Page 166 of The Storm

Nick snorts a laugh from somewhere behind me, and it takes everything in me not to turn around and look at him.

Callum shakes his head like I’m not making any sense. “I have this foundation.”

“I’m aware,” I say. His Mercer Foundation supports after school athletic programs for middle and high school students all over Massachusetts. Despite spending years of his career in Chicago, Callum is Massachusetts born and bred and always eager to give back.

“And we have this annual fundraising thing where we make all the rich people donate money so we can keep the programs running.”

“Uh-huh?”

“No cocaine necessary.”

I nod seriously. “They’ll bring their own. Got it.”

“Just a bar,” Callum says pointedly. “And food. Music. There’s a silent auction usually. About five hundred people or so.”

I blink. Fivehundredpeople. “I’m sorry?”

“Five. Hundred.” He says it slowly and earnestly, like my problem with this is just that I’m a bit hard of hearing.

“No, I heard that. When is this thing, again? You said something about next December, right?”

He laughs and gets up. “You’re funny.”

And then he just walks out.

What the ever-loving fuck?

Turnsout Bridge has an event company ready to plan this motherfucking thing, which brings my stress level down by approximately a third for about fifteen minutes while I get to bask in stupidity and the belief that this means I’m off the hook and don’t have to think about this massive charity party too much.

Wrong.

The event company takes most of the planning off my hands. Theoretically. But I get to be the person who’s responsible for making every goddamn decision that needs to be made, starting with the big ones (location, band) and ending with all sorts of trivial crap (color of the plates: ecru or ivory—I don’t know! They look the same). Candles or fairy lights. Napkins folded horizontally or vertically? The seating chart revisions take three days, and the moment I think I’m done someone pops their head in, takes a look, and tells me I’ve seated someone’s wife next to their lover.

My phone has become an extension of my hand. It vibrates from the moment I open my eyes until I finally pass out in the middle of the night with my laptop on my chest and a bunch of emails still unanswered. Vendors. Florists. The band wanting approval of their setlist. A woman from the venue asking if I want a “romantic warm white light” or “modern warm white light.” I don’t know if there’s a difference, and extensive googling doesn’t give me an answer either.

I’m unexpectedly grateful, though.

At least being obscenely busy stops me from thinking about Nick too much.

Callum givesme the keys to his SUV, so I arrive at the venue on the morning of the party bright and early enough to be there when the vans start to pull up. For the next few hours I’m constantly on the move, directing people, answering questions I don’t know the answers to, and making decisions on the go.

I’m not looking where I’m going, eyes on the iPad, checking off items on my to-do list when I run straight into Nick. I’ve only gotten glimpses of him in the last few weeks, so my defenses are low and his presence hits me like a wrecking ball.

I take a quick step back and lose every coherent thought I had just moments earlier.

“Uh, hi,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering, he slowly looks me up and down. I try to pat my hair into place, because at this point I probably look like shit, and I’m not even sure why it matters, but I do it anyway.

“Here.” He holds out some kind of packet rolled in wax paper. I take it. It’s warm and smells so good I almost immediately start to salivate.

I blink at him. “What’s this?”

“Lunch.”

I look down at the sandwich in my hand, then at him again.

“Thanks?” I say. “You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”