Holly’s incredibly organized. You two would probably be great at it.”
Holly and I would be great at it.We sure fucking would. The thought sent an unwelcome thrill to my cock, followed immediately by the memory of her stricken expression when she’d seen me in town earlier. She’d looked like she wanted to disappear into the ground rather than make small talk with her childhood neighbor.
“I’m not sure Holly wants to work with me,” I said carefully. “She wants to see you.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“What exactly would this involve?” I asked.
“The usual festival stuff. Vendor coordination, setup logistics, volunteer management. Mrs. Peterson runs the overall committee, but she always delegates the actual work to someone younger and more energetic.” Matt paused. “It’s a couple of weeks of planning and then the festival weekend itself. Nothing too complicated, but it needs someone who can handle details and work with the community.”
A couple of weeks of working closely with Holly. A couple of weeks of legitimate reasons to spend time with her, to see if the spark of attraction I’d felt yesterday was real or just nostalgia. A couple of weeks of trying to help her feel worthy instead of Matt and showing I wasn’t increasingly interested in her as more than just my best friend’s sister.
It was either the best idea Matt had ever had or a recipe for complete disaster.
“Have you mentioned this possibility to Holly?” I asked.
“Not yet. She doesn’t even know she’s… uhh… helping.”
Oh, fucking great. That makes this ten times worse.
The truth was, I did want to be near Holly, because something about her defeated expression yesterday had activated every protective instinct I possessed. There is more to her story about why she is back, and I want to find out.
“What’s the timeline?” I asked.
“Festival’s the weekend before Christmas, so December twenty-first through twenty-third. Planning would start immediately—Mrs. Peterson’s probably been waiting for someone to volunteer since October.”
December twenty-first. That gave us exactly two and a half weeks to plan a three-day community festival, assuming Holly agreed to work with me. Two and a half weeks of vendor meetings and decoration planning, and the kind of close collaboration that would either help her confide in me or make her retreat further into defensive embarrassment.
