Chapter 20 #2
Eli’s demeanor seemed to shift. Suddenly he was the caretaker. He pushed the chair out for me with a scrape over the linoleum, and I flopped down into it.
“Chelsea, I know you think you haven’t made any changes since the crash, but I think you need to go easy on yourself.
I’ve been divorced for a year, separated for three, and I still haven’t changed my name or even gotten my shit out of storage.
You’re what, a month out from a serious car crash and look—your place is cleaner than I’ve ever seen it.
You seem well-rested and even happy. Like you said, you’re not going out every night of the week like you were.
And Seamus even says you offered to help his dad with his party? ”
I groaned. I’d forgotten all about Jamie Reilly—I’d thought he could be my first attempt at doing an event on my own, but here I was dropping the ball. I thought of the blazers I’d bought yesterday, hanging in my closet.
“How did you get so mature?” I asked.
“I was born this way.”
“Hell no you weren’t.”
He laughed. “Okay, fine, it was therapy.”
I lifted my brows. “Eli Kelly, going to therapy?”
“Dunham. But yeah.”
Eli had changed his name when he married his wife—given her name was Kelly.
My heart suddenly hurt for my older brother.
He’d been through a lot, too. A hopeless romantic with his heart smashed.
A messy breakup, with the first woman he’d dated, who Cass had hired to run L’Aubergine, the resort’s flagship restaurant.
I’d always rolled my eyes at Eli’s griping about that, but I could see his life had been rough since before Mom had died.
“Do you think about Mom?” I asked him, my voice quiet.
“All the time. She’s all over the resort—it was her baby.”
“So were we.”
He laughed, softly. “So were we. It’s really helped to talk about her in therapy, to be honest.”
“What are you, a therapy salesman?” I said, even as a tear fell down my cheek.
“Maybe.” My brother looked at me with a sad smile. “Cass said you went to an appointment last year.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Too much talking.”
It had been excruciating, that appointment.
The guy kept trying to use slang, like he thought I was a teenager.
Then he’d sit there, expecting me to respond.
It had been mildly humiliating, and I’d had better things to do with my time.
Cass had said we should try someone else, but I wasn’t interested. I still wasn’t.
“Listen,” I said, putting on a smile and blinking back the tears that hadn’t quite spilled—I wasn’t going to let them.
“I’m going back to work in a couple of weeks.
I’ve always been good at my job, and I’ll throw myself all in.
I’ll get back into running, and now that I’m not going out like I used to, maybe I’ll even work on a hobby. ”
“Like cooking?”
Like art.
No, I wouldn’t go back to that. But now that I’d said the words going back to work, that part didn’t feel so bad. A little sad to let the dream of running my own business go as quickly as I’d come up with it, but I knew what I was doing at the Rolling Hills. I could still wear the blazers there.
“Well, we can’t wait to have you back at the resort,” Eli said. “And hey, now that we’re giving the east wing job to Reilly and Sons, you’ll get to see Seamus all the time.”
I jerked my face to Eli, my stomach twisting. “What?”
“Didn’t Cass tell you? We’re going to award the east wing reno job to him and his dad.
No question. We were already going to go with them, but Griff took the time to pick apart the other proposals over a video conference.
From China. Wanted to prove, unequivocally, that it wasn’t just because we know them. ”
“Griff’s in China?” I asked, my voice distant.
But my mind wasn’t on my brother’s mysterious international trips, or his thoughtful analysis of the contracting proposals, which was a very Griffin thing to do.
It was on Seamus. Seamus, who would be at the hotel every day. Where I worked. I could brush off Eli saying Seamus loved me—that was just his overly romantic interpretation of the situation. But this, this constant proximity, that would be real.
“Yeah, don’t ask about what the hell he’s doing there because, as usual, I have no idea.”
It took me a minute to realize Eli was talking about Griffin. I nodded, my mouth dry, suddenly.
“But speaking of weird businesses and hobbies, I guess, maybe I’ll tell you first.”
I blinked, coming back to my kitchen. I wiped my damp palms on my legs. “Tell me what?”
“I started a side hustle,” Eli said.
I raised my brows.
“I’m buying commercial real estate.”
Now my jaw fell open. “Eli, what? That’s not a side hustle, that’s a full-on side career.”
“I’m not going to leave the resort. Not yet anyway. But I thought it was time I put my degree to good use.”
That part made sense. Eli had a business degree, but when he’d married Kelly, he’d gone to her hometown in upstate New York, and decided he wanted to work with his hands.
He’d worked on renovating the house they’d bought together, and he’d been so keen on it, he’d gone out and gotten his electrician’s ticket.
We all thought he was nuts, but he’d started his own electrician business out there, and seemed happy, until everything all went mushroom-shaped with his marriage.
But commercial real estate? I still couldn’t understand how he was quietly doing something so involved. “I didn’t know you had any money?” I said, confused now.
Eli shrugged. “You don’t know a lot about me.”
“Evidently.”
“Anyway,” he continued, now animated, the way he got when he was talking about something he was deeply interested in. He’d completely transformed from the Eli I’d found out in the hallway, and was like fourteen-year-old Eli talking about baseball.
“I bought my first property last month. It’s just coming out of escrow now. Needs a little work, but I’m going to hit up Jamie for it, seeing as Seamus will have his hands full with our place. Jamie loves me. He’ll make room for it. I hope.”
My mind was still reeling at all this information, but I blinked then. “Jamie Reilly?” I said.
“What other Jamie would I be talking about?”
Pieces began clicking together then. A construction site. Jamie’s party. Suddenly, the worry I’d been gnawing on took a step backward. Maybe I wouldn’t be launching my own business. Maybe I was freaking out at the prospect of being close to Seamus. But, I could help Jamie throw an amazing party.
And maybe, by doing that, I could acclimatize myself by spending more time with Seamus, before I didn’t have a choice.
I pushed down the tightness in my chest and let myself catch some of Eli’s newfound enthusiasm.
“I think I might be able to help convince Jamie to help squeeze you into their work schedule.”