Chapter 21
I stood at the sink in my small bathroom, splashing cold water on my eye to flush it. Xander had already gone to investigate the source of the leak.
I turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel. Drying my face, I peered up into the mirror. My eye was a little bloodshot, but nothing major. I figured I’d survive.
I washed up and got dressed, all the while wondering when Xander and I were going to get a break.
From the blackout that had interrupted our initial attempt at romance, to my inability to stay awake last night, to the ill-timed leak right over my bed this morning, well…
it was starting to seem like the universe was conspiring to keep us apart.
Heading back into my bedroom, I heard the plink as another droplet of water fell from the ceiling and landed in one of my old swim team trophies.
After the trickle had begun, I’d simply reached for the nearest vessel I could find and placed it on the mattress to catch the drips.
Now, I stared at the relic from my girlhood as if noticing it for the first time.
Plink.
I looked around. The whole room, in fact, was filled with similar relics: photo booth photo strips and plush toys won on the boardwalk and ticket stubs from beachside concerts by bands I hadn’t thought about in ages. Not to mention all the other trophies, ribbons, and swim team paraphernalia.
Plink.
How had I not noticed this before? It was like I was living in a time capsule of my youth. As if everything was frozen in time, circa ten years ago. Back when I was sixteen years old.
Plink…
Plink…
Plink…
When Casey came padding in and licked my hand, I realized I’d been standing here in a stupor, in the middle of my bedroom, for a while.
For a long while.
Probably too long a while.
“Come on, boy,” I said, leading the dog to the door. All at once, I had the overwhelming need to get the fuck out of this room. “Let’s go for a nice long walk.”
* * *
There was something about the beach after a snowstorm. Everything was so white—the snow-covered sand, the clouds. Even the rough, charging waves were capped in white foam. It was as if Mother Nature had given the Jersey Shore a clean slate.
I threw a piece of driftwood for Casey to fetch. But when he came scampering back, he had something else in his mouth. He laid it happily at my feet.
It was…a thong?
Yup. A thong.
I sighed.
Clean slate or not, it was still the Jersey Shore.
“No way,” I told the dog sternly. “We are not playing with that.”
Since he was good enough to leave it alone, I decided he deserved a reward. So, on the way back to the Sunny Side, Casey and I stopped in at the bakery to see if Garth had whipped up any doggie biscuits today.
As we stepped into the shop, I inhaled the aroma of fresh baked goods and…something else.
I looked at Drew, who was covering the register. “Did the mail come already?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “But we had a visitor who was equally heavy-handed with the spray bottle.”
He slid a business card across the counter, and I picked it up.
“TJ Anderson,” I said, reading. “GMK Partners, LLC. Real Estate Developers.”
“Remember how Garth caught wind of a property developer sniffing around here?”
I nodded, not liking where this was going.
“Well, this guy was walking the neighborhood with a couple of City Council members,” Drew continued. “He came in here afterward, and he dropped his card in the jar for the weekly free dessert drawing.”
I frowned. “Then there’s definitely some big project in the works,” I said.
“Seems like it,” said Drew. “And that’s never good for small businesses like ours.”
He was right, of course. We’d have to fill in the rest of the local merchants.
“I assume he’s not winning the free dessert,” I said.
Drew plucked the card out of my hand, tore it in half, and tossed it in the trash.
I laughed.
Casey yipped.
“Oh, right,” I said, remembering. “Can we get one of the doggie treats, please?”
Drew reached into the glass display case, grabbed a bone-shaped cookie, and handed it across the counter.
“Sit,” I told Casey, holding up the treat. He tried, but he was too excited. His tail was wagging like mad, and his butt wouldn’t stay planted on the floor. Apparently, Garth’s canine creations were every bit as craveable as his human ones. “Good enough,” I conceded, letting him have the cookie.
As the mutt gobbled up the goodie, I turned back to Drew. Now, he was holding out a brownie enfolded in a small square of waxed paper. “For you,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks, but—”
“I think you’re going to want this, Han,” he said. His voice was serious. Unnervingly so.
Uh-oh. My eyes darted from my friend to the brownie, then back to my friend. The news about the developer wasn’t good, but it didn’t quite rise to the level of a chocolate emergency. Not yet, anyway.
“What?” I asked suspiciously, taking the brownie.
“The developer was just the bad news,” he said. “I also have worse news.”
