Page 54 of The Matchmaker
“And he can organize them in time?”
“He’s already sent over some ideas,” John Joe says quickly, knowing he has me. “He can do hearts and everything. Big bursting hearts in the sky. You know, because of the romance.”
Because of the romance. I sigh, wincing as Nush grabs my hair again. “Alright,” I say, and he beams. “But I’m trusting you not to screw me over on this, okay?”
“You’ve got it, Katie. He’ll be thrilled. Really. You won’t regret this.”
“I want to see his license before we agree to anything,” I call after him, as he walks off, bringing his phone to his ear. “And make sure he’s—ow.”
“Stop wobbling,” Nush huffs.
“I’m not wobbling. You’re wobbling.”
“Because you keep shifting around. I need to get higher. Stabilize your core.”
“My what?”
But she’s already moving, planting both hands on my head as she slowly climbs until she’s standing on my shoulders.
“Nush.”
“We’ve got insurance, right?”
“Not for this!” I exclaim, shuffling closer to the wall. She uses one hand to balance herself against it and reaches up to bat at a particularly large cobweb in the corner, only for me to almost drop her on the first go.
“I said stabilize!”
“I don’t know what that means!”
“What the hell are you two doing?” I jump as Adam’s furious voice thunders behind me, and the predictable happens.
Nush’s sneakers dig painfully into my shoulders as she teeters back and forth before hurtling to the ground, only for her screams to cut off as Adam catches her. Meanwhile, I go tumbling to the hard concrete as she knocks me to the floor on her way down.
“Do you want to get yourselves killed?” he snaps, as he sets her on her feet.
“I almost had it,” Nush grumbles, dusting off her hands before helping me up.
It’s all hands on deck day, a new holiday I made up last week, where I get everyone in the village to give up their Sunday morning and help me finish the barn so we can start mapping out how we want to decorate it. A surprising amount of people showed up, and we’d gotten the final few things cleared out and brought to the dump. We were almost there.
Nush steps back, sizing Adam up. “Maybe if I stand onyourshoulders,” she begins, but before he can respond, Gemma approaches, her coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. The latter she passes to me.
“The Laketon Hotel got back,” she says. “They’ve agreed to set aside some rooms.”
“They have?” I skim through the email, only to frown. “This says they’re only setting aside ten.”
“How many did you want them to set aside?”
“I don’t know. A hundred?”
“You’ll need to sell some tickets first, Katie.”
Nush’s eyes widen. “We haven’t sold any tickets?”
“We will,” I say confidently. “We haven’t even begun our press blitz.”
Gemma’s brows raise. “It’s a blitz now, is it?”
“Gemma.”
