Page 27 of Room for Us
There’s a heavy pause in which the air virtually crackles. “Don’t get pissy with me. Unless you’re allergic to aspirin, take the pills and drink the damn water. There’s espresso, toast, and bacon in the dining room. It’ll help if you eat a bit.”
Her voice slices like lightning. Shocking. Exhilarating. Too bad I’m too fucked up to appreciate it.
She sets the water and pills on the coffee table, glares at me once more for good measure, then stalks from the room. A minute later, I hear cabinets slamming in the kitchen.
I’m sick in the head.
There’s really no other explanation for why I’m smiling.
17
Hauling a mostly unconscious, full-grown man from the car, up porch steps, into the house, and to the living room sofa now tops my list of Things I Never Want to Do Again, right up there with Remarry and Run an inn.
Babysitting a full-grown man drunk off his ass is something I’ve avoided my entire life. Unlike nearly every one of my girlfriends, I’ve never been attracted to the so-called bad boys. The ones who smoked, drank, broke rules and laws. The irresponsible, entitled ones. Erratic, indecipherable ones. Their innate magnetism, which seems to affect everyone around them, was and is repellent to me.
He is repellent.
I hate that I stayed awake all night, his vigilant caretaker, and watched him sleep. I couldn’t help myself, enslaved by the rare opportunity of observing a wild animal in repose. I hate that I memorized the furrow in his brow, the shape and movement of his lips and jaw. The flush on his cheekbones and the dark, damp hair on his brow. I watched him toss and turn and listened to him mumble about roses, though the jumbled words were nothing I could make sense of.
But I know well the signs of inner torment, and my heart actually hurt for him. I even believed he’d wake up contrite. Softer. More human. And we could move forward with a modicum of understanding. After a rough start, the next weeks would be smooth sailing.
Stupid me.
When I hear him in the hallway headed toward the bathroom, I sneak from the kitchen to my room. He has what he needs—I ran into town at the asscrack of dawn, was waiting when Beans & Books opened, and bought him his fancy espresso. There’s multigrain toast and fresh bacon. I’ve done my duty as his innkeeper.
Will he thank me for any of it? For keeping him out of the drunk-tank last night? Doubtful. I should have told Roger to call the cops and let them deal with it. Next time, I will. I won’t take care of him again. Let him evoke worry or sympathy or any other emotion. Let him walk all over me until he walks out of my life.
God love her, but I won’t make the same mistakes my mother did. She ignored all the red flags my father was waving around and let him into her heart. Once he was there, he lit a match and burned it to the ground.
Wild animals can never be fully domesticated.
Five hours of sleep, a shower, and fresh clothes go a long way to resetting my emotional equilibrium, which veered waaaay off track this morning.
Ethan Hart isn’t my father—far from it—and there’s absolutely no reason to let him affect me. He’s nothing but a guest of my inn. A high-maintenance, rude one. Whatever fascination or sympathy I felt last night was the result of sleep-deprivation.
When I emerge from my room just before noon, the house is quiet. I make tea and eat a banana, then check out the dining room. The large cup of espresso is gone, as are a few pieces of bread and half the bacon.
Next stop is the top of the stairs, where I pause just long enough to see the DND sign displayed on his door. Good. Maybe he’ll stay in his room again all day, sleeping or doing whatever else he does in there. I don’t care. It’s none of my business.
For six thousand dollars, I can make it another five and a half weeks. Ethan Hart is my trial by fire. If I can survive his stay with my—relative—sanity intact, then I can handle anything a guest throws at me. I have to stay focused on the long-term. Today that means checking off the next item on my to-do list, which entails a trip to the nursery.
My knowledge of plants is limited to the fact they need sunlight and water. Aunt Barb, on the other hand, had a green thumb. Rose House in summer was magazine-picturesque: the driveway lined with blooming pink, red, and white roses, the now-empty hanging baskets on the porch overflowing with color.
The color is all gone, and so are the plants. No more roses along the driveway. No more greenery in the dirt plots surrounding the porch.
When I asked my mom about when and why Aunt B pulled everything out, she told me it was recent—earlier this year—and that maybe she’d wanted to try something new in the spring. Of course, before I asked Mom I asked Aunt B myself, but being the sassy ghost she is, she changed the subject to how much she misses tequila.
At the nursery, I wander up and down aisles stocked with flowers and plants. I stare and frown at them like they’re alien lifeforms, reading tags and instructions until I’m overwhelmed and seconds from bailing. Luckily, an employee takes pity on me and asks if I need help.
“Yes, I definitely do,” I say, turning toward the voice. When I see who it is, I gape. “Celeste?”
She tugs on the green employee vest, her smile hesitant. “Hi, Zoey.”
My mind draws a blank. All I can come up with is: “I didn’t know you worked here.”
She laughs a little. “Yep. Full-time. Going on five years.”
“But… but—”
