19. Chapter 19
Rosie
The princess had a farewell speech prepared. She did not get to give it.
T-minus one day until guests arrive. Which means only two days until the festival.
Am I panicking? Yes. Am I at least doing it gracefully? Not even a little.
“Rosie, dear,” Edna G. says, her yellow hair looking extra coiffed. There’s been a lot of teasing involved.
I don’t have time for this.
“Yes?” I say, standing behind my check-in desk. Upstairs, Dominic is hanging the shower curtain in the Beauty and the Beast bathroom, and Dean is hanging pictures.
Dean. I’ve been trying not to think about him checking out tomorrow. There’s a chance I could see him again. He’ll be around working on getting the farm ready to sell, and he said he’d drop by the festival to check it out.
But no more spending time together. No more dinners. No more staring at him wondering if he’s thinking the same thing I am: that if I could break something small for him to fix, maybe I could keep him here one more day.
“Rosie?” Edna G. asks, looking at me as if I’ve grown another head.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “What was it you were needing?”
As usual, these two showed up unannounced. Like a cold sore. Uninvited and at the worst possible time. Juliet Monroe is supposed to be stopping by soon to go over the last-minute festival details.
“You asked Monica Batchelder to make pies?” Edna G. asks.
I give them both a questioning look. “So?”
Edna B. sighs. “It’s just that last year her pumpkin was so watery.”
They both scrunch their noses.
“Yes, well, beggars can’t be choosers.”
It pops out of my mouth before I can stop it. And wow, that sounded snarky.
“I mean, I need all the help I can get,” I add, giving them a big cheesy grin.
“Of course,” says Edna B., apparently not registering my snark at all. “You’ve got a lot on your plate.”
“I . . . yes, I do,” I say, appreciating that they actually recognized the pressure I’m under with the inn and the festival.
“You’ve got a hunky man under your roof, after all,” says Edna G.
Nope. Spoke too soon.
“Oh, yes,” agrees Edna B. “How is our dear Mr. Alden?”
“He’s just fine,” I say, not giving these biddies anything.
What I really want to say is that he’s an amazing, absolute hero of a man, and he’s leaving me tomorrow, and I kind of want to curl into a ball and cry, but unfortunately I have an inn to finish and a festival to run.
Also, I would never, ever say that to the Ednas.
“Well, you tell him hello for us,” Edna G. says, patting me on the hand.
“Will do,” I say.
They turn to go, and I realize they didn’t offer me a single piece of gossip. This feels like progress.
“Oh, and I was wondering something,” Edna B. says. “Wade Stevenson and Ari Langford were here the other night. Did you notice anything between them?”
Both sets of drawn-on eyebrows shoot up.
Obviously, progress has not been made at all.
Also, how in the heck did they know that? It’s true that they stopped by the other night to discuss all that the high school is doing for the festival, but it wasn’t like I told anyone.
“It was just a quick meeting,” I tell them.
“Well, shoot,” says Edna G. “We were hoping you could give us some intel.”
Did I notice some tension between Ari and Wade? Yes. You could cut it with a knife. Will I be telling these two gossip queens? Absolutely not.
I walk over to the door and hold it open for them. Time to nip this in the bud. “Thanks for stopping by, ladies.” I usher them out with a sweep of my hand toward the door.
Shutting the door, I lean up against it and take a cleansing breath.
If I survive the next few days without a total breakdown, it will be a miracle.
“We need to settle the bill,” Dean says, sitting next to me at the island later that night. He made stir-fry again. The first meal he ever made me and now the last one.
I want to sob into it.
“For the food?” I ask him. I’ve been buying most of the groceries while he’s been cooking. That felt more than fair to me, but maybe not as much to him.
“For the room,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. I quickly wipe my hands on a napkin and turn to him. I was prepared to have this conversation tomorrow, but I guess we’re doing it now. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t, in good conscience, charge you for staying here.”
His brows pinch.
“You’ve spent the entire month helping me with the rooms,” I say, cutting him off from the rebuttal I could see forming. “And you fed me.” I gesture toward my half-eaten plate of stir-fry—that I will be finishing.
“I wouldn’t have gotten this done without you. I can’t make you pay for the room too.”
His lips are pulled into the straight line of disapproval.
“Will you make the balloon payment without it, though?”
I nod. “I did the math, and if I can get the bank to push it out just a week, which I think is possible, I can do it.”
“Have you talked to the bank?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I haven’t had time.”
He stares at me. “I’m paying you for the room, Rosie.”
“Dean,” I say. “I can’t let you do that.”
