Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Well, would you look who it is,’ Jack greeted him with a smug smile. ‘Elliot Parker…’
Elliot stopped at the check-in desk at the inn like he did every morning and grabbed a muffin from the basket. Banana chocolate-chip today. ‘Why are you being weird?’
Jack waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘I heard that you were spotted doing the walk of shame down Main Street this morning.’
Elliot groaned. How was it possible that he had left Daisy’s apartment twenty-seven minutes ago and his short walk home in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday had already made its way to Jack.
‘Not that there’s anything to be shamed about!
’ Jack went on, fully grinning now like he couldn’t wait to get all the details.
By lunch, Elliot’s night with Daisy would be front-page news.
‘How was your night?’ Jack asked eagerly, leaning his elbows on the desk.
Elliot did not have time for this. He’d barely had time to process everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and he definitely didn’t have the brainpower to break it down for Jack right now.
‘It was fine. I’m meeting with the contractor in like two minutes, though…’ He attempted to keep right on walking past Jack’s post, but Jack’s words stopped him in his tracks.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘What do you mean? Yes, I am. He’s starting the demo next week and we need to discuss—’
‘The meeting was canceled.’
‘What? Why?’ He’d rushed all the way over here and no one bothered to tell him the meeting was canceled? He could have actually used soap in the shower instead of just splashing still-cold water on his body and hopping back out.
Although, after a night spent pressed against Daisy, the cold shower was a must.
‘The contractor quit.’ Jack winced when he said it, his earlier glee wiped out for the moment.
‘He what?!’
‘He quit. He called this morning. Apparently, his pregnant wife needs to go on bedrest for the next six weeks and someone needs to take care of his twin toddlers. And that someone is him.’
‘Shit.’
‘I know.’
‘How are Mary and Joseph taking it?’
Jack scrunched up his nose. ‘They are not pleased. To say the least.’
‘Say more.’ Elliot ground out. This was not good. They’d already encountered so many delays on this project. Issues with the town board, issues with permits, issues with design changes. Finally, next week they were supposed to demolish the motel-style rooms, and now this.
‘They’ve already stopped booking people in those rooms, and that’s a lot of lost business with the summer months coming.
To lose out on the revenue and not have work being done is not a good thing.
They really want this project to move forward.
Like now.’ All this Elliot already knew and unsurprisingly hearing it from Jack didn’t change anything.
‘Did they try getting someone else?’
‘They called a few other contractors, but none were comfortable with the historic nature of the project. They’re all used to tearing things down and starting new.
No one has the expertise to preserve the character of the buildings like you planned.
’ The entire reason that Joseph and Mary hired him, and the Dream Harbor planning board even approved the renovations, was because Elliot had sworn he would maintain the historic charm of the inn.
And if the contractor wasn’t totally comfortable with that, then the whole thing went down the toilet.
‘Shit.’
‘You said that already.’
Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, the painkiller he took this morning hadn’t kicked in yet, and he had a raging headache. And if he wasn’t totally desperate, he would never say what he was about to say next. But he was desperate.
‘I know someone we can call.’ He nearly choked on the words.
‘You do?! That’s fantastic.’
Elliot groaned. ‘I’m not sure it’s fantastic.’
‘Joseph and Mary will just be thrilled to get the project moving. Who is it?’
‘My brother.’ The last thing Elliot wanted to do was to call Caleb and beg for help.
It felt like admitting that his brother was right to worry about him all along.
Unfortunately, he also knew his brother was the perfect person for the job.
They’d restored plenty of old houses when they worked together. It was their whole thing.
‘You have a brother?! Elliot, how do I not know about a brother?’
Elliot shrugged. ‘He never came up.’ After living in his brother’s shadow for years, it was nice to live in a place where no one knew who Caleb Parker was.
Jack narrowed his eyes. ‘I have a lot of follow-up questions but obviously you are in no state to answer them. Honestly, what happened last night?’
‘Other than drinking too much of that damn May Day wine and passing out in Daisy’s bed, nothing really.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Made a complete ass of myself.’ And he agreed to keep everything fake even though his feelings for her were very much not fake.
‘Yikes.’
‘How did it go with Gabe?’ Elliot asked, eager to change the subject.
Jack bit into his bottom lip. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Why are you not sure?’
