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Saturday afternoon Matt’s truck bumped over the grassy field being used as the parking lot for the town’s annual Pumpkin Festival. A high school girl, looking cold with her hooded sweatshirt tugged tight over her head, waved a flag to a parking spot at the end of a long row.

Temperatures had dropped the past few days. The cloud cover today added a wicked bite to the air. Didn’t seem to be affecting the crowds though. Kids climbed all over the tower of hay bales. Families entered and exited a corn maze. A steady crowd gathered beneath the food tent.

Matt checked his watch. Hopefully Gloria wasn’t upset with him for running a little late. When he swung by Aunt Gracie’s to grab those brochures she’d made, she asked if he’d help Noah move some sort of special writing desk from the upstairs to the downstairs.

That part hadn’t taken long. It was the argument afterward between Aunt Gracie and Noah about where to put the desk downstairs that had caused the delay.

Matt hustled past a carousel, ignoring the enticing scent of fried bliss each time he passed a food stand. He’d grab a bite later. His eyes wandered from face to face in search of a pair of brown eyes he hadn’t seen since the coupon incident at the shelter. At least that’s what he was calling it. Better than calling it the belt buckle incident. That just made him feel dirty. Like he and Rachel really had been fooling around on the floor.

They hadn’t.

But even if they had, why should he feel dirty?

Well, other than the fact they’d been rolling around on a humane society floor, even if it had just been mopped. But he shouldn’t feel dirty dirty. Like, guilty dirty. He and Aimee were over. Finished. They were never a good fit to begin with. Why didn’t she get that?

And how long would it take Rachel to get that she and Matt would be a perfect fit?

Maybe they’d get a chance to talk about it later this evening when he went over to help her paint her living room walls. Yesterday he’d squeezed in a few hours to replace some of the rotting wood on her front porch. Slowly but surely her place was starting to look more like a home and less like ground zero.

“Hey Gloria, sorry I’m late. I brought the brochures...” Matt slowed to a stop, his eyes taking in the scene playing out next to the animal shelter booth. “What’s going on?”

Wombat, shirtless beneath his suspenders, was holding a kitten. Leo, also shirtless, was posing with an axe propped over his shoulder. And half a dozen other firefighters, not shirtless but striking different model poses, pretended to walk a runway as people snapped pictures from their phones.

“Isn’t it great?” Gloria pointed to the gaggle of women, all probably around Gloria’s age. “I’m thinking next year we sell calendars. Who doesn’t love a fireman with a kitten?”

“What’s going on?” Matt asked again.

“Well, we weren’t seeing a lot of action this morning, so Wombat and I came up with an idea to drum up some business. People donate to the firehouse, and they get a ticket to enter a drawing for a date with a fireman. People donate to the animal shelter, and they get a cat. So far nobody’s gone for the cat option. Which is why next year I think we sell calendars and split the profits with the firehouse.”

“Gloria, are you telling me it’s been three hours, and we haven’t made a single penny for the shelter?” Thad was going to kill him.

“Of course not. I found a penny next to the fried onion stand and donated it to our cause straight away.” When Matt slouched, she swatted his arm. “I’m kidding. A few people have stopped by to donate. Emphasis on few ,” she added with a murmur.

“Hey Matt,” Wombat hollered over to him. “Why haven’t you ditched your shirt to come over here and pose with a kitty? Are you not man enough? Ouch, her little claws,” Wombat said in a voice an octave higher as he detached the black kitten from his shoulder with a wince.

“Well, you certainly look manly right now,” Matt said with a laugh.

Wombat smirked. “More manly than you in your Hello Kitty undies the other night.”

Well, that got everyone’s attention. “Hello Kitty what now?” Gus, the department’s fire chief, asked Sasha, the lone female firefighter of the group. She lifted her hands like she wanted nothing to do with this conversation.

Neither did Matt. “Let’s just move on,” he said.

“To the dunk tank,” Gloria shouted, pointing to the pool of water behind them. “Come on, boys. You know Mayor Abe always donates five hundred dollars to the cause of one’s choosing if they’re the first to try out the tank. Nobody’s done it yet.”

Of course nobody had. Not on a freezing day like today. A person would have to be nutso to even consider it.

And apparently Gloria thought he and Wombat were nutso. Her eyebrows bounced up and down. “Wombat? Matt? What do you say? We could find out right now which of you is man enough.”

As much as Matt appreciated Gloria diverting the conversation from his Hello Kitty underwear, he really didn’t want to spend the rest of the day recovering from hypothermia. The sight of the dunk tank alone dropped his body temperature at least five degrees.

“Go ahead, Wombat.” Matt nodded toward the tank. “Prove to everyone how manly you are.”

