Dropping the Ball

42. Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kaitlyn

I exit the limo, allowing my gown to settle around me before I step onto the red carpet leading into the entrance tunnel. Mom and Madison are in the car right behind mine. I press my hand to my stomach to calm my nerves.

It’s time.

I’d left the warehouse midafternoon after ensuring everything was set up and ready. Micah had been with me all day, jumping in where needed with everyone from the event planner to the sound guys. But I left to meet Madison at my parents’ house to get ready, and Micah went home. He should be waiting for me at the end of this tunnel.

I force myself to take even breaths as I walk through the soft lighting of the tunnel, passing stunning floral arrangements representing the countries of the designers being featured tonight.

I see Micah before he sees me, and my breath catches at the sight of him in formal wear. He’s gone with black on black, a single-button suit with long satin lapels over a black band collar shirt. A razor thin line of jet-black beads runs down the placket of the shirt. Coupled with the black-and-gray snakeskin Copperhead boots he’s chosen for the evening, there is not a man in the entire state who has this much swag. He’s gorgeous and wearing his modern tux as comfortably as he does his joggers.

When he spots me, he freezes.

I step from the tunnel and stand still so he can get the full effect, and he smiles, but his eyes stay intense. Hungry.

“Wow,” Madison breathes softly behind me. “Look at him. Look at him looking at you.”

I ignore her as Micah and I walk toward each other. He holds out his arm for me to slip my hand through.

“You look incredible,” he says. “So beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I enjoyed consulting with Maheen this summer over color and design. It pleased me to know that I was a credit to her work, but tonight, I’m wearing this for an audience of one. “You’re the most handsome man here.”

“So far, I’m the only man here.”

I give him a small headshake. “It won’t change when the rest of them come.”

He brushes a soft kiss against my hairline. “Let’s go show them how it’s done.”

The event staff direct us along the red carpet to the step-and-repeat, where we pose several times against the Threadwork backdrop for the pool of photographers. Because the gowns will be from rising designers, several fashion sites have sent correspondents, and some entertainment sites are covering the celebrities on the list.

Where the backdrop ends, the staircase begins, the red carpet rising along the wide-but-shallow steps painted with black lacquer. An event staffer politely holds Micah back and cues me to pause on the fifth step so the photographers can get a shot of my gown’s back. Micah is released to escort me the rest of the way.

The stairs crest in a landing bisected by the open bay door, which has been utterly transformed with flowers. The arches spill over with the thousands of red silk marigolds it took a crew of six people three full days to attach. It’s extravagant. Transformative. Nearly worthy of the masterpiece it leads to.

Another staffer sends me to pose on the top step for a photographer waiting inside, and Micah escorts me down the grandest part of the staircase. It widens with each step, curving backward at the edges, exactly the staircase a princess would descend in a castle.

We’ve arrived early so we can greet the other guests, and we move for Madison and Oliver to make their entrance. Madison reaches the bottom of the stairs and rushes over to throw her arms around me, nearly drowning me in fuchsia tulle. “Nobody ever had a better sister!”

“Then you won’t have a problem with the job title I’ve chosen when you come back from maternity leave.”

“Anything you want.”

“Goddess Divine of Threadwork.”

“Done. I’ll order the nameplate.”

We greet my parents, who come down next, Mom looking regal. Madison’s best friends follow in quick succession with their husbands, each looking awestruck by the marigold canopy.

Micah and I go with Sami to check out the stage for Pixie Luna’s acoustic set. She nods in satisfaction. “Sounded good at the sound check earlier.”

She turns to study the rest of the space. Tall, elegant table centerpieces rest on slim columns, flowers spilling from a crystal vase on top. Gabriela Juarez’s glass vases flank the stage. Silk gauze hangs from different points in the sculpture, lit under Micah’s direction to create even more visual interest.

“This will be the swankiest gig Pixie Luna has ever played,” Sami says, hugging me. “You did so good, Katie-Kat.”

“Whoa,” Micah says, and I turn to see Sara Elizabeth coming down the stairs in a silver gown, catching and refracting every light aimed at her.

“Pretty cool, huh?” I say.

“I knew she was coming, but it’s wild seeing a celebrity in person.”

