Page 123 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

I could not be happier for Frankie that there’s such an enthusiastic turnout and that it’s such a beautiful day for the event.

Every face I can see is smiling—apart from the flag-waving parking guy—and everyone in every car thatdrives by me is looking out of the windows with eager anticipation, adults as well as kids.

The sound of a brass band playing “It’s a Lovely Day Today” leaks through my closed windows. I can just about see the four or five people playing trumpets and trombones standing inside the sanctuary entrance, providing a cheery greeting for the visitors.

The whole area is wrapped in an atmosphere of joy and the impending success of Frankie’s big fundraising campaign.

So I should probably leave.

This is bad timing. Very bad.

The last thing I want is to ruin the big day that she’s worked so hard on. And I am excruciatingly aware that the sight of me could very easily do that.

But part of me desperately wants to take a closer look. To tug my hat low, mingle with the visitors, donate an exorbitant amount in return for a pumpkin spiced coffee, and maybe get to pet Petunia one more time.

Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Maybe this isn’t terrible timing. Maybe this is the best fucking timing I could ever have hoped for.

I might look like the super-confident business owner who can posture his way through the toughest of negotiations, but most of the time I feel like the scared kid who’s afraid of making an undignified dick of himself.

But no one ever got anything life-changingly good by being afraid to make an undignified dick of themselves.

And I’m sure as hell never going to get Frankie without risking making an undignified dick of myself.

“Here we go,” I say out loud as my stomach does a shaky somersault and I rejoin the line of traffic inchingtoward the parking field. “Time to choose my own adventure.”

And I must make sure to follow the instructions of the flag-waving seniors to the letter.

By the time I walk up to the brass band, they’ve moved on to “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” Mingling with the crowd, I drop a twenty in the band’s bucket and take in the whole scene.

The place is buzzing—humming with music, excited chatter, and laughter.

The driveway is lined with little huts decorated with pumpkin lights. One serving hot drinks, staffed by the guy from the coffee shop who greeted Frankie like a long-lost friend that first day I arrived in Warm Springs. One is selling delicious-looking baked goods, including Danish pastries shaped like donkey ears and cookies shaped like entire donkeys. Another has a woman cheerfully click-clacking away with her knitting needles behind a display of wool hats, gloves, and scarves—with donkeys on them, of course. And there’s a lot of whooping and hollering around a game that seems to involve using a Super Soaker to blast as many furry donkey tails as possible from a board of hooks. Maybe that’s the adaptation of the Christmas pig tail game that Frankie mentioned.

Every one of the dozen or so huts has a line of eager customers.

There’s also a snaking line off to the left with kids waiting to ride the bigger donkeys, and another off to the right for people waiting to pet and hand-feed treats tothe miniatures.

One voice seems to carry above even the brass band, and it’s coming from the feisty lady in a sparkly pink hat who’s sitting at a table under a tent with a banner reading Volunteer Recruitment hanging across the back.

But the biggest crowd is under a canopy bearing a sign that says, “Photos with NHL Star Gabe Woods! Also Signed Shirts and Pucks!” I can’t see the man himself through all the people, but I can hear the squeals and sense the energy coming from the throng.

And then my eyes land on her …

Frankie.

My breath hitches and I immediately step sideways behind two tall men, each holding a hand of the small boy standing between them.

I can’t let her see me.

I’ve ruined enough for her already without taking the shine off this undoubted roaring success of a day too, and one glimpse of me is guaranteed to do that.

The sight of her talking to a couple with two small kids and admiring the little girl’s knitted donkey hat makes my chest constrict with regret for how I fucked up. But at the same time it also expands with love for the caring, generous, hardworking creative soul that she is who has nailed an event that might warm even Leo Johanssen’s heart. The contradictory push and pull brings a deep ache to my diaphragm.

Everyone around me is all smiles, as if nothing matters outside the donkey universe they’re immersed in right now. As if there’s no badness in the world. As if, as long as everyone exists in just the here and now, all there can possibly be is joy.

There’s no crisis over matching toilets, no panic over static load testing, no counting of the next million in thebank. And there’s definitely no need for revenge on anyone.

In a matter of weeks this woman has changed how every part of me is wired.