31. Chapter 31

Chapter thirty-one

Fenella

S ilas makes good spaghetti.

He said we made it together, but he did most of it. I burnt the edges of the garlic bread because I was going over the invites to my party with Wyatt.

He's a cool kid.

Silas is…

I'm not exactly sure. He was one thing, but then things shifted—like the tectonic plates shifting in an earthquake—and now he's something else. He was my friend, and then that shifted. I don't even know when it happened.

All I know is that, for the next few days, I spend a lot of time with him.

And I like it that way.

He still hasn't kissed me though, and I'm not sure I should take the plunge myself. Something is holding me back.

The thought of me leaving soon holds me back.

Silas schedules me for the afternoon in the coffee shop, which means I have the mornings to work on party things .

Monday, I go in first thing to finish all the cleaning. Then I work for a few hours in the coffee shop, closing with Silas. After, I meet Sophie Laz next door and the two of us put on the first coat of paint.

Sophie's an artist, so I was right in that means she knows colours and how to paint.

It's a good skill—painting—and like Silas with the cooking, Sophie is serious as she teaches me how to tape doors and light switches. But I know my life. I'll never paint anything again.

My first thought was to paint it all pink—pink walls, ceiling, even the drinks would be pink—and then I had another idea.

I asked Sophie if she could paint it like a night sky.

I don't tell Silas this. I let him help with the first coat of paint, but Sophie has Tuesday off work, and we do the ombre technique to make the walls go from a dark blue-purple to a pale pink on the floor.

Sophie does it. I paint the ceiling purple.

Once that is finished, I don't let Silas inside again. But I have dinner with him that night, and I think not knowing what's going on is slowly driving him crazy.

We go back to the lighthouse to look at the stars.

On Wednesday, Wyatt and three of his friends helped me unload the delivery of the bartop along with the chairs and two fainting couches.

Thanks to Amazon delivering to Laandia, my collection of glassware comes on the same day. On Thursday, Coy Schmidt helps me assemble the bar—or does it for me. The top is a piece of glossy laminate laid across a wall of frosted glass with pink lights behind it to make it glow.

I make plans to borrow Tyler, from The King's Hat, to act as bartender, and thanks to Sophie and Laura Schmidt, the chef at the fish and chips place agrees to work for me for the night, making an easy selection of appetizers.

Langdon is a nephew of Laura's, and while I promised not to poach anyone, I have a feeling he'll make the move over to Hela's, if I can pull this off to make it a more permanent place.

I decided to call it Hela's. She may be the goddess of death, but she's also a badass, with ties to Odin—the original Viking one—and seems to fit in the theme of Battle Harbour.

I keep track of what Coral and Rupe and Milo are doing through social media, but now I scroll through the feeds without the FOMO that plagued me for the first few days.

And some days, I even get to the afternoon without peeking at Insta.

I've never been so exhausted—or so happy.

Planning a party is something I do in theory—I figure out what I want and then tell the right people, who make it happen. Never my mother, or at least not since I was ten and Ashton and I had a joint Cars birthday party and I had a meltdown when we started opening presents and everyone brought Ashton something Cars related but not me.

After that, I would decide what theme I wanted for my birthday party—I never had a joint one with Ashton again until our twenty-first—and I would tell one of my parents' assistants and they would make it happen.

They were good parties; my father liked things perfect, which is why he married my mother, who does appear perfect on the outside. The assistants and the housekeepers organized and planned, setting up and taking down, and even buying me the mountain of gifts that came from being another year older.

But I never did any of the work on these parties until now.

And there is a lot of work to be done.

Once Sophie and I finish painting, I focus on the creaking floorboards by the window and the toilet that keeps running in the men's washroom. I fix the floorboards by laying a parquet square over top to use as a dance floor. Silas got it for me, and it's the perfect size.

Of course, he had it delivered to the door and I wouldn't let him come in because I want the décor to be a surprise for him.

As for the toilet, I jiggled the handle until I broke the chain clean off. The husband of the baker moonlights as a plumber, and I got him to fix it for me.

I've gotten to know quite a few of the storekeepers around the square. I like to think of them as my people.

My father has people to plan his parties and put things in motion, and now so do I.

I think I'm going to be able to pull this off. In fact, I know I am.

There's a funny feeling when I turn off the light before I go home.

It's pride.