Chapter 4 #3
“Maggie!” Julia sent a hasty glance over her shoulder as she dropped Ethan’s belongings on his freshly made bed. “It’s not the time to talk about it right now.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Fine. But I’ll expect answers at some point.”
Julia waved a hand at her in what she hoped was a noncommittal gesture that would shut down the current line of questioning, never to have it come up again. Though she also knew how Maggie could be like a dog with a bone about certain things, so she had a feeling her hope might be misguided.
“He’s going to be out of the bathroom any minute now. I have to show him his room and then give him a tour.” She suppressed the urge to groan and instead took in a deep breath through her nose and released it out through her mouth. “I can do this.”
“Do what?”
Both women let out a short scream at the sound of a new voice at the door.
Ethan had obviously taken care of business and then found his way upstairs to where Julia and Maggie were, coming up behind them undetected as they spoke.
“Nothing!” Julia chirped, wondering how much he had heard. “Are you ready for the tour?”
“Well, since I’m here now anyway,” Ethan replied, smiling in what Julia recognized as his best wheedling look, “I’d really like to just get changed and settle in for a few minutes before we do the whole tour.” Was it her imagination, or did his tone change with the word tour? “Is this—my room?”
There was no question about it this time—definitely a tone change. Just a flicker perhaps, the slightest hesitation. “His” room had meant something different once in this place. Now it was unfamiliar territory to him and exceedingly familiar to her, which was how she wanted it—to her advantage.
She hadn’t given him the Cabin Room by accident.
Not that she wanted him to have a bad impression or that she was trying to prove a point—no, certainly not.
But also, it served him right, showing up with barely any notice, placing demands, however polite they were, of what his needs were for his job and his success.
He had important clientele coming; they would get the good rooms. And if one of the other, better rooms stayed empty, well, that was something that she could deal with if it ever came up.
Cabin was one of the rooms that had been created in the renovation that had turned the three bedrooms upstairs into four, each with its own en suite, which had shrunk them down even further.
Cabin was also the only room whose en suite had a stand-up shower rather than a more luxurious tub.
She wondered briefly, considering his height and broad shoulders, if he would even fit in it—then immediately forced herself to stop thinking about him in the shower.
“Yup!” she said cheerily. “This is it. You can absolutely get settled in. Maggie and I will check on supper while you do that. When you’re ready for the tour, come find me. I’m sure I’ll be around somewhere. Dinner service starts at five p.m. and goes until seven.”
“Oh, did we also include—?”
“The price of your stay includes breakfast and dinner,” Julia interrupted with another one of her customer-service smiles. “It was all in the price detailed to your secretary that was agreed upon by both of you.”
“Gayle isn’t my—” Ethan seemed to think better of what he was about to say and just smiled back at Julia instead, that same polite smile she was giving him reflected back at her, none of the radiance he’d bestowed upon Maggie evident any longer. “That’s perfect. Can’t wait.”
“All right, well, if that’s everything…” Julia trailed off, then looked around, expecting to usher Maggie out with her.
However, like a phantom or housekeeping ninja of some sort, Maggie appeared to have snuck out while Julia and Ethan had been talking and was no longer anywhere to be found in the room.
It was probably for the best, as three people in the Cabin Room tended to shrink its already small proportions to comically minuscule sizes.
At least with just the two of them, there was the illusion of space, particularly with Julia on the side that had the slanted ceiling and Ethan standing closer to the spot between the double bed and the bathroom door.
“Yup, all good. I’ll be down in a bit.”
“Great.” Smile, smile, smile. The phoniness of it was starting to wear on her, more than it normally did as someone in the hospitality and service industry who literally behaved this way day in and day out.
Maybe because with her actual guests it felt more genuine and not so contrived. Maybe because guests didn’t usually come with loaded histories that walloped her in the chest with nostalgia, the shared joy and pain of memories both happy and devastating.
“See you,” she added quickly before brushing past him and leaving the room, realizing belatedly that she hadn’t yet given him a key.
But for now she needed to just go and keep going before she did something really embarrassing, something infinitely worse than just fake smiling.
Because the way she was feeling at the moment, it was almost as if she might just…
Cry.