Chapter 29
The latest meeting of the Atlantic Avenue Block Association broke up, ending more positively than it had started.
With everyone gone, Xander went out to the deck to take his daily dip in the spa, but I hung back in the lobby.
After everything that had transpired this morning, I needed some time alone with my thoughts.
Wandering aimlessly, I plumped a throw pillow here, adjusted a vase there, all the while trying to process.
But how could I even think straight? There was too much going on.
I had two important relationships dominating my life right now—one with Xander, one with the Sunny Side—both loaded with complications.
And to make matters worse, the two relationships seemed to be at odds with each other.
Still drifting around the room, I stopped to straighten the old, framed photograph that hung by the front door.
It was a picture of my great-grandparents, the ones who had started the business.
Although I’d never met them, I felt like I knew them.
After all, they’d been watching me from that photo since I was a girl.
Or watching out for me, maybe…
Huh. It was the second time that idea had popped into my head out of nowhere.
No, wait, I thought in a lightning strike of realization. Not out of nowhere.
Memory, as I’d recently come to understand, was a funny thing.
With the right trigger, an experience long forgotten could come rushing back in an instant.
The trigger could be something incredible, like the sight of a real, live merman.
Or it could be something incredibly ordinary, like this black-and-white photograph I’d walked past pretty much every day of my life.
Because now, staring at this photo, I remembered.
I remembered seeing this same picture the day I’d almost drowned.
I remembered running past it in an agitated state.
I remembered feeling like the watchful eyes of my great-grandmother and great-grandfather had followed me out the door, down to the beach, and into the ocean. And then, when I’d found myself in trouble, hovering somewhere between life and death, I’d sent out a desperate plea.
Please, please, please, I’d prayed silently to anyone up there who might be listening, let me live. Let me live, and I swear, I’ll happily work at the Sunny Side for the rest of my natural-born life.
After that, I remembered waking up on the shore, scared and disoriented and young, so young.
And somehow, in my sixteen-year-old brain, I’d connected it all, thinking my late ancestors had answered my SOS.
And following that logic, I’d reasoned that I owed them a debt: Because my family had saved my life, my life belonged to the family business.
I shivered as a cold chill ran through me.
Hugging myself, I tried to get a grip. Okay, so maybe that was what had happened ten years ago. But what of it? It didn’t mean anything. Since that one summer of raging teenage angst, I’d always wanted to work at the Sunny Side. I’d chosen this life, and I’d chosen it freely.
Hadn’t I?
I wasn’t just here because of some magical thinking in my teens and a sense of imagined obligation.
Was I?
No. No, of course I wasn’t.
But maybe, subconsciously, it had been a factor?
Suddenly, my skull felt like the machine that drew the daily lottery numbers, with all these questions flying around inside it like so many little white balls.
I kept trying to think things through, but the more time I spent in my head, the more confused I became. And the less I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.
When I couldn’t take my private little pity party any longer, I grabbed my coat from the rack by the door, threw it on, and headed out back.
* * *
I met Xander’s gaze across the deck, through the partition of steam rising from the Jacuzzi. We hadn’t yet cleared the air about my outburst this morning, so I decided it was time.
“Thanks for fixing the garbage disposal,” I told him as I approached the spa. Then, because my brain was still such a jumble, with all these disparate thoughts tumbling topsy-turvy, one over the other, I blurted out, “I’m so sorry.”
Xander looked at me, bemused. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “The mechanism is quite delicate. It clogs easily.”
It took me a moment to connect the dots. While Xander’s translation charm had caused miscommunications in the past, this one, I knew, was all on me.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “I wasn’t apologizing for shoving potato peels down the disposal,” I explained. “I was apologizing for…” I sifted through the mess in my mind to find the right words. “For the way I acted earlier” was what I came up with.
“Ah,” said Xander, nodding his understanding. “I don’t believe that was entirely your fault either.”
I sat down on the lip of the hot tub, thinking. “Well, I don’t like it when people hover and fret over me. So, I can see how you probably didn’t like it when I did that to you.”
