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“Frank makes his own alcohol?”

“Frank does a lot of things that would surprise you.” I moved to the next candle. “Stop hovering. You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m not hovering. I’m participating in the preparations.”

“You’re standing in the middle of the room watching me move objects from one position to another. That’s hovering.”

He was hovering. The man could rebuild a stage and coordinate a block’s rewiring, but ask him to arrange a cheese board and he stood there like the cheese had filed an injunction.

I found it unreasonably endearing, which I planned to tell him never.

The first guests came up at eight. Pearl with additional pastries despite the abundance already covering every surface, followed by Ivy with a bottle of wine and her ever-present notebook. “The apartment looks wonderful,” Ivy said. “You’ve made it a home.”

“I made it a home. Griffin provided the square footage.”

“He provided the decision to stay.” Ivy’s gaze settled on me the way it settles on a primary source. “The square footage was always available.”

I had no comeback for that, so I took her coat.

More guests arrived in waves. Frank came up from his store below with the mysterious basement beverage. Colette swept in with pronouncements about midnight. Owen appeared with a bottle of champagne bearing a label I’d only seen in magazines. He explained that the Main Street advisory committee had taken up a collection.

“A collection for what?” Griffin asked.

“For staying.” Owen’s face held the wry warmth I’d learned was his version of applause. “Champagne seemed more appropriate than a plaque, and cheaper than what Colette suggested.”

“I didn’t do anything that warranted a collection.”

“Frank tells me you signed a twelve-month lease on the ninth of December, which was the single least defensible financial decision made in this county that week, and I say that as a man who has read the county’s books.” Owen handed Griffin a sealed town envelope. “This part is official. You know the result, but Colette told me no New Year’s party is complete without paperwork.”

The room did not go quiet. Nothing in that apartment went quiet all night. Three nearby conversations stopped anyway.

Four days earlier, the council had voted five to nothing to keep the repairs moving. Dana Whitlock had found repairs to make but no approaching collapse. Griffin’s crew had begun the permitted work on the thirteenth, so Meridian no longer had the right to buy the block. The sale of his Portland apartment had paid off the bridge loan on the twenty-third, and Meridian had withdrawn its filing and released its liens. Harris had brought pie. Apparently, winning became boring as soon as it entered a municipal agenda.

“Open it,” I said. “Colette is already making up a reason to announce it.”

Griffin broke the seal. Owen let him read the first line before he said, “The council voted to open bids for a three-year contract to manage the Main Street repairs. The fee is fixed, the budget is capped, and every parcel is included.”

“You want Cole Development to bid.”

“We’d like you to submit a proposal to serve as project manager. Three years, funded by the grant and municipal budget, with your ownership disclosed in every file. You would have no permit authority, and Dana Whitlock would approve every scope and invoice touching a parcel you own.” Owen named the salary. Griffin didn’t blink. Either he had already done the arithmetic, or he was doing it now.

“That’s about a third of what he bills,” Frank said from the doorway, because Frank doesn’t bother pretending he wasn’t listening.

“It’s about a fifth,” Griffin said. “The Portland apartment is sold. The salary works.”

He said it as though he were confirming a material delivery. The Portland apartment had been the last place he owned that wasn’t in this town.

“Yes,” he added, in case anybody had missed it. “The answer’s yes.”

“Good.” Owen raised his glass. “Welcome to municipal procurement. Nothing begins until every notice, disclosure, review-board finding, and signature is in the file.”

By nine the apartment was full of people who’d known each other long enough to skip small talk and go straight to medium talk, which in Holly Creek means everyone’s business, conducted with love, at volume.

Mrs. Morrison cornered Griffin by the window over Main Street, and I drifted close enough to eavesdrop, because Mrs. Morrison’s corners are always worth overhearing.

“Forty years,” she said, “and this was the first year we sold out every run.”

“That’s the ticket system.”