Page 33 of The Christmas Fix
“No, that judgmental lout of a city manager was. But he’s not here for me to be snarky to, so you’ll have to do.”
Noah decided to let Cat shove her foot further down her throat before alerting her to his presence.
“What is it with the war between you two?” the woman next to Cat demanded, shifting her head to rest on Cat’s shoulder.
Cat gave a snort. “He’s wrong. I’m right, and he’s too thickheaded to grasp that. And speaking of the thickheaded, stubborn ass, can we have a PA get in touch with him?”
Paige looked up from her notes. “Why? So, you can deliver him a message of insults?”
“With ratings like that, I guarantee we’re going to be looking at an influx of volunteers. And while we could use the help, I don’t want Mr. No over there at City Hall scaring them off with the ‘we don’t need anyone’ spiel if they call him instead of us. We need all the hands we can get if we’re going to make this park festival-worthy by Christmas Eve.”
“I’ll pick a PA to be point of contact and volunteer coordinator,” Paige agreed. “We can get the number to Noah and his secretary so if anyone does call they’ll at least know where to forward them.”
Noah felt a new rush of annoyance. She wasn’t supposed to identify problems and fix them for him. He was supposed to be able to throw them in her face and then make her fix them.
He realized he was being petty and his behavior bore an unfortunate similarity to that of his pre-teen daughter when provoked. But Cat didn’t exactly bring out the best in him.
“Now, here’s something interesting,” Paige said, pulling the cap down over her ears. “Literally fifty percent of all Instagram comments on the posts from episode one want to know if you and Drake are back together.”
Noah held his breath and then immediately released it. What did he care who Cat dated? Or whatever. But still, he couldn’t quite seem to get himself to interrupt them.
“I figured,” Cat sighed. “I’ll talk to Drake first, but we’ll probably go with vague no comments for now. Might drum up some more interest.”
Noah cringed.What did that mean? Were they together or not?
“We could take a few behind-the-scenes pics of you guys staring deeply into each other’s eyes,” the woman on Cat’s left suggested.
“You’re coming along nicely, Jayla,” Cat teased. “Almost as diabolical as me.”
“I love learning from the masters,” Jayla grinned, pulling her gloves off to attack the bagel in her lap.
“Run it by Drake,” Paige agreed. “Okay, moving on...”
Noah debated whether he should crash their meeting or just skulk on back to his office
“Crap. One more thing,” Cat said, when Paige started to pack up her notes. “Do we have any room in the budget for a new roof?”
“How big?” Paige asked.
“Huge and inconvenient. Town Hall is a hot mess. While Yates was bitching at me about our generosity and great ideas, I couldn’t help but notice the half dozen buckets sitting around to catch leaks.”
Noah took a step back. He felt the annoyance at her potential relationship status dull.Damn it. She wasn’t supposed to be thoughtful. She was supposed to be a vapid, self-obsessed, train wreck of celebrity.
City Hall’s roof was a year past dire. But without tapping into emergency reserves, there was no way to fund it without raising taxes. And that wasn’t going to happen, especially not after what they’d been through with the storm and the flood. He’d resolved himself to working with buckets for at least another year. On the bright side, he probably wouldn’t need a humidifier.
“I ran into Carolanne, Yates’ secretary, at that damn cookie place that I can’t stay away from—by the way remind me to remind Henry to schedule me some training sessions or else I’m going to be wider than Santa by Christmas,” Cat said. “Anyway, she said there’s no funding for it. I know it’s not a sexy project. But at least it would be one thing we wouldn’t need to shoot.”
Paige nodded thoughtfully. “If you’re right, and we’re on the verge of having a ton of volunteers and donations coming our way, we should be able to swing it. I agree that it’s not sexy, and we don’t need to cull out any shooting time. Maybe a drone shot for B-roll would work?”
“Awesome,” Cat nodded. She picked up the cup between her legs and sipped.
“Interesting that you’d think to do something nice for your sworn enemy,” Paige said slyly. Noah took a step to the left so he was hidden behind a hastily tied tarp that cut the wind.
“I’m not doing something nice for Asshat Yates,” Cat argued. “He’s not the only one who works in that building.”
“So, you don’t find him the least bit attractive?” Jayla asked through a bite of everything bagel.
“Shut up, Jayla,” Cat snapped. Jayla laughed.
