| |
––––––––
IT WAS STRANGE CLEANING up Mrs. Greene’s room. She’d been staying at the bed-and-breakfast for so long, it felt like she was living there right alongside me. She was the first of the wave of holiday guests who came right after Thanksgiving, but now that Christmas was looming, she was moving on. I wasn’t sure where. She’d never given me a direct answer. There were all those names on her card list, so it might have been one of them, but I wasn’t sure why she would mail a holiday card to someone she was going to be staying with over said holiday.
Maybe it was one of her children she often talked about. They were far-flung throughout the country, apparently, so she could have been headed just about anywhere to see one of them. Mrs. Greene was one of those age-ambiguous people who was definitely older, but the exact degree of older could fall anywhere on a wide spectrum. I didn’t know if we were talking her grown children were hosting their first holidays and she was going to surprise them with useful gifts like toasters and bedding they hadn’t thought to get for themselves. Or if it was more along the lines of her grandchildren thought it would be fun to change up tradition and have their grandmother over for the holidays to spend time with their children.
Of course, there was also the possibility she wasn’t going to spend time with family at all. She could have just been traveling around and ended up at the White Christmas Inn as part of her adventures but was now moving on. I could see that in her. She was a touch on the odd side and had a decided issue with personal space and kitchen safety, but she was unpredictable, and there seemed to be a touch of mischief in her. At least, I wanted there to be. I wanted to imagine her bouncing around the country, seeing different things, exploring towns, burning other people’s bread.
Her leaving left a bit of a hole in the bed-and-breakfast, but it also left a mound of linens, a room to clean, and a new guest to prepare for. That worked out for me. It had been a few days since the festival, and I’d managed to steer clear of Lawson by keeping myself busy. Not that it had been all that difficult considering the amount of work it took to run an ostensibly holiday-themed bed-and-breakfast, in the freaking wannabe North Pole, at Christmas, with no help.
That was the kicker right there. It was all starting to really settle in for me now. I was aware of the ridiculousness of it all before, but now that I was wading through the peppermint-scented midst of it all, I was really having to face up to the situation I put myself in. Not only did I decide to chase my grandmother’s dream for herself and start up the bed-and-breakfast, but I thought it would be a fantastic idea to do that during a major Independent Woman streak that deluded me into believing I could handle all the tasks of running the inn completely by myself.
I didn’t need no man. Or apparently staff.
It meant managing reservations, dealing with the guests, cooking, cleaning, organizing, and evidently, being a damn elf fulfilling Christmas wishes.
I might have also been a bit more bitter right about that moment.
The truth was, I was still really hurt by how everything went down with Lawson. I didn’t want to be. I scolded and chastised myself for it every time he made his way into my mind, which was far more often than I wanted to admit. In a way, it made it easier just to keep doing everything around the bed-and-breakfast I could possibly think of to do, including several things I just made up in order to give myself something to fill up the time that didn’t involve going to his room and confronting him about the phone call.
There were no versions of that conversation in my head that actually turned out well, so I figured it would be best if I put as many barriers as I could think of between myself and doing that. And the thing was, I knew how silly I was being. I’d spent a good amount of time that first night and the next day talking myself through the whole situation and reminding myself there was nothing for me to be upset about. Not in the logical, sane part of my brain, anyway.
Lawson and I weren’t anything to begin with, so I couldn’t be upset that we weren’t anything now. We never talked about having feelings for each other, or any kind of commitment, or even what we were going to do when it came time for Lawson to leave. We got wrapped up in the sparkle of the tinsel and the heady scent of pine trees and cookies, ended up kissing, and then tumbled into bed together.
That was it. Maybe it wasn’t the sweetest story in the world when I broke it down that way, and the way things were rolling right along at this moment, we weren’t going to end up as any kind of TV-special people cuddled up under themed blankets to watch. But I had to think of it that way. I had to dismantle the whole thing down into its basic elements and remind myself that was the way this all happened, and it was how it was going to end as well.
