Chapter 5 #2
Hydrated and mildly reassured, I went to war with the bathroom. Even though I watered down the bleach from one of the spray bottles, I still made a makeshift mask out of a hand towel because I couldn’t afford to fry my brain tonight. I needed every last functioning brain cell to survive this inn.
Thirty solid minutes later I stepped back and surveyed my work.
Clean. Clean-ish. Clean enough that no one would immediately contract something.
“Finally,” I said, already imagining hot water pouring over me and washing away the sweat, the dust, and the trauma. It felt like heaven, like forgiveness, like the universe saying, “You suffered enough.”
I peeled off my clothes, wincing as my shoulders protested. I felt like I’d been hauling bricks uphill all day, not dragging one suitcase up two flights of stairs and scrubbing one bathroom.
I stepped into the clawfoot tub, pulled the curtain closed, and turned the knob.
The pipes coughed, literally coughed.
Then the shower sputtered and blasted out a stream of brownish-orange water, like the inn was vomiting rust directly at me.
“Ah!” I screamed and jumped back, nearly slipping and smacking my head on the tub. Death by Victorian clawfoot tub, naked, was not a good look. I twisted the knob off. “Absolutely not. We are not doing this.”
I stood there in panic, dripping with rust-colored water I didn’t want to think about where it had been. My imagination immediately volunteered several horrifying options, so I took a breath and forced myself to calm my ass down.
“This is an old house,” I told myself. “Old pipes. Not used in a while. Totally normal.”
I reached for the knob again and turned it back on, retreating to the end of the tub and staring at the orange-tinted water splashing out of the showerhead. Slowly, suspiciously, the rust cleared, and the water finally ran clean.
Okay. Fine. Crisis averted. Minor rust incident. I could live with that.
I stepped under the shower water.
Ice.
Motherfracking ice cold. Arctic. Polar bear-approved.
I shrieked again, scrambling as I twisted the knob the other way. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still ice.
I glared up at the showerhead. “Listen,” I said, pointing at it. “I’ve had a day. I breathed in a century of dust. I stared at a man’s crotch. I stripped a haunted bed. Give me hot water, for fuck’s sakes.”
The pipes answered with a groan, like they were considering it. Then, without warning, the water surged back on—boiling.
“Ah!” I yelped, danced sideways, and slammed the knob shut again, my heart pounding. I stood there, naked, shivering, and furious. “I hate this place.”
I took a deep breath, braced myself, and tried one last time, slowly and carefully.
The water settled into something warmish and tolerable.
I sagged in relief and stepped back under the spray.
Fine. I could work with this. The inn had not won.
Yet.
That was when I realized something important.
I had forgotten shampoo. And conditioner. And body wash.
Damnit.
In my haste to escape New York and my life and possibly my sanity, I’d packed a spare toothbrush and toothpaste in my carry-on. But soap? Soap had not made the cut.
I stared around the tub, hopeful and deeply delusional. Nothing. No little bottles. No hospitality-grade freebies. No lavender-scented anything waiting to save me.
Then I saw it.
A small side dish perched on the edge of the tub held a single bar of soap. Square. Beige. No label. No scent. No visible personality. It looked like it had been made during the Great Depression.
I stared at it. It stared back.
“How old are you?” I whispered and picked it up carefully, like it might crumble in my hands or curse me. After a quick, aggressive rinse, because I have standards, I sighed.
“Okay,” I told the soap. “You’re doing double duty. Hair. And body.”
I scrubbed myself down with it, head to toe, my hair squeaking in protest as the soap stripped away not just dirt, but probably some strands. The scent was… neutral. Not floral or anything.
“This is fine,” I told myself, scrubbing harder. “People survived entire centuries like this.”
By the time I was done, my skin felt tight, like I’d exfoliated the crap out of it, my hair felt like straw, and I smelled faintly like a boarding school.
But I was clean. And at this point, that felt like another win.
I stepped out of the bathroom and pulled on an oversized T-shirt to sleep in. My stomach growled immediately, loudly and dramatically, like I had an entire army of gremlins staging a coup in there.
“Sorry, guys,” I told my belly. “I’m too tired to eat right now. We’ll circle back to this tomorrow.”
It responded with another threatening rumble.
I dragged my ass across the room to my aunt’s bed, which was apparently mine now, and tugged the sheets back before letting myself fall face-first onto the mattress.
I was drained—emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
I’d just lived through one of the strangest days of my entire life.
I’d left my fiancé, broken down on the side of the road, been silently judged by a ridiculously attractive stranger, inherited a pink inn on a cliff, met a realtor cousin I didn’t know I had, and nearly died naked in a clawfoot tub.
I realized then that I hadn’t even shed one tear about Simon’s cheating ass. What did that mean?
Somewhere in the fog of exhaustion, my brain went to my aunt. She expected me to fail. She’d left me this place knowing it was falling apart, knowing it was too much, knowing I’d be overwhelmed and out of my depth and tempted to run. Maybe this was her final test or her final joke.
I thought of Dust-guy, of his calm voice, his assessing eyes, and the way he’d looked at me when I told him about the inn like he already knew all its secrets. It felt like he’d decided something about me without saying it out loud.
I hated that it mattered. I hated that I gave a crap.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, too tired to move or even think. I didn’t even bother taking down the creepy life-size portrait of my aunt looming over the headboard. That felt like a tomorrow problem.
Sleep hit me hard and fast, dragging me under before I could spiral any further.
I was so exhausted I didn’t even remember dreaming of being chased through endless hallways by giant paintings of my aunt Edna, all of them smoking cigars and yelling, “Loser!”
Which, if I had, I probably would’ve grabbed her cane and taken her out at the knees.