“Me? I ain’t got nothing to prove when it comes to my manliness. Besides, I don’t have time. I promised my grandma I’d meet her at bridge club this afternoon since they need a fourth player.” He handed the black kitten off to Gus as he scratched behind the kitten’s ears and said, “Bye-bye, sweet little angel baby face,” in a singsong voice.

“You sure you don’t need a dunk in the tank?” Gus muttered.

“Tell you what.” Wombat rubbed his finger down the kitten’s nose. “If Matt gets in the dunk tank right now wearing nothing but his undies—which may or may not be Hello Kitty, I guess we’ll see—I’ll adopt this sweet little angel baby face and tack on an extra hundred bucks to Abe’s donation.”

Gloria’s eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. “Six hundred dollars and one of our kittens gets adopted? Thad will be over the moon. What do you say, Matt?”

What did he say? He’d say this was crazy. Ludicrous. Insane.

But he’d also say it might just be impressive enough that Thad would consider giving Matt an actual paying job at the shelter. A little extra income would certainly help hold him over during the downtime between mowing and snow removal season.

Matt reached for his belt buckle. Looked like he was about to go pant-less in public again.

Thirty minutes later, Matt was really regretting his decision to take off his pants. His jacket. His shirt. His socks and shoes. Everything but his boxers—which were not Hello Kitty, thank you—for the sake of six hundred dollars and one single cat adoption.

Why did he think that was enough to impress Thad? Thad wouldn’t care. Nobody would care. Not even the animals at the shelter would care. He never should have agreed to this.

Because now look at him. He was freezing. Shivering. Possibly dying.

And nobody in this town could hit the broad side of a barn, let alone the bull’s-eye that would drop him into the tank and end this torture. Talk about terrible aiming. Where was Noah when he needed him?

One hit, people. That’s all. Then he could submerge into the glacial waters, lose all remaining feeling in his body, and be done. Abe’s deal every year was that in order to get the donation, the person sitting on the platform had to remain there until they got dunked—whether it took a single throw or a hundred. By Matt’s count, they’d reached over two hundred fifty million.

The next person in line stepped up. He had a dog next to him, wearing one of those service-dog vests. Wonderful. Probably a seeing-eye dog.

The man attempted his three shots, none of them any closer than when the four-year-old girl before him had tried. Matt was about to open his mouth and yell for mercy when the man stepped aside, and Matt saw the next person in line.

“Aim-m-mee.” His teeth couldn’t stop chattering.

She stared at him, a determined look on her face. He prayed all that focus and determination was geared toward dunking him in the tank. She reached down into the basket of balls. “Why did you lie to me?”

Oh please. Not now. Just hit the bull’s-eye. Or his head. He’d take anything at this point. But she clutched the ball, not lifting her arm. She obviously wasn’t going to throw until he gave an answer. “I—didn’t.” There. An answer. Now please throw the ball.

“You told me nothing was going on between you and Rachel.”

“J-just—th-throw...” They could talk later. Hopefully when he could feel his lips and form words again.

“How long have you loved her? Tell me.”

“Sh-sh-sh-sh.” He pressed a shivering finger to his lips. She needed to stop talking. Now. Because Rachel had just appeared next to the animal shelter booth. And any second she was going to spot him. In his undies. On the platform. With his ex-girlfriend hurling questions instead of balls.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” Aimee, whom he’d never once heard raise her voice in all their time together, had started to shout.

Oh, please don’t shout.

Too late. Rachel spotted him. Spotted Aimee.

“Because you’ve always loved her, haven’t you?” Aimee whipped a ball over his head.

“Loved who?” a young boy holding a caramel apple asked.

Oh, please don’t answer that.

“Rachel,” Aimee shouted. And now a crowd was gathering.

Rachel’s eyes widened. “Stop,” he caught her lips saying.

Aimee wasn’t stopping. “Through high school. The night of senior prom.” A ball sailed past his left ear. “The entire time we were dating.” A ball bounced off his knee. Maybe. He’d sort of lost feeling everywhere. “That’s why you broke up with me. Admit it. You love Rachel. You’ve always loved Rachel. Just say it.”

And now she was throwing every ball in the bucket, one after another. “Say it, say it, say it. You love her. You want her. Just say it. ”

A ball hit his shoulder. Another his shin. Jeez Louise, how many balls were left in that bucket? He blocked two more with his forearms, then caught a glimpse of Rachel reaching into the bucket.

“Stop. He doesn’t love me. We’re just friends, okay? Just. Friends.” Rachel’s arm cocked back. Her words smacked him as hard as the ball hitting the target. He heard the thunk. Then dropped in the tank.

Bull’s-eye.