Page 79 of The Matchmaker
“It was,” I admit. “It’s a lot. But I’m okay. If that’s what works, then that’s what works. The festival is more important than a few anonymous idiots on the internet.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say, and he smiles. It’s a gorgeous smile. A handsome, lights-up-his-face smile that has me reaching for him again before I realize we’re no longer alone.
“As romantic as this all is,” Gemma says from where she stands a few feet away. (Seriously,sucha creeper.) “We still can’t use the barn.”
Callum pulls away from me, but doesn’t go far, grabbing my hand as though challenging her to say something about it. Gemma doesn’t even blink.
“Is it completely unusable?” I ask him.
“They stopped before it was gone completely, but it would be a lot of work to get something built in time.”
“Well, maybe if we see what the damage is, we can—”
“Katie.” Gemma looks pained. “Come on. There’s dilapidated chic, and then there’s just a half-demolished building. There’s no way we can hold anything there.”
I wince, knowing she’s right. It’s the thing my brain didn’t want to grapple with yesterday, choosing instead to moan and sulk and feel miserable.
“We’re a month out,” Gemma continues. “And now we’re sold out. You’ve promised these people a lot of things, and you’ve got half the village back there waiting to see you.”
“They are?”
“Yes. You disappeared yesterday. They don’t even know if we’re still going ahead. I didn’t know until this morning when you came over. You’ve got to tell them something.”
“But I don’t—”
“It has to come from you.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” I say dumbly, and she frowns at me. Callum shifts at my side, but he doesn’t come to my rescue. Doesn’t offer a magical solution. He just waits. Waits for me.
Because I’m in charge.
The realization doesn’t so much scare me as it does surprise me. Mainly at how I’ve never thought about it before. I always viewed this as an all-village thing. And it still is. But Gemma’s right.
This is my idea. My thing.
Which means I need to make a decision.
Or I could just give up. It would be much easier to give up.
I gaze through the trees, away from the barn toward where I know the lake sits, and, on the other side of that, Kelly’s.
“We’ll go back to the pub,” I say, and the two of them stare at me.
“They’re not going to fit,” Gemma says. “That’s why we were going to host it here in the first place. And that was before we had five hundred people sign up. They’re definitely not going to fit there now.”
“We don’t have another choice.” I’m surprised at how calm I am. Maybe because I know it’s the right decision. Maybe because it should have been my decision all along. “Kelly’s isn’t just four walls and a roof. We have the patio. We have the lake. We’ll spread out. Use all of it.”
“And if it rains?” Gemma asks.
“Then it rains. But what are we going to do? Give up? Like you said, we’ve got people coming. We’ve got attention, which is what we wanted from the start. So let’s go.”
I start forward, tugging Callum with me all the way back to the barn.
“Help me up,” I tell him, and he lifts me onto a large slab of concrete that was once a part of the wall. Two dozen or so people mill about inspecting the damage, but no one notices when I wave, even as I tower over them.
Nush tugs on my sweatpants, while Gemma and Noah watch on. “Do you want me to get the bell?”
