“There he is!” Janice declared, spotting me. She had eyes like a hawk and swung towards me with a clipboard, tapping the woman who raised me with her hand to get her attention. “Our resident lumberjack! Come here and lift heavy things.”
I groaned under my breath. Too late to back out. I should’ve pretended I’d thrown my back out or come down with some sudden male-only disease. Like the flu.
“Nice to see you, Janice. Hi, Mags,” I leaned in and gave Maggie a kiss on the forehead, where she and Janice were working on dominating festival organization. The two of them were a hot mess when they were together, but Maggie had fun, and that was all I cared about.
“Hi, Kipp.” She gave me a squeeze. “Thanks for coming. I know you were bullied into it.”
Maggie was an angel among angels. When my social worker took me to the Holt farmhouse at nine years old, I didn’t know what was going to happen. My situation was bad, but it was something I was used to. Maggie and Levi became the parents I never knew I could have, and they gave me three great sisters and two brothers on top of that. Pains in the asses, all of them, but still.
Wade leaned against the refreshment table, grinning into his coffee. “Bad luck, brother.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, but there was no heat behind it. “Why aren’tyoulifting heavy things?”
“I’m supervising, and I’m on duty.” He tapped his badge, as if that gave him a pass to not be bossed around by the council that organized the Wildwood Summerlights Festival. “I don’t have to lift heavy things. Should have brought your badge.”
“Kipp, we need the banners hung, the tents checked for tears, and Earl claimed he fixed the generator, which means it’s definitely broken.” Maggie checked her clipboard. She was back to full strength now after her broken leg healed and had even started playing pickleball this summer, on her physical therapist’s suggestion, to help with her balance. “Wade, you can help him.”
Not even bothering to hide my satisfied smirk,” I said, “Perfect. I could use him.” I started digging in the tools that had been set over by the stacks of tables.
“I was going to anyway,” Wade grumbled as he helped sort through everything. “Dick,” he added under his breath.
“Yeah, yeah. Sure, you were. You’re such a martyr. I think we have everything.” I’d shoved all the tools I thought we needed into a 5-gallon bucket we could carry along, but I just needed to find the tape. Digging through the bag again, I looked for it. The generator was always broken when Earl fixed it. We needed to buy a new one. “Let’s just find the electrical tape, and we’ll get going. Does anyoneknow where it is? And the sandpaper.” I wasn’t going near the generator without those. The thing was on its last legs.
“On the table,” Sage called from across the room. She was wrangling tablecloths like they were wild animals. She pinned me with a hard look, whipping her braids over her shoulder while she did it. “And don’t say I hoard it. I use it. There’s a difference. Glad you could make it. Even if you’re late.”
East walked by carrying a stack of festival brochures. “Nobody said a word about you hoarding, Poison Ivy.”
“You’re all thinking it,” Sage shot back.
We were thinking it. Sage was the hoarder of all the construction supplies after East, thanks to her craft projects. If East didn’t have it, then Sage did, and they were usually ruined because she was typically using stuff for things they weren’t meant for. Case in point: eight of the ten sandpaper squares in the packet were already crumpled and had paint on them. Grumbling, I took one of the remaining scraps, stuck it in my bucket, and swiped up the tape roll.
Wade shoved a cinnamon roll at me. “You’d better get one of these before you miss out. Lila only brought two trays. Then we’d better get going before Maggie yells at us.”
She heard him. Of course, she heard him. Even when we were young, she had ears like a bat. “I don’t yell.”
The whole room made a collectivehmmmmmsound.
Maggie scowled. “I project.”
“Sure,” Wade said. “That’s what we’re calling it.” I bit into the cinnamon roll, trying not to smile. “So,” Wade followed my gaze as it drifted to the open doorway, and I licked my fingers.
Ignoring him, I kept stuffing my face. Cinnamon Rolls from Chapter & Crumb weren’t to be missed, and I wasn’t a fool. Lila was a phenomenal baker. Everything she made was on point, and most Sunday dinners, you could count on her to spoil us with a killer dessert. Every once in awhile she disappointed me by not making one, and that was always a bummer. What could I say? I had a sweet tooth.
“Are you going to help me with all this stuff?” I asked grumpily, after polishing it off.
“So, tell me about Hattie. It’s been a few days since she’s been here. Did you ask her out?” He lifted his eyebrows suggestively.
There was no way I was going to tell him that Hattie and I definitely did more than first-date sort of things. I wasn’t the kind of guy who kissed and told. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. My brothers and I had talked about women before, but Hattie wasn’t just any woman, and I wasn’t about to talk about her like she was just another notch on my bedpost. I aimed the empty cinnamon roll wrapper at his face. “You’re annoying.”
He tossed it back at me. “Are you smitten, Kippers?”
“Fuck you. Don’t call me that.”
Maggie clapped loudly to get our attention before I could argue. “All right, boys! Tents first. Then go fix that generator.” That was her best general voice, and there was nothing else for us to do but to get marching.
We started toward the equipment room, but midway there, Sage intercepted us with a stack of safety cones balanced on her hip. “Hey,” she said, lowering her voice. “Did you hear the newJ & J Hourepisode?”
“You listen to that podcast?” I asked. She gave me a look that said it was a stupid question. Sage was ecstatic about things she loved, but murder? I’d never known her to take a real interest.