“I didn’t like it,” he admitted. “But I think what we both don’t like is that you had a valid reason to be worried.”
Aaand there it was. The subject we’d been dancing around.
We both knew that if Xander remained in this world—the human world—he was at risk.
Full stop. Even if you took those three hunters and anybody else with evil intentions out of the picture, he was still in danger.
His collapse yesterday had proven that. Yes, okay, Xander was able to adapt to the land.
Better, certainly, than I could have to the sea.
But as we’d both just seen for ourselves, his ability to adapt had hard limits.
And if Xander pushed those limits again, who knew what might happen?
Plus, I’d sworn to keep him safe. So, if I couldn’t protect him—even if it was just from himself, from his own nature—I didn’t want to be selfish and make him stay. Only, at the same time…
“I know you don’t really belong in this world,” I said. “But I…I can’t imagine being in a world without you in it.”
“I feel the same,” he said. He reached out for me, taking my dry hand in his wet one, and—boy, oh boy—wasn’t that just our whole situation in a damn nutshell?
Here I was, sitting outside of the spa, with my feet on the ground, bundled up against the weather.
Meanwhile, he was naked in the water, his giant tail unfurling beneath the bubbles.
I squeezed his damp hand back. “I don’t want you to leave,” I said.
“And I don’t want to leave you.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked. “I mean, we can try to stick to a more rigid daily schedule for your, uh…hot tub time. To keep you strong.” I frowned.
“But…how? This is a bed-and-breakfast. People stay here overnight. And your cover was nearly blown with just one guest on the premises. Once it’s summer… ”
“It’s not summer yet,” he said.
It wasn’t. But while the weather was still cold, the snow had mostly melted, and the air didn’t have that hard, bitter edge to it anymore. It was one of those early February days that promised warmer days ahead.
“But summer is coming,” I insisted. “Not to mention, the place is already half booked for the long holiday weekend. And that’s in less than two weeks.”
“So, we still have almost two weeks to figure out a solution,” he replied with a shrug and an easy smile.
“Well, so far, I’ve got nothing,” I grumbled. “You?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe your friends could help.” He paused. “But I draw the line at being towed around again like a sack of dirty laundry.”
I gave him a small smile.
But as I thought about it, I realized he was right. Maybe my friends could help.
Maybe there was a way for them to keep the guests occupied while Xander used the Jacuzzi…
I could see the beginnings of a plan coming together.
We were both quiet for a while. I should have felt better. And I did—about Presidents’ Day weekend, anyway. Still, I found myself squirming uncomfortably in my seat on the ledge of the spa.
“And what else?” asked Xander finally.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There’s something else that’s troubling you,” he said.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
Xander raised his eyebrows. “Then why do you have such a tight grip on my hand?”
I did indeed have a deathlike clutch on his fingers. Embarrassed, I let go. “Because I have a crush on you,” I joked.
He didn’t laugh. He just kept looking at me, like he was trying to see into the very heart of me. “Hannah,” he said softly. “Tell me. What is it?”
Averting my eyes, I stared at my lap, studying the weave of the fabric of my sweater coat, reluctant to answer. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Might I recommend the beginning?” he offered.
If anyone else had said that to me, it would have sounded snide.
But I could tell his words were sincere.
Xander wanted to know what was bothering me.
And the truth was, I wanted to tell him.
It was the reason I’d come out here in the first place.
Lately, if things were going badly—or even not so badly—my first instinct was to talk about it with Xander.
I lifted my gaze and took a deep breath, and I started—as he’d suggested—at the beginning of it all. “Did I ever mention that the Sunny Side Bed-and-Breakfast has been in my family for over a hundred years?” I asked.
“That’s impressive,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed. “Although, I wasn’t always so impressed with it. Growing up, I kind of resented this place. I knew I was next in line to run things, but I didn’t like my future being a foregone conclusion. I hated being the heir apparent.”
Heir apparent? I thought, cringing at my word choice. Exaggerate much?
With a grimace, I peered at Xander, hoping he’d see through the hyperbole to the emotional truth. “Do you know what I mean?” I asked.