I grimaced. “I guess Garth is the only one who sugarcoats things around here,” I said.
Drew shrugged.
I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “What’s up?”
He leaned on the counter, ducking his head closer to mine. “I was talking to my dad,” he said, lowering his voice even though no one else was in the bakeshop. “There’s a new boat in the marina, docked in the slip next to his. According to him, it has a crew of three loud, hard-drinking guys.”
I got that prickly feeling at the back of my neck. “And you think it might be the same three guys who are after Xander?” I asked.
Drew pegged me with a meaningful look. “Dad said they must have been really drunk,” he said. “Because they were talking about catching a merman.”
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“Dad checked with the marina’s front office,” continued my BFF. “Just to see how long they’d be staying. Apparently, they’ve got the slip rented for the next two months, through the end of March.”
I let that sink in. “So, they’re not going anywhere any time soon?” I asked.
“They’re not going anywhere any time soon,” confirmed Drew.
I nodded. Then, I shoved the brownie into my mouth and took a giant bite.
* * *
Back at the Sunny Side, I gave Xander the “worse” news.
“But you’re safe here,” I assured him.
“I have no doubt that I am,” he said with his typical positive attitude. But the little crinkle between his brows betrayed some underlying anxiety as he returned to work repairing the leak in the ceiling.
To distract myself from my own nervousness, I logged on to the computer at the front desk.
First, I looked at the calendar, and…right.
The dining room was booked for that baby shower later today.
I’d have to give Xander a heads-up so he could plan his hot tub time accordingly.
Then, I checked for any new online bookings, and—whoo-hoo!
—with the double-header of Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day coming up in a couple of weeks, the B and B had four new reservations for the long holiday weekend. Four!
Business at the Sunny Side was looking up.
Mentally, I began to make a list. I’d have to see if Maureen could handle a few extra housekeeping shifts with her class schedule. Plus, I’d need to talk to Xander about which repairs to prioritize to get things ready for our long-weekend guests.
Uh-oh, I thought suddenly. Guests?
Guests…
There was no bathtub in the Sunny Side roomy enough to contain Xander’s merman tail, so he’d need to continue using the hot tub out on the back deck.
And it was one thing to schedule around a three-hour booking in the dining room.
But with other people staying on the premises around the clock, it would be trickier to conceal his daily soaks.
The drawback of running a homey bed-and-breakfast was that folks tended to wander around here like it was their home.
Even if no one wanted to use the Jacuzzi in mid-February, we’d still need to keep people out of the kitchen and away from the back door and windows while Xander was…
replenishing. That would be doubly important now that we knew the hunters were still in the area and presumably still on the trail.
So, okay, I’d also have to enlist the help of my friends and get super conscientious about Xander Watch.
Maybe it would be best to just let out those four rooms at the front of the house? The ones without a view to the back deck.
Except…
What if there were additional bookings for the long weekend? What if we had a full house? That was, in fact, the whole point, wasn’t it? That was the business goal. To be fully booked, no vacancies.
Maybe there was some way to obscure the Jacuzzi from view? Only, the spa was a big selling point, especially in the summer. And by the time tourist season rolled around—knock wood—every room would be booked.
But if the bed-and-breakfast was totally occupied, what did that mean for Xander? And for us?
I’d promised to keep Xander safe from discovery, and he’d agreed to stay. I’d just reiterated that promise. But if I couldn’t hold up my end of our deal…
My stomach dropped.
Now, it didn’t just feel like the universe was conspiring against us being together. It felt like the Sunny Side Bed-and-Breakfast was getting in on the action too.
Maybe the idea that I couldn’t have both Xander and the B and B hadn’t been me thinking small. Maybe it had been me thinking clearly.
But, okay, I was getting way ahead of myself, wasn’t I? I took a deep breath and tried to slow down my runaway thinking. I didn’t have to worry about summertime. Not right this minute. For now, I just needed to concentrate on the upcoming holiday weekend.
Two weeks. I had about two weeks before these first couples would begin to descend on the Sunny Side for cozy three-night getaways with their luggage. And their potentially prying eyes.
So, I had a couple of weeks to figure out how to safely guard Xander’s secret. And goddammit, I was going to do everything I could to make this situation work.
And in the meantime…?
I wasn’t going to waste a minute I had with him.
Decisively, I opened a new window on my web browser, clicked on the search bar, and typed, “What’s a good restaurant for a date in Atlantic City?”