Chapter 12
Twelve
The day before the Fourth of July was the busiest Reese had survived—or was trying to survive—yet.
More accurately, all week had been a slew of nonstop check-ins, checkouts, and problems with guests, staff, and vendors.
They were also, at Reese’s insistence, opening their patio to the public to watch the fireworks show that the city would be setting off tomorrow at dusk.
The Stone’s Throw Inn oozed charm and stayed busy during the summer, but after poring over the finances, her hope was to improve the property’s visibility to encourage higher occupancy rates year-round.
The first step was getting more people in the door to test handling a bigger crowd, at which point she’d move on to planning specialty weekends to attract specific types of guests.
Fall foliage tours. Whale watching. Microbrew tours.
Gallery shows for local artists in the great room, set to the side of the lobby where guests generally had afternoon tea or read a book.
Everything was on the table, and even though they were in the throes of summer, she already had fall and beyond on the brain.
She was barely keeping her head above water responding to all the emails .
Which was why she didn’t immediately look up when a shadow fell across her laptop, checking her schedule, as she was, for the dozenth time that day to make sure that everything and everyone were where they were supposed to be.
“I did the whole speech and everything.” It was Hallie, her voice a mix of confusion and frustration that was at odds with her usually bubbly demeanor.
Reese looked up then, giving the lobby a quick once-over to make sure they were alone. “What speech?”
She racked her brain, trying to remember what Hallie could have told her in the last few days.
She knew how to use the software, blessedly.
Candace and Greg had spent the first part of the week in another lovers’ quarrel but as of this morning were back on the mend.
And Reese had given up any false ideas about firing Candace, having seen her speed and efficiency firsthand.
She’d pushed any vendors coming on-site back to the week after the Fourth, knowing she wouldn’t have time to deal with them anyway.
Honestly, she thought she’d been killing it this week.
Between spending time with her mom in the evenings, who, she’d learned, spent most of the week alone while her dad stayed in Boston, and staying on top of her first holiday week as owner, she’d barely slept more than six hours a night since coming back from Bingham.
Hallie looked down at her, lips pursed.
It sent a skittering, nervous feeling through Reese.
Her lifeline to running the inn leaned in closer, and the churning in Reese’s stomach intensified.
“The intimidation speech.” Hallie paused, ratcheting up the tension as she looked at Reese, like she was supposed to know what Hallie was talking about.
All Reese could manage was a wide-eyed stare back, her brain working double time, trying to catch up.
Finally, Hallie rolled her eyes, and she let out a deep, resigned breath at Reese’s lack of understanding. “About not hurting my friend. ”
Reese jutted her chin up, their faces almost colliding. “What’s wrong with Sydney? Is she okay?”
“It was a good speech,” Hallie lamented, like she was talking to herself more than anything before adding, “and she’s fine.”
Only, she stressed the word ‘fine’ like it was not, in fact, fine at all.
“I saw her in the lobby yesterday on her way to the tennis center,” Reese responded quickly.
She and Sydney had chatted briefly, though the embarrassment that had welled up inside her at the memory of the weekend had made it easier to acknowledge the family who’d walked into the inn, ready to check in for the holiday weekend.
Part of her wished that she could go back to the moments before she knew about her mom, before she’d told their lunch party that she owned The Stone’s Throw. To when she and Sydney had agreed on a fun, carefree weekend with no ulterior motives.
She still remembered how it had felt to push her body against Sydney after their match, skin and softness and the way Sydney’s breath had hitched when she’d leaned close.
And maybe the dressing room would have gone differently. Relaxed Reese would have melted against that wall as Sydney moved closer and let something happen between them, even if it had been fleeting.
They’d been so close, their bodies connected in all the right places, before Reese’s brain had gotten the better of her. Then she’d frozen—panicked, if she was being honest—at adding another complicated layer to her life.
But still, Reese wasn’t avoiding Sydney. She really was nonstop busy with everything going on this week.
So, yeah, she could admit that this past weekend had been intense, and Reese wasn’t exactly sure where to go from there.
Both things could be true.
She’d left snot stains on Sydney’s shirt, for god’s sake .
There wasn’t a single time she could remember even crying in front of Megan or anyone else for that matter.