He simply nodded, without even the smallest hint of an eye roll. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. And the way he said it, his voice so heavy and serious, I believed that he did.
Encouraged, I continued. “But then, well…I almost drowned. And I changed. That whole experience changed me. It was as if I got to a fork in the road that day, and I took the path that led back to the B and B. I accepted that my life was here—or I thought I did, anyway.”
“But now, you’re not sure?” he asked. His posture had become super attentive, his green eyes extra intent on me.
“I don’t know,” I said. I opened my mouth to say something else, but then, I just shook my head and sighed.
“Hannah?” prodded Xander.
I shook my head again. “It’s stupid.”
“If it has you this agitated,” he said, “it’s not stupid.”
I thought about that. He was right. Again.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the photos hanging all over the B and B?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
“They’re my ancestors,” I said. “I used to imagine they were watching me. And that day I almost drowned, I got it into my head that they were watching out for me.”
Xander shrugged. “Maybe they were.”
I eyed him skeptically. “Do you have a magic seashell for that?” I asked.
“No,” he said, not the least bit put off by my smart-ass reply. “But I just happened to be there when you needed me. So, who’s to say what’s possible?”
I frowned. That really wasn’t helping.
“Well, is it possible that’s why I’m here?” I asked. “Did I even choose this life? Or did I just figure my family took care of me, so now I have to take care of the Sunny Side?”
Xander smiled a knowing smile. “Family obligations can be complicated,” he said. “And quite compelling.”
Too true. Except, my mother and father didn’t run this place out of obligation. Jack Lee didn’t want to buy this place out of obligation. They all loved the B and B.
“So, what about love?” I burst out without thinking.
I hadn’t meant to bring up love—not in a romantic sense, anyway. Not in an “us” sense. It was too soon for that. But with the L word suddenly out there, everything between Xander and me seemed to slow down. And heat up.
I pondered the extreme greenness of his eyes. The fullness of his lips. The way his Adam’s apple moved up and down when he swallowed. He was swallowing a lot.
“What about love?” he asked in a low voice that I felt all the way down to my core.
“Um…” I cleared my throat and tried to remember where I’d been going with this. “Well, you know Jack Lee?” I asked. “The guest who just checked out?”
Xander blinked at me. And blinked again. “You’re in love with Jack Lee?”
“What?” I asked. Then I burst out laughing. “No. Oh—God, no. No. Nothing like that.”
My laughter helped shift the atmosphere back to neutral. Xander’s tail swished through the water with something like relief.
“See, Jack Lee used to vacation at the Sunny Side when he was a kid,” I explained. “And he has all these fun, fond memories of being here. But me? I just remember making beds and cleaning toilets and wishing I was out with my friends instead. It’s like…he loves this place more than I do.”
I watched as Xander took it all in.
“He wants to buy the place, you know,” I said.
Xander’s brows shot up. “No,” he said, very alert. “I did not know.”
“But I convinced my parents not to sell it,” I said. “Or, I should say, I convinced them to sell it to me. If we can make the numbers work. To keep the family business in the family.”
“But you’re having second thoughts about that?” asked Xander slowly, not taking his eyes off me.
“I don’t know,” I said again. I peered up at the old, sprawling Victorian.
“I thought I’d totally embraced this life.
But maybe I’ve just been clinging to it?
Out of obligation?” I weighed that. Now that I was hashing it all out, that didn’t feel quite right.
Perhaps obligation was part of it, but it wasn’t the whole story.
“Or out of fear?” I heard myself add in a small voice.
Xander’s eyes on me were kind. “What are you afraid of?” he asked softly.
What was I afraid of?
Deep water, obviously. Drowning. But that was the easy answer.
Maybe it was the depth of my own desires that scared me, the idea of getting swept away. As long as I clung to what I knew, I felt safe. But if I let go, I’d have to sink or swim. And I hadn’t gone swimming in a very long time.
So…what was I afraid of?
“I don’t know,” I said.
But that fire deep inside me? It was gaining in intensity.