A few minutes after the official event starts, our first guests appear at the top of the stairs, looking delighted by their entrance experience then stunned by the venue. They come at one- to two-minute intervals after that, the space quickly filling. The waiters begin passing hors d’oeuvres, and when a tray of deviled eggs reaches us, I discover the filling has been piped in the shape of marigolds. I take one and smile, mentally increasing the caterer’s bonus.

I expected to be in high demand because of currently running Threadwork, and I am. All the Armstrongs are. But it’s not long before Micah is drawing more attention than anyone, so many of the jaded millionaires and business barons wanting to meet the architect behind the art installation that has surprised them for the first time in a long time.

When the tables have filled—and the wineglasses too—the deejay fades out the music and announces the host for the evening, bringing up Sara Elizabeth. I exchange a smile with Madi at the next table, because she knows what I know when she hears the thunderous applause: we are going to smash our goals.

Sara Elizabeth welcomes everyone, thanks them for their time, and introduces a short video about the work the organization has done in Bangladesh. It’s followed by supportive applause, but when it dies down, she announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, this will be an evening full of surprises, and we’ve reached our first one. Threadwork is thrilled to announce the Marigold Austin Initiative!”

The next video plays, overviewing the plans for this space in the new year, and ends to even more enthusiastic applause, and I smile. Funny that Micah and Drake, two ends of the spectrum, are the reason we found our way to Marigold Austin.

“If you’ll direct your attention to the right of the stage,” Sara Elizabeth is saying, “you’ll notice that like the overcrowded tourist trap called Times Square, we have our New Year’s ball. Except it’s gorgeous. And as you drink more and spend more throughout the evening”—the audience laughs—“your generous donations will be tallied. It will drop at midnight, but how far depends on whether we meet our goal. If we reach it, that ball will drop all the way down, and we’ll ring in the New Year right!” More applause. “Now please enjoy your dinner and be prepared for more entertainment and surprises throughout the evening.”

She leaves the stage, the servers bring in plates of spicy sweet bruschetta, and the volume of conversation and laughter rises against the instrumental jazz the deejay keeps low in the background.

Sara Elizabeth takes the stage after the salads are served. “Ladies and gentlemen, we thought we’d make the wait for the incredible roasted duck entree coming your way a little easier by providing you with some dinner music. Fresh from certifying their first platinum album, please welcome Austin’s own Pixie Luna!”

Sami and the band take the stage and play their five-song set, four of their own songs plus a haunting cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.” They finish to thunderous applause and take several bows, before Sami gestures for quiet.

“Y’all, you probably saw in your programs that someone will have the opportunity to bid for a chance to perform an old holiday classic with me. Well, that time has come!” she says to whoops and whistles. “I hope y’all have been practicing, because we have, and we’re ready for you! The bidding starts at ten thousand dollars. Do I hear ten thousand?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” says another female voice over the PA system.

Sami blinks, confused, and looks behind her, but the guys in her band look confused too.

“That auction guide said the buy-now price is fifty thousand dollars,” the voice continues, “so I’m going to double it to make sure I win.”

Micah looks at me, and I look over to Madison, who does not look confused. She looks smug.

A strangled squeak comes from Sami, who is watching someone approach from the perimeter of the tables, and a spotlight lands on the woman.

“Is that . . .” Micah squints. “That’s Brandi Carlile.”

My mouth drops open. That is Sami’s absolute idol. “Oh no.”

“Is that bad?” Micah asks.

“Sami is never going to make it through this song,” I say. “She’s going to die.”

Sami is, in fact, standing there looking like a deer in the headlights as Brandi Carlile climbs the few stairs to the stage. She holds out her hand, and says, “Hey, I’m Brandi Carlile, and I’m a huge fan. It’s nice to meet you.”

When Sami still stands there, staring, saying nothing, Brandi leans over to pick Sami’s hand up from her side and shake it.

This finally gets through to Sami, who yells, “Madison Armstrong Locke!” and bursts into tears.

Madison, of course, looks unfazed. Sami’s husband is sitting next to Oliver, and both of them look suspiciously unsurprised.

The crowd is going wild, which is saying something for so many middle-aged guests in evening wear, but they are completely won over that a star as big as Sami is starstruck by one of her own heroes.