Her anger and sadness and frustration had always been a solitary endeavor for her, turning inward and pushing through it.
All it had taken was a few supportive words and open arms, and Reese had cried like a baby for the first time in years.
So no, she didn’t exactly have a playbook for breaking down in front of a woman who’d quickly been occupying more and more of her mental energy the same day she’d found out her mom had cancer and had then decided to implode whatever tentative sense of calm she’d been managing with her father.
Even if she could give herself a pass for the breakdown, that woman happened to be her brother’s ex-girlfriend, whom she’d become embroiled in a fake relationship with to antagonize said brother for his lifetime of mediocrity, which he’d gleefully rubbed in her face every chance he got.
Recipe, meet disaster.
“Sydney does that, too. The whole spiraling thing,” Hallie said knowingly, breaking into Reese’s thoughts.
“You are a… very involved friend.” Reese chose her words carefully, blinking to bring herself back to the present moment.
“I’m a very involved person. Period,” Hallie answered with an unassuming smile. “It’s a gift and a curse. Growing up surrounded by so many people coming and going in my life.”
If anything, Reese could at least appreciate the self-awareness. “You still haven’t answered my question. What’s wrong with Sydney?”
“She really is fine. I promise. It’s just, she’s being surprisingly tight-lipped about your weekend, which isn’t like her.
And in my defense,” Hallie said, some of her bravado slipping away, “I’m trying to adjust to this whole ‘us being back in the same place again’ thing, and I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to help her. ”
Reese’s insides softened. Hallie was a good friend, even if her prodding was sometimes misguided. And Sydney, very likely wanting to uphold Reese’s privacy about what had transpired, had kept things to herself.
The weekend had been a veritable domino effect of situations boiling over into, well, worse situations, and mentioning any of them out of context wove a complicated web of half-truths and lies by omission.
“Hallie, the weekend was a little intense because of my family, and I’m sure that Sydney was just respecting my privacy.” Reese’s cheeks warmed with the admission, not realizing how much it meant to her until she’d laid it out.
Hallie nodded, absorbing the answer. “So you aren’t avoiding my bestie? My other half? The sun around which my Earth spins?”
Reese tempered her smile at the colorful descriptors. “I have some stuff going on, which Sydney is aware of already. I promise.”
“So… how was your weekend?” Hallie asked, before quickly adding, “I mean, outside of the crazy family stuff.”
Reese found herself smiling in spite of all that had transpired and at odds with the confusion warring inside of her.
Even though her brain had curated a list of all the reasons giving in with Sydney would be a bad idea, all she could see now when she thought about the weekend were those piercing green eyes and a contagious smile that she’d been missing this week.
“A lot better with Sydney there,” she answered honestly.
“Sounds about right,” Hallie agreed.
“My family is… dysfunctional,” Reese settled on, watching as Hallie absorbed every single word. “It’s really nice to have someone there to balance out the crazy, someone I know is in my corner.”
“Sydney’s one of the most loyal people I know. And, if you haven’t noticed, she may be a bit too trusting.”
As she had said before, she felt that Grant had abused Sydney’s trust; their breakup was squarely on his shoulders. Reese understood all too well what it felt like to have your faith in someone broken .
And, for the last six months, that feeling had made it especially easy to keep everyone at arm’s length.
Sydney King, in under two weeks, had broken through every safeguard she’d put in place.
More than that, she liked that even though she knew Sydney struggled with what it all meant—Grant’s betrayal, the confusion about whatever they were doing—it hadn’t changed who she seemed to be, which was someone who wanted to show up for people and do the right thing.
Really, though, she did owe Sydney more of an explanation, or even more of just a conversation, if Sydney wanted to have one.
It was clear that, after the weekend, she’d left the ball in Reese’s court.
They’d driven back home to Stoneport early on Sunday morning, and Sydney had been gracious enough not to mention that they’d woken up the way they’d fallen asleep, with their legs intertwined and Reese pressed into Sydney’s chest.
The whole night had been cathartic, to put it mildly. She’d slept like a baby, and though she’d been trying not to think about it, she was pretty sure when her alarm had gone off, she’d let out a frustrated groan and burrowed in deeper against Sydney’s impossibly soft T-shirt.