We never talked about any of this. We never mentioned it or questioned how things were developing. Lawson never told me there was a woman at home, but I also didn’t ask. He didn’t ask me about my relationship status or what might be going on in my social life either. I wouldn’t have had anything to tell him even if he did, but that was beyond the point.
Now I was just trying not to let myself think about it. I just wanted to get through the rest of the season, have him and the other guests take their figgy pudding and leave, then focus on how I was going to attract more guests so I could make money at the inn during the off-season.
I finished cleaning Mrs. Greene’s room and carried the linens and towels down to the living room. It was still early in the morning, but I wanted to make sure the room was ready even if the new guest showed up before the technical time for check-in. I’d encountered that issue already. A couple of times since the bed-and-breakfast opened, one guest would check out and another would appear at the front desk a couple of hours before check-in, wanting to get into their room, then be flustered and aggravated when it wasn’t ready for them.
It was not a fun situation. I did get so annoyed at one of them that when they asked to speak to my manager, I walked out of the room, waited a few seconds, then walked back in and introduced myself as the manager of the inn. That gave me a couple of seconds of chuckling. But I’d rather avoid that happening. If the new people got there early, I was going to be ready for them.
Finished with that task, I headed into the kitchen to get everything ready for breakfast. I wasn’t making anything elaborate. I didn’t have it in me to try to put together a big spread. That morning, I was choosing just to be proud of myself for not plunking down a box of toaster pastries and instant coffee crystals and calling it a day.
I was lining a cookie sheet with slices of buttered bread sprinkled with shredded cheese to go with the bowl of fruit and boxes of cereal I intended to put out on the table when the kitchen door opened. I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to see who it was. With Mrs. Greene gone, my options had dwindled down to one. I still looked. The last few days, I’d gotten breakfast done early and didn’t linger around the kitchen to give him any opportunity to get to me.
That morning, he surprised me by slipping through the door earlier than he usually did. I didn’t know if that was intentional, like he was trying to seek me out and knew this was the most likely place to find me unless he wanted to hang out around the washer and dryer for a meetup, or if he just felt perky that morning. Either way, he flashed me a smile and headed right for the coffee maker.
It was the routine we’d established almost immediately after he arrived, but it felt off now. The last couple of days, I’d gotten breakfast on the table early and didn’t bother with coffee because the guests who drank the most of it had checked out. I left everything out and went about my morning, giving it some time to let everyone finish before going to clean up. When I went back, there were used coffee cups and a dirty carafe, so I could only assume Lawson had still gone into the kitchen and made some without me.
It also meant the guests wanted it, which was why I’d already brewed some while I got the food ready.
But Lawson was so accustomed to making a pot first thing and then keeping up with demand throughout breakfast, he didn’t even notice the full pot sitting on the hot plate staying warm or the full carafe sitting beside it until he had gotten the beans out and was preparing to fill the reservoir. He paused and looked at the machine curiously, then glanced over at me.
“There’s fresh coffee over here,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I made it. I was getting breakfast ready for the guests, and they are going to want coffee to start their day. So, I made coffee,” I said matter-of-factly as I put the tray of bread into the oven and turned on the broiler.
“Yes, I understand the concept,” Lawson said with a hint of a laugh. “I just meant why did you make it? You knew I was going to come down and make some.”
I shrugged. “It’s my job. So, I did it.”
He laughed again. Something about him laughing aggravated me.
“You know, I haven’t seen much of you in a few days. You’ve been getting breakfast on the table and disappearing before I’ve even had a chance to get up. I decided to get in here extra early today just to see if I could snag a look at you,” he said.
I nearly melted. Which reminded me to check the cheese toast in the oven because anything having to do with a broiler was very touch and go in my kitchen. There was a very fine line between delightfully warm and bubby with just the perfect amount of melt and some toasty brown spots and everything getting burned all to hell. Besides, glancing into the oven to check the toast gave me the perfect excuse not to look at him. And hopefully to stop him from seeing the flush his words brought to my cheeks.
