Normally, I’d be there. Of course, I’d be there. My name was literally on the co-chair line. But the idea of standing next to him right now, with this weird new bruise forming in my chest, made my breath shorten.
JESS:
If you can take lead, that’d be great. I need a couple of hours to regroup & prep coffee stuff.
There was a longer pause this time.
POWELL:
You okay?
I closed my eyes. For a second, I almost told him the truth: I don’t know. I think so. Maybe. I’m kind of… spinning.
Instead, my fingers did what they’d been trained to do for years: they deflected.
JESS:
Fine. Tired. Big day tomorrow.
Another pause.
POWELL:
Copy that. Get some rest, boss. We’ve got this.
We.
The word should have been comforting. It had been, yesterday. Hell, it had been an anchor.
Right now, it seemed like something I didn’t quite know how to lean on.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket before I could obsessively stare at the screen waiting for another reassuring ping that would magically fix ninety feet of emotional scaffolding.
You’re being ridiculous,I told myself as I headed toward my car.They weren’t saying you don’t matter. They were saying he’s a good man.
I knew that. I’d always known that.
But the old reflex was strong. If the universe gave me an opening to believe I was one more line item on someone’s endless to-do list, my brain would do a full Olympic floor routine to land there.
I unlocked the car, slid into the driver’s seat, and sat there with my hands on the steering wheel for a long moment, watching my breath fog the windshield.
Tomorrow, there would be no time for this. Tomorrow I’d be too busy managing crowds and keeping cocoa from boiling over and making sure nobody glued their fingers together in the ornament workshop.
Today, apparently, was for remembering that letting someone in meant giving them the power to hurt you—even if they never meant to.
I took a steadying breath, started the engine, and told myself—firmly—that I could deal with it later.
After the Twelve Stops. After I had proof, one way or another, that this thing with Powell was more than another item on his very long list of good deeds.
For now, I had a festival to finish.
And if my chest ached a little as I pulled away from the curb, well. I was used to working around pain.
NINETEEN
POWELL
By the time the Twelve Stops officially opened, the square looked like a snow globe someone had shaken too hard. Lights twined the lampposts, a brass quartet under the gazebo tuned their instruments, and families drifted in with mittens and strollers and the kind of hopeful chaos that always made me feel like the holidays had truly arrived. Usually, this part—the opening rush—pumped me full of adrenaline in a good way. Things happening. People excited. All our planning snapping into motion.
