Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Why?” Hallie wailed to no one in particular as the ringing coming from somewhere nearby continued to assault her ears.
She lifted her head, which was shoved face-first against…
polyester, she finally decided. She also accepted, without needing to look in a mirror, that there was no way her cheek wasn’t indented with creases from the material.
Waiting on standby for three hours, finally getting on a flight that had two layovers, drinking enough whiskey through it all to tranquilize a horse, and…
she’d still wound up sleeping on a sofa.
The irony was not lost on her.
There was a blessed, blissful moment of silence until the ringing started again. Somehow, it seemed louder this time. The culprit, her phone, had vibrated closer to the edge of the coffee table.
She’d left it there—she thought about last night, which was coming back slowly in bits and pieces—somewhere between hexing Grant and putting on a movie.
There was a lot of gray area in between.
She tried to decline the call but realized too late that she’d hit the “Accept” button when Sydney’s voice floated through the speaker. “Hallie? What am I looking at here?”
Hallie’d picked up the phone backwards, so if she had to guess, it was a chance for Sydney to read her tragic palm line. “One second,” she groaned.
Not her best work, as she leaned on her elbow and scooted her body up toward the arm of the sofa to use it as a pillow.
She managed to turn her phone around, though, without dropping it.
She knew, with every fiber of her being, that getting herself into an upright position wasn’t going to be possible.
Her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, and she looked around for anything to quell the disgusting texture.
It was then that she noticed a bottle of water, a thermos, and a packet of ibuprofen sitting on the coffee table.
Brynn.
Hallie knew that the rest of the night would come back to her once she finally woke up, but she must not have done or said anything too embarrassing if Brynn had left her the thoughtful lifeline this morning.
Or that was just Brynn, she was learning, and Hallie needed to remember exactly what she’d said and done with The Stone’s Throw’s newest employee last night.
“Hal?” Sydney’s voice asked again. Hallie couldn’t see her best friend; she’d set the phone down to tear into the medicine with all the delicacy of a bear ripping through a campsite. She’d seen it firsthand before, and it had done nothing to improve her opinion of the great outdoors.
Sydney was waiting for her, she remembered, as she tried to make her thoughts come into focus.
“Still getting settled over here. One second.” She chugged the water, along with the pills, and opened the thermos up with fingers that weren’t winning any awards for dexterity.
“I’m here,” she finally answered, lying on her back and holding the phone above her.
She watched as Sydney squinted down at her, likely taking in her pathetic state.
“Sorry. I figured that you’d be up by now.
It’s after eight there, right?” During her trip, she’d regaled Sydney with—complained to, more accurately—all of her daily comings and goings in Colorado.
The early mornings. The lack of privacy.
Her sleeping accommodations. Sydney moved even closer to her screen. “Are you back? In Stoneport?”
Sydney had spent much of her childhood in this very apartment, hanging out with Hallie, and earlier this year, Sydney had lived in the extra bedroom that Brynn was staying in for three months, after she’d retired from professional tennis.
Which was all to say, there was no point in lying to her best friend.
Hallie nodded, trying not to aggravate the cramp in her neck. “I got back last night.”
“Did something happen?” The genuine concern in Sydney’s voice was appreciated, given that she knew Hallie had a lot going on right now.
Speaking of… Hallie blinked away the last of her tiredness. “Did you do it?” she whispered, like Reese wouldn’t be able to hear if she was sitting close by.
The smile that overtook Sydney’s face was magical. “She said yes. I cannot believe she said yes.”
Though she wore her own matching smile, Hallie still managed to roll her eyes. “Like she was going to say no. You two are obsessed with one another. Madly in love. Two halves of a whole.”
“It’s still nerve-racking,” Sydney defended herself, in spite of all the kind things Hallie had just said in support of their love and general soulmatism.
Which was a word she’d just made up but felt entirely accurate.
Sydney let out a fluttery exhale, pulling Hallie’s attention back to her nervous-for-no-reason best friend.