“I’ve had a lot to do,” I explained. I stayed hovered over the oven, watching as the broiler melted down the cheese and the edges of the toast started crisping up. “I’ve been busy cleaning up after the guests and getting ready for new ones. I haven’t exactly had a bunch of extra time.”
The toast hit its perfect state, and I promptly took it out. Grabbing a spatula, I transitioned the slices over onto a platter, grabbed the full carafe, and walked out into the dining room without looking his way. I set the toast and coffee on the table and made myself smile at the guests. Vint reached out and snatched one of the slices, wincing and dropping it to his plate almost instantly.
“Careful,” I said. “Those are just out of the oven.”
He nodded and sucked on his fingers for a second, then leaned down and blew air onto the toast, dramatically puffing out his cheeks with each blow.
“It smells good,” he said.
That made my smile feel more genuine. This little boy was really growing on me. When his family first checked in, I didn’t think I was going to get used to having a child around all the time. I never spent a lot of time with children. There wasn’t any opportunity to. I was an only child, born to an only child and a child with only one sibling who didn’t end up having children. None of my friends had really young siblings. It wasn’t that I vehemently disliked them or didn’t want them around. I just wasn’t used to them.
It worried me that I might not be able to be a good host for a child, especially one who was going to be around for such a long time. Maybe he would be one of those loud, obnoxious children who liked to run up and down stairs or jump off furniture. Or the kind who screamed and cried all the time, or asked a thousand questions, or tried to color on the walls.
And there had definitely been moments when he’d been loud. He’d screamed a couple of times. But for the most part, he’d been sweet, and watching him enjoy the Christmas craziness I’d been trying to put into place had made it all worth it.
Even on the days when I made the most involved breakfasts, I didn’t like to hover around the dining room. It felt weird to stand there while the guests ate and talked. Usually that meant going back into the kitchen to make my own breakfast and eat before it was time to clean up. But that morning, I knew if I went back into the kitchen, Lawson would be there. I didn’t want to have the conversation he tried to start up when he mentioned he hadn’t seen me around much in the last few days, so instead, I headed upstairs to start the cleaning.
One of the ideas I was more proud of when it came to how I was running the bed-and-breakfast was little door hangers I left in each of the rooms. They resembled traditional do-not-disturb signs but instead had a list of requests or needs that guests could check off, as well as an area where they could write in anything else they might have on their minds. Having those made it possible for me to just swing by and get them from the doors in the mornings or evenings so I could quickly handle whatever needed to be done.
That morning there weren’t any hangers, but as I walked by Lawson’s room, I remembered what I said to him about cleaning up after the “other” guests. He hadn’t let me clean his room, make his bed, or even put extra toiletries in his bathroom since he arrived. He brought the linens down to me, brought fresh ones up to his own room, and asked me where to find anything he needed.
That morning, I felt like I needed to give myself that distance. I went into his room and emptied the trash can, grabbed the dirty towels, and took a couple of dishes I found sitting on the corner of the dresser. I didn’t know exactly why, but it felt therapeutic.
I brought the towels to the laundry room and brought the dishes with me into the dining room to check on the guests. They did not look happy.
“I thought it was getting better,” one of them muttered.
“I’ve never experienced something like this at a bed-and-breakfast,” an old woman who had checked in the day before said. Miss Nancy might have been old and liked to sit in the parlor in the afternoon, but she was certainly no Mrs. Greene.
“Can you even call this breakfast?” Vint’s father asked. “Is this half a grilled cheese?”
This was a fantastic reminder of another reason I didn’t like to hang out in the dining room while my guests were there.
I set my jaw, trying to keep control of myself. “It’s cheese toast. My grandmother used to make it for me when I was a little girl. The bed-and-breakfast was her idea, so that is a dish in honor of her.”
It was true that my grandmother used to make me the broiled cheese toast, but it wasn’t until I started talking and heard the words come out of my mouth that I thought about having it in honor of her. They didn’t need to know that. The toast was delicious, and they should have just been enjoying it rather than seeing festive flaws in its existence. Or mine.