“I rented a room from you, and I’m paying for it.”
“You slept on a crappy mattress while installing floors, baseboards, bathroom tile, and hanging pictures,” I say, counting off on my fingers. “This place would still be in shambles if it weren’t for you.”
He shakes his head. “You need the money for the payment.”
“I’ll figure it out. Maybe I can take a loan from my dad or something. If the bank doesn’t work with me.”
“You haven’t even told your dad about the loan.”
“I’ll tell him.” I shrug. “It’ll be fine.”
He lets out a breath. “Would you let me help you with the balloon payment then?”
“What? No,” I tell him. “You do not need to help me with that.”
“Then let me pay for the room that I rented from you,” he says.
I open my mouth to object, but he keeps going.
“I stayed here for a month. I slept here, used your kitchen, your water, your electricity. You held the room for me when you could have rented it to someone else.”
“But—”
“And I wanted to help with the inn. You didn’t hire me. You didn’t ask me to do any of it.”
That shuts me up for a second.
“Those are two separate things,” he says. “I helped because I wanted to. I’m paying because I stayed here.”
I look down at my hands, which have been wringing the napkin while he’s been talking.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had prepared to talk about this.
I really hate that his argument makes sense.
“I don’t want to charge you,” I say, not wanting to give in.
“And I’ll figure out a way to pay you anyway.”
I widen my eyes. “Is that a threat?”
He smiles. “It doesn’t have to be. As long as you let me pay you for the room.”
I drop my head then, feeling tears behind my eyes. I swallow them back. His generosity is too much. I don’t know how I can accept it.
“Fine,” I finally say, looking up at him. “But I’m giving you a discount.”
“No,” he says.
“Dean.”
“Rosie.”
“Well, I can’t charge you for the night you gave your room to the Hendersons.”
The corner of his mouth quirks upward. “You mean the best night of sleep I had the entire month?”
Oh, wow. My stomach doesn’t drop so much as take a flying leap off a cliff.
The room suddenly feels warmer. The tension between us pulls tight. I briefly wonder if I should swipe the plates off the island like they do in the movies so I can make out with Dean on top of it.
Instead, I swallow. I’m pretty sure it was audible.
“At least let me give you a discount,” I say, sounding a little breathless.
“No,” he shakes his head slowly.
“Please?”
“I’m paying for the room.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re the most stubborn person in the world?”
He cocks a brow. “In the entire world?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
“No,” he says, smiling. “No one has ever said that to me.”
“Liar,” I tell him, smiling back.
The next day, I don’t have time to be sad that Dean is leaving because I’m too busy cleaning the place like the Queen of England is coming.
This is a lie, of course. I mean, I’m definitely cleaning the inn like I’m expecting royalty, but I’ve been a miserable cow while doing it.
Maybe it’s that he hasn’t left yet. He’s still helping around the inn. He’s been cleaning up his own room after he packed everything into his car, which makes me feel even more guilty that he insists on paying me.
He was right, though. I need the money. When everything is squared away, the loan is paid off, and I’m feeling more comfortable, I’ll send him something. Like a trip to Aruba. Or a gift card to Chili’s. Whatever my budget allows.
I really hope he likes Chili’s.
No matter what it is, it won’t be enough. It could never be enough.
“You’ll be at the dinner tonight, right?” Dominic asks after I had a small breakdown over the yellow shower curtain he hung in the Beauty and the Beast room yesterday because it isn’t the right shade of yellow.
Everything else turned out perfectly. The walls are painted Custard’s Last Stand, which Dean once again accused me of making up, with a matching bedspread over the four-poster bed.
Framed pictures of single roses hang on the walls, and I found the perfect ceramic castle at a yard sale for the dresser.
And then an ugly not-right-shade-of-yellow shower curtain.
Dominic talked me down from ripping the whole thing out and running to Burlington for a new one. It was the right call. With only three hours until guests arrive, I definitely didn’t have the time.
I owe him for his help, too. But Dominic’s my brother, so it counts less. He’s contractually obligated to help me. With the contract being that he’s my twin and therefore must do my bidding.
“What?” I ask him while re-wiping the bathroom mirror. It’s my third time, and I keep creating new streaks with each try.
“Mom’s anniversary?”
“Right,” I say.
Every year since our mom died, we visit her grave.
Then Emma makes dinner, and we sit around reminiscing.
It’s normally one of my favorite traditions with my family and a lovely way to grieve together, just us.
But right now, the inn and the festival seem to be overshadowing everything else in my life.