“Even though we’ve talked about it, and I knew that we were on the same page about wanting to take the next step, it was the scariest thing that I’ve ever done. ”
“You deserve to be happy, Syd. So does Reese. And the fact that you two found it with one another?” Hallie smiled again, basking in a softer version of the elation that Sydney must be feeling. “I’m really happy for you both.”
And truly, she was. Maybe lying on a sofa on New Year’s Day, so hungover that she was struggling to hold her own head up, was tempering her ability to jump around—and squealing was out of the question—but that didn’t change the fact that Sydney and Reese were so right together that whether they got engaged after six months or six years, it would have been exactly what was meant to happen.
Sydney schooled her with an intense stare, and Hallie knew the focus of their conversation was about to be directed at her. She girded her loins—at least as much as anyone in her current state could manage. “So what gives? Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming back early?”
Hallie sighed and wiped at her cheek, still creased with wrinkles. “I didn’t feel good being there,” she admitted. It felt cathartic, in some ways, to say it out loud. It felt awful in others.
She didn’t want to resent her family. But that’s exactly the emotion she’d identified in between her first and second whiskey drinks on the plane, once she was finally sure that she was getting the hell out of Colorado.
Damn Brynn’s feelings wheel.
She’d opened up her phone on her first flight, the longest leg, that would take her to Orlando of all places, and had briefly considered getting Wi-Fi.
Only, she’d realized that she hadn’t wanted to let the outside world in, especially if her parents or brother had texted.
And, if she was being honest with herself, because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the more likely scenario that they hadn’t.
And then she’d opened Brynn’s texts, missing the normalcy of the inn.
Which, for the last week, had come in the form of Brynn’s hyper-specific questions, including gems like whether the side door had a maximum amount of time it could be left open before it violated any safety protocols and if the inn’s age meant that it was grandfathered from the newest electrical compliance requirements.
(Brynn had noticed that one of the lights in the dining room was flickering.) And there was Hallie’s personal favorite: whether Hallie had asked Reese if she’d had any beach profiling completed ahead of purchasing the inn, given the increase in coastal erosion due to climate change over the last few decades.
Instead of a fun wander around Brynn’s mind, though, she’d stumbled upon the feelings wheel that Brynn had sent her last night.
“Wanna tell me what happened?” Sydney coaxed, relaxing back in her chair. “I’ve been told that I’m a decent listener.”
Hallie frowned, the last night at her brother’s house starting to soak back into her brain.
“We were having this family dinner, and… I don’t know.
I suddenly had this overwhelming and intense sensation that I shouldn’t be there.
That I needed to leave as soon as possible.
I was so mad and sad and… resentful,” she voiced out loud, hating how it sounded but accepting the truth in the word.
She had all of Sydney’s attention, the concern evident in her features. “Why are you resentful?”
Hallie sighed. Maybe it would feel good to get it out. It seemed crazy that it would make her feel worse. “We didn’t discuss it over the summer, and I’m pretty sure that I gave the impression that I was on board but…”
“But what?” Sydney asked, leaning forward.
“My parents didn’t really talk to me about selling the inn. Actually, I was notified that it was being sold along with all the other employees,” Hallie said, wincing as she accepted a truth she’d been staving off for months.
“They did what?” Sydney yelled, her voice cracking loudly through the phone.
And even though she appreciated Sydney's emphatic anger on her behalf, Hallie still felt the need to defend her resentment when she said, “I mean, I know that I didn’t own The Stone’s Throw or anything, but I have worked here for the last fifteen years.
” And it just hurt, to be such an afterthought in her parents’ life.
She just couldn’t do it anymore.
“I wish I would have known, Hal. I’d have never pushed so hard for you to go there over Christmas.” Hallie was about to respond that none of this was Sydney’s fault when she added, “Is this why you’ve been so resistant about hiring someone?”
Hallie pushed herself up on her elbows. “I’m not… resistant. I genuinely have been super busy the past few months with the increase in guests, but I won’t lie that, as the holidays got closer, the idea of staying here didn’t seem like such a bad option.”
“I hate this for you, Hallie. All of it. Now that my parents are back, you’re always welcome to spend Christmas with us.” Sydney sounded so anguished, when today should have been one of the happiest of her life.