‘Well … there was some making out…’
‘So that’s…’ Elliot trailed off, waiting for his friend to fill in the blanks.
‘Good? I guess? But now I don’t know if it was real or just you know…’
‘Beltane?’
‘Right.’ Jack looked about as miserable as Elliot felt. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one swept up in the bizarre pagan rituals of Dream Harbor and left confused the next day.
‘Anyone helping you at the desk today?’
‘Mabel should be in soon.’
‘Good. Let’s grab coffee after I get things sorted out with Joseph and Mary. We can drown our sorrows in the caffeinated drink of your choice.’
‘Perfect.’
Elliot pulled out his phone as he walked back outside to make his least favorite type of phone call. The one in which he asked his brother for help.
Caleb answered on the first ring. ‘You okay?’
Elliot sighed. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Why do you assume I’m not?’
‘Nobody calls unless it’s an emergency.’
‘Fair.’
‘So, what’s going on?’
Elliot steeled himself. ‘Are you in the middle of a job?’
‘Just finishing one up, actually.’
He could hear the questions in his brother’s voice.
Elliot hadn’t spoken to him since his video chat with Daisy.
It was weird for him to be calling. It was weird that he was asking about jobs.
None of this was how their relationship worked.
At least, not anymore, not since Elliot had abandoned their business and run off to this town to lick his wounds alone.
He sat down heavily on a bench on the front porch of the inn. The paint was peeling off the railings. A ceiling fan spun lazily overhead. He could see the ocean from their perch on the hill. It could be beautiful here. He was going to make it beautiful here … he just needed…
His damn brother.
‘Any chance you want to come down and work on this inn job with me?’
Silence.
It stretched out so long Elliot moved the phone away from his ear, thinking maybe the call had dropped, but then Caleb spoke.
‘You want to work together again?’
‘Well, the contractor had a family emergency.’
Caleb chuckled, but Elliot could hear the hurt in his voice. ‘Oh, got it. You’re out of options.’
‘That’s not it.’
‘That is it, and you know it, El. At least be straight with me.’
This conversation was going about as well as the one they had before Elliot left when he’d tried to explain to his brother that he needed to do things on his own for a while, that he needed to prove to himself he could survive without his wife, without his family.
Or he’d just wanted to be alone to wallow.
He didn’t know anymore what his reasons were or if any of them were valid.
And as he sat on the sunny front porch, thinking about what to say, about how to be honest, he couldn’t find any good reason to keep his brother at arm’s length anymore.
Why would he want to? Who wants to survive alone?
Hadn’t his life gotten a thousand times better when he let Daisy in, even if she only wanted friendship.
Hadn’t he been happier in the last few weeks than in the last few years?
Why then was he still being a dick to his brother?
‘Okay, yes,’ he started. ‘I am out of options, but the real reason I’m asking is that you’re the best man for the job and I … I need your help. I want your help with this.’
More silence.
Elliot went on. ‘I’m sorry I ditched you and the business we built. It was a shitty thing to do. I was hurting and I … I just…’
‘It’s okay, El—’
‘It’s really not okay,’ Elliot cut him off. Now that he’d started, he needed to get this off his chest. ‘All you’ve ever done is look out for me and I’ve been acting like a giant baby about it lately.’
Caleb laughed. ‘Agreed.’
Elliot shook his head with a laugh of his own. ‘Sorry.’
‘Lucky for you, I’m a very forgiving man.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘The divorce messed you up. I get it.’
‘Says the man who never bothers with a second date.’
‘Hey! I’m trying to be all understanding and shit.’
‘Sorry. That was a low blow.’
‘And I will have you know, my dating style works very well for me.’
‘I’m so happy for you,’ Elliot said dryly, watching the seagulls swoop over the water. It was nice to hassle his brother again. He’d missed it.
‘Anyway, I’m finishing this job at the end of the week,’ Caleb said, getting back to the task at hand. ‘I can be in Dream Harbor the week after.’
Elliot blew out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you. I owe you.’
‘I’ll be sure to hold this over you forever,’ Caleb said with another chuckle.
‘I would expect nothing less.’
‘See you in a week.’
His brother would be here in a week to save his ass, something that just an hour ago would have made Elliot want to crawl into a hole, but now he felt nothing but relief.