And there’s also the man upstairs who’ll be leaving soon.
Nope. I can’t dwell on that.
“Yes, I’ll be there,” I tell him.
“Who’s going to watch the inn while you’re gone?” he asks. “Dean?”
I fix him with a glare. “No, Dean is leaving today.”
I look back at the mirror, blinking a few times as I scrub harder on the fourth attempt.
“Leaving? I thought you two had something going on.”
I go tense. “What made you think that?”
“Why would a guy stay here and then help you with the inn?”
“Because he wanted to help,” I say.
Dominic doesn’t believe me. I can tell by the way he looks at me like I’m an idiot and then says, “I don’t buy it.”
“Well, buy it,” I say. “Because it’s the truth.”
The stupid, no-good, dirty, rotten truth.
“I hired someone from the high school to work at the inn this week while I help with the festival—Willa Pickle. Isn’t that the best name?” Dom just snorts in response. “Anyway, she starts tonight. So, I’ll be at dinner,” I tell him.
“Rosie?” Dean says, a soft knock on the door of the Beauty and the Beast room.
“Hey,” I say, coming out of the bathroom, holding the window cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other.
“Did you grab that rag from the room?” he asks, pointing to it.
“Yes?”
“I used it to dust all the wood,” he says.
“Oh,” I say.
No wonder I couldn’t get the streaks off the mirror.
What am I going to do without Dean?
I will not cry. I will not.
“I’m about to take off,” he says, gesturing toward the front of the inn.
“Okay,” I say, setting the spray and useless towel on the counter. This is fine. Everything is totally, completely fine. “I’ll walk you out.”
Dean says goodbye to Dominic, who gives me a curious look that I ignore, and I follow him down the stairs.
We stop in the front entry. A piece of his dark hair has fallen across his forehead. I stop myself from brushing it back.
I’m ready to give him my well-planned speech. It involves thanking him profusely for everything he’s done, making sure he knows how grateful I am, and maybe asking him to kiss me one last time.
I’m not actually going to do that last part. But I did rehearse it in my head, and somehow the rehearsal ended with us making out on the couch and . . . you know what? I’m just going to keep that version to myself.
“Well,” I start, ready to give my speech.
I open my mouth again, but then my phone beeps in my pocket.
I pull it out to look at it.
“Oh no,” I say, looking at the notice on my lock screen. “Someone’s canceled.”
“What?” Dean asks, standing by me so he can see my screen.
I pull up the app I use for reservations, and there it is. The booking for the Snow White room, canceled for the entire week.
“That’s not good,” I say, mostly to myself, my stomach doing a twisting thing.
I show Dean my screen, then look at it again myself. Out of nowhere, a laugh bubbles out of me.
It’s not hysterical. More of a well-isn’t-that-just-great kind of laugh, with a little mania around the edges.
“Rosie?” Dean asks, a concerned look on his face. He probably thinks I’ve finally lost it.
Maybe I have.
“This is just too perfect,” I finally tell him when I calm myself. “An entire week at a premium price that I definitely needed to pay off the loan, and . . . it’s gone.”
“Could you re-list it? See if someone will reserve it last minute?”
I nod. He’s right. I need to pull myself together.
“Yeah, I can do that. And if no one does, then I’ll just . . . figure it out.”
Well, this just totally ruined my goodbye to Dean. Maybe it was for the best. My speech was a little syrupy, to be honest.
“Or,” Dean says, looking at me, “I could take it.”
“What?” I look at him. “Dean, no.” I shake my head. “You don’t need to do that. You’ve done so much for me.”
“Why not?” he says, his face earnest.
“Because, Dean. That’s ridiculous. I’ll just deal with it.”
“It would save me the time driving back and forth to Burlington.”
I snort out a laugh. “So, I’d be doing you a favor?”
He shrugs. “Well, yeah.”
We stare at each other.
Then, I do something I had rehearsed in my head but never actually planned to do. I grab his face in my hands and kiss him.
It’s quick. I mean to make it a peck. But Dean’s hands go to my hips, and there’s a bit of lip-locking happening that I’m not mad about.
“Thank you,” I say when I pull away.
He gives me a smirk. “Is that how you plan to greet all your guests today?”
“Yep,” I say with a nod. “Every single one.”
He chuckles. “So . . . I’m staying?”
I smile. “The room is yours if you want it.”
“I’ll go get my stuff.”
I watch him walk away, trying very hard not to think about the kiss. Or the fact that he’s staying. It doesn’t change anything. He needs a room. I have a room. That’s all this is.
Still, I can’t stop smiling.