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Lawson
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BRINGING HOLLY BACK to the festival at night was going to be magic. The festival was always impressive, during the daylight or the evening, but there was something so special about how the town turned out for the nighttime festivities. I couldn’t wait for her to see them.
I had checked the website the town hastily updated at the last second every year just before heading back. There was a chorus of carolers from the local school was set to play Christmas music on the tiny makeshift stage after the community theater’s production of A Christmas Carol was done. The cider and cocoa stations would be doubled for the nighttime cold, and the food vendors were going to be bringing out special dishes only available once the sun set.
Then, there were the lights.
A luminary trail that wound through several streets and up along some walkways in the park nearby was a big part of the festivities. Several bonfires in various areas kept the entire area warmer than the rest of the town, and several large tent structures tended to keep the heat stuck in the center, bouncing around and making the area warm. Walking down the main area of the festival, with the lights, music, and warmth from the fire, was magic. Absolute magic.
Holly seemed to think so too, or at least was buying into the holiday season more than she had before. Having her on my arm, squeezing into me tight when she saw some new thing to light up the flame of holiday spirit that was slowly kindling inside her, it was as if I were living out a dream. A dream I didn’t want to wake up from.
As the sky grew darker, our bodies drew closer and we walked slower through the lights, simply enjoying each other’s company and the festival all around us. Occasionally, I would pull her aside and press a light kiss to her lips, and then we would continue on. After having such a huge crush on her, getting to experience the real thing was so much better than I even imagined, and I wanted to keep reveling in it as much as I could.
“Oh, is that a hot coffee stand?” Holly asked, pointing in the distance.
“I think so,” I said. “The cocoa ones all have the peppermint sign. That one is just the mug with the steam above it.”
“Coffee sounds amazing. Do you want any?”
“No.” I lifted the half-filled cup of cocoa I was still sipping. “I’ve got something.”
“I just have such a craving for black coffee right now,” she said. “It’s so weird. You would think surrounded by all this that I would want cocoa, but black coffee sounds like the best thing ever.”
“You know what?” I said. “I’m not in the mood for coffee, but I can totally go for one of those peppermint sticks.”
Holly smiled, putting her hands in the center of my chest and reaching up on her toes to kiss me.
“You stay here under the heat lamp,” she said. “I’ll wait in line and bring them back.”
“I can’t have you do that. I’ll stand in line.”
“No,” she said, giggling, “you’ve been Captain Chivalrous all day; it’s my turn to do something for you. Hang out here where it’s warm.”
I was about to argue when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I smiled and nodded, and she walked away, heading to the line. I pulled the phone out of my pocket, fumbling a bit in the cold, and rolled my eyes when I saw the name on the screen. Brian was calling, probably with yet another fire to put out from a distance.
For a moment, I almost hit the ignore button and put the phone back in my pants. Brian knew what he needed to do and knew I wasn’t going to be reachable all the time while I was away. I trusted him to make whatever decisions needed to be made, and he knew that. But Brian was also a bit of a nervous man, always second-guessing himself and trying too hard. He was a people pleaser, and while he was an incredibly hard worker, it limited him. I liked pushing him to do things on his own and take charge, hopefully to build him into a leader.
Holly looked back at me and smiled briefly before turning back to the line she was in. She had no idea what I did for a living, not really. I didn’t just work for a company that did acquisitions; I owned it. And it was a growing business. For quite some time, I had been building a large collection of property and holdings that made my company one of the biggest purchasers in the Midwest region.
That was kind of the problem, though. We had bought up so much land and so many companies that we were bigger than we were acting. Our small company was now no longer a small company, we were huge. It was one of the reasons it was so important to build Brian up or decide that it just wasn’t for him. Someone was going to need to take over the home branch if I followed through on my big idea.
Snowflake Hollow is special, and I wanted it to stay as it was. That meant protecting it from the encroaching influence of big-box stores that gathered on the edges of town. While I couldn’t tell the city what to do, I knew there was a resistance to those companies from town leaders. But the town’s edges were fair game, and there were rumblings some of those companies wanted to set up shop right on Snowflake Hollow’s edge.
That’s why I had contacted the owners of several of the large pieces of lands and inquired about my company buying them. Maybe I couldn’t own a ton of land in Snowflake Hollow, but I could own the land around it and keep it free from the interference of the rest of the world.
