Page 63 of The Heartstrings of Harry
I struggled to find my words, to even be talking about something that had been my cherished secret for so long. When I finally spoke, my voice was gravelly. “No, Dean didn’t know. Not for a long time. And I had no idea how he felt about me. But then today… out of nowhere…” Suddenly my tone went from defeated to concerned. “Oh, but Andy doesn’t know. Everything is so… new… and I’m pretty sure Andy doesn’t have the foggiest idea. Please don’t tell him.”
Madeline gave a gentle laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t tell him. That’syourjob.” She picked our wine glasses off the coffee table and handed me mine, before clinking our glasses together. “I think we’re going to need these.”
We both drank, then Madeline said, “So… tell me all about it.”
I sighed with relief more than anything, and eased back into the sofa.
I may have completely fucked up my first and last date with Madeline Montgomery.
But that night I got the feeling we’d be friends forever.
* * *
Apart from the possibility of a ghost living down the well, Mulligan’s Mill Park had always been a peaceful, happy place. A safe little patch of green where folks could bring their dogs, their kids, their heartbreak, or their fishing rods and just sit by the river on a lazy afternoon. It was a place where you could sit on the same old bench under the same old tree, toss a coin into Winnie’s Wishing Well, and know that life would keep ticking along just the way it always had.
This morning, though?
Hell, it wasn’t even six a.m. and already the park looked like it had been invaded by a traveling circus made entirely of electricians and chaos goblins.
Yep, this morning the park looked like it had gotten drunk and signed up for an industrial rave.
Trusses like skeleton scaffolding rose out of the ground like alien bones. Cables coiled across the grass like snakes on a mission. Speakers the size of my truck stood stacked like black monoliths, humming with quiet menace. Crew members swarmed in hi-vis vests, waving clipboards and frantically shouting things like “Check phase on the line array!” and “Where is my gaffer tape?” like their lives depended on it.
I barely made it ten steps from the truck before someone hollered, “Heads!” and a coiled cable thunked onto the ground right at my boots. A little closer and I’d have been wearing it like a necktie.
This wasn’t a concert setup.
This was the exorcism of peace and quiet.
I took a slow, calming breath through my nose. It didn’t help. Mostly because there was so much ozone and burning solder in the air it nearly fried my sinuses.
There were crates everywhere—those big black travel cases that always looked like they’d been dropped out of a plane, survived, and were ready for more. Half of them were leaking lengths of gaffer tape like some kind of arts-and-crafts horror show. A guy with a mullet was using a smoke machine to defrost a sandwich. I gave that one a wide berth. He looked like he knew his way around bad decisions, so I let him do his thing.
“Excuse me!” I called out, aiming my voice at the first person who didn’t look like they’d been awake for twenty-four hours straight and surviving on nothing but Red Bull and donuts.
She turned sharply, red ponytail snapping like a whip. The woman had the kind of expression you only get from a lifetime of wrangling egos twice your size and not backing down once.
“Astrid Aldridge. Manager and Site Director,” she said briskly. “Please tell me you’re Harry.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m Harry. I’m also… concerned.”
I gave a helpless sort of wave toward the absolute circus happening behind her. “This feels like… a bit much.”
Astrid didn’t blink. “Oh darling, this is just the preliminary setup. We haven’t even put the light towers in place yet.”
I opened my mouth to ask what that meant—then thought better of it when a forklift whizzed by at an alarming speed, hauling a massive speaker on its forks. There was a guy riding shotgun on top of it, one leg slung over the side like he was Miss Mulligan’s Mill in a parade, waving a bag of zip ties over his head like he’d just won the lottery. “Found ’em!” he called to Astrid as they flew by.
“Good for you, darling. Another life goal achieved.” Astrid’s gaze shifted past me toward the LED crew who were now trying—and failing—to wedge a giant screen into a truss that was very clearly two inches too narrow.
“Look, I get it,” she said, waving one hand vaguely behind her. “You’re worried this is gonna trash your nice little park. But my crew? We’ve done shows in worse spots than this. Smaller spots. Trickier spots. Bat-infested spots. We’re good. We’re fast. We clean up after ourselves.”
I was about to argue when somewhere behind us a voice shouted, “The lasers are here!” and a delivery van backfired hard enough to make me physically flinch. A flock of pigeons shot out of the trees like they’d just remembered they had an appointment elsewhere.
“I thought your guys weren’t supposed to be here yet,” I grumbled. “Didn’t you say the setup starts at seven?”
Astrid gave a one-shouldered shrug that somehow felt dismissive and apologetic at the same time. “They made good time on the road, and we all know time is money. So here we are.”
She reached up and pressed two fingers to the headset snug around her ear. “Barney, I swear on my favorite shoes, if you so much astouchthat wishing well with anything resembling a scaffolding mount, I’ll bloody well duct-tape you to the fog cannon and fire you straight into the river myself. Are we clear?”