When Sami pulls herself together, she and Brandi Carlile do a blues-rock version of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” that has couples up and dancing in the spacious aisles between the tables. And when Brandi asks Sami if she wouldn’t mind doing Pixie Luna’s biggest hit together, I think the guys in the band might pass out too. But they do it and bring everyone to their feet at the end.

The whole night goes like that. One of the highlights is when the designers who accepted our invitation to the gala take the stage and the women go wild. The men might have been quieter on that one, knowing how much the gowns cost them.

The bidding on the auction items is fierce, and I laugh outright when Mom breathes a sigh of relief as Dad loses the bid for the Formula One experience.

Micah says, “When should I tell him I can get him VIP access anyway?”

“Let him suffer for a day or two,” I say. “He gets his way too much.”

The Gabriela Juarez chandelier commission goes for fifty thousand more than I’d projected, and the Mustang GT500 goes for double its cost when the video reveals the UT interior.

By the time dessert has been served and removed, I am a borderline quivering mess. Intensely overcome with the generosity of the bids, yes. But also focused on the surprise I’ve been most nervous about this evening. I’m the only one who knows about it, and Micah is the only one who’s going to hear about it.

Sara Elizabeth invites everyone to stand and either make use of the dance floor or the conversation nooks that have quietly appeared at the perimeter of the room, and the lounge Micah suggested has materialized around the bar at the back. Waiters kindly invite people at the center tables to find more comfortable seating, and the second a table empties, it disappears from the floor.

In two minutes flat, the vibe of the space has changed again. The lights lower and take on a blue tinge, the deejay switches to dance music and turns it up, and everyone who is young enough, fun enough, or maybe drunk enough switches into club mode.

Madison grabs my forearms and says, “We did it.” She leans over to murmur close to my ear so I can hear her above the pulsing bass of the music. “We’re at 2.3 million right now.”

I, who am not a squealer, squeal while Madison grins. She loops her arm through mine. “It’s time to shake our moneymakers because they have clearly done the job.”

I boo her stupid joke but she hauls me out to the floor, where I, who am not a dancer, dance. And we laugh, all the worry that has gone into the gala gone, because Madison and I know. We know. We did it. We’re ready to let that joy carry us through the last fifteen minutes of this year that is ending so beautifully, into the new year that will start better than any year of my life.

I throw my arms around Micah, and I know the cheesiest smile is beaming out of my face, but I don’t care. He laughs, lifting me up to spin me, giving me a kiss as he lowers me, keeping me close.

When the opening notes of Prince’s “1999” start playing, the deejay breaks in long enough to announce, “This is the last song before our countdown, so get those donations in to make sure Threadwork can keep changing lives!”

Micah rests his forehead against mine. “It’s almost the new year. That’s wild. Any New Year’s resolutions?”

“One.”

“Are you sharing it?”

“You first,” I say. “Did you make any?”

“One,” he says.

The music fades out, and a spotlight finds Sara Elizabeth on the stage. The screen behind her lights up with a thirty-second clock. “It’s time, ladies and gentleman. In a few seconds, we’ll begin the countdown to the New Year and find out if your incredible generosity has helped us reach our goal. The ball will start moving at the ten-second mark, and if it makes it all the way down when the countdown is done, we’ve done it! Is everyone ready?”

There are cheers and shouts from all over the floor.

I turn back to Micah, my eyes meeting his. He holds my gaze, his eyes steady and bright.

“Ten, nine, eight,” Sara Elizabeth says, and the crowd picks up the chant.

I take a deep breath.

“Seven, six, five . . .”

I force myself not to squeeze my eyes shut. Go in with your eyes wide open .

“ . . . four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!” she and everyone else shouts.

Except me. And Micah. Instead, at the exact same time, we each yell, “I love you!”

Then we yell, “I said it first!”

Micah hauls me against him to deliver a kiss I feel all the way to the soles of my feet and in the depth of my soul.

“Katie-Kate-Kaitlyn?” he says, his hands framing my face. “I think we have to call it a tie.”

I press a deliriously happy kiss against his lips.

“No, Micah Croft. I think it means we both win.”