Most of the people I had been speaking to were resistant at first. They had fielded offers that raised eyebrows with the bottom line with the numbers being offered but were routinely turning them down for the same reasons I wanted to buy them. They wanted to keep Snowflake Hollow pure as well. But once they found out I was a local who had gone off to make my fortune and could offer numbers at least in the same neighborhood, they were much more willing to listen to my sales pitch.
It had been a few days since I had heard from Brian, but I hoped it would be good news. As much as I thought Brian might have issues with his nervousness, he did still need to call and check in once in a while, and admittedly, he hadn’t for a few days. I swiped the call open and put the phone to my ear, keeping an eye on Holly for a moment and then turning my back so I wouldn’t bother the people nearby.
“Hello?”
“Lawson, it’s Brian,” Brian said.
“I know. Your name comes up. It’s the 2020s, Brian.”
“Right, sorry,” he said, shuffling papers around so loudly that I could hear them.
“It was a joke, Brian. It’s okay. What’s up?”
“Right, so,” he said, “there has been a bit of a hiccup with one of the acquisitions, and we may not be able to handle it here from the office.”
“What kind of hiccup?”
“Well, sir, they are being especially difficult in speaking with anyone. They said that they only want to talk to you. I have tried calling them several times over the last few days, but each time, they simply let it go to voicemail. Then, this morning, they called me back only to tell me that they would only speak with you and to not bother them again until you were on the line or at their home.”
“Ahh, this is the Bevins’ company, isn’t it?” I asked.
Antonio Bevin was a big-time auto body shop owner with a couple of shops in the area. He was in his seventies and looking forward to retirement but had a particular way of doing things that sometimes could be very brash and difficult. I knew how to handle him, but he was the kind of man who if he thought he smelled weakness, he would pounce and could get rather mean about it. I didn’t expect to hear from him until after the holidays, but it tracked that Brian would follow up and try to get the ball rolling to impress me. It also tracked that Mr. Bevin would give him a ton of crap about it.
“Yes, sir,” Brian said.
“You can call me Lawson, Brian. The whole ‘yes, sir’ stuff makes me feel like an old man.”
“We are the same age, sir,” Brian said. “Lawson. Sorry.”
“Exactly. I don’t need to feel like I have a foot in the grave before I’m thirty.” I paused and shifted the phone to my other ear. “Have you had a day off since I’ve been gone, Brian?”
“No,” he responded, somewhat sheepishly.
“Ahh,” I said. “Well, you are now. Take the rest of the day off, alright? I don’t care what else is on your plate, the rest of the team can handle it. Tell them I said it was an order. Go get a pizza and play some video games or something, alright?”
“But the account,” he started.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “You know I don’t buy into the whole ‘work yourself to death’ culture. People need time to rest. Go to a park or something, Brian. Enjoy your day.”
“Yes, si—Lawson,” he said, correcting himself. “Mr. Bevin said that he would like to come into the office to talk to you personally. He said he wants to talk owner to owner. Something about a handshake. I couldn’t really understand him very well.”
“He has a rather thick accent,” I said. “It’s okay, I will be there. If he wants to come in to talk, that means he’s ready to actually make something happen. If he’s ready to do business and wants to talk to me personally, it’s actually a good thing.”
“You think so?” Brian asked.
“I do. It means we damn near have him locked up,” I said. “How’s the rest of the team?”
“Everyone’s doing well. Just working hard.”
“I know,” I said. “And I appreciate it.”
“Of course,” Brian said, and I could almost insert the word “sir” into the space after it and the awkward pause it made.
“Alright, well, will you tell Monica I’m looking forward to seeing her?” I asked. “And have my secretary make a reservation at whatever restaurant she’d like. We are going to have some celebrating to do soon.”
“Yes, I will,” Brian said. “Have a good rest of your evening. I am sorry to bother you so late in the day.”
“Not a bother at all,” I said. “Go get some rest. Maybe take the morning off too. Just don’t overwork yourself, alright? I’ll be back in town soon enough.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and I could almost see him cringe. “Will do. And I will relay that message to Monica and to Denise. She’s waving at me now, actually, and mouthing... something.” There was a slight pause. “She said Angelo’s? Apparently, that’s Monica’s favorite restaurant?”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Tell her to make the reservation. I will be there.”
“On it. Good night, Lawson.”
“Good night,” I said, and hung up. When I turned around, Holly was right behind me, holding a coffee in one hand and a peppermint stick in the other. I couldn’t completely read her expression, but she looked upset.
