“Goodnight, Mattie,” he said before walking back in the direction we came.
“Night,” I called after him, my voice only slightly shaky.
Climbing the stairs, I thought of nothing except for how good it felt to be that close to Giles Stone.
ChapterSeventeen
Hi Mike,
Everything is going well at The Key Ridge Ski Lodge. Please see below for some of the changes I’ve implemented to date:
Updated guest booking system
Implemented automated check in and check out
Hired a new housekeeping team
Created a guest survey to gather feedback after checkout
Incentivized reviews with a 5% rental discount code
In addition to these changes, we are actively working on getting the lounge area up and running. The plan is to have it open Thursday-Sunday. There will be a full bar and a basic menu that will be easy to keep up with. There will be a happy hour coinciding with the ski hill closing to hopefully gain new nonguest generated business. I’ll keep you updated.
Thanks for all your trust!
Mattie
Mattie,
Glad to hear everything is going smoothly over there. I had no doubt you would be successful. FYI we have some promising leads for your replacement once we’ve secured the contract. Please see the resumes I’ve attached.
Mike
Staringat the last line of Mike’s email, I sighed and closed the laptop. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the resumes right now. Knowing I would have to leave eventually, and actually facing that reality, were two completely different things. I was finally getting comfortable here. It felt strange to think about leaving. I wasn’t sure how I felt about returning to Florida and all the memories I wanted desperately to leave behind.
After the golf cart incident, I finally deleted all social media from my phone so that there was no way I could see any of Garrett’s or Nadine’s posts. I couldn’t mentally handle it. But right now, my hand was itching to hit that redownload button and see exactly what they were doing. Frankie’s voice was in the back of my mind, scolding me for even thinking about doing that. Shaking her hypothetical words out of my guilty conscience, I reached for my phone.
“How are you feeling today, Florida?”
Jumping, I jerked my hand away from my phone as if I had just touched a hot burner.
Giles raised his eyebrows. “Did I scare you?”
“Sorry, I was just a little zoned out.” I forced a smile. “You were right. My tailbone is even more sore than yesterday.”
Should I bring up last night?
“So about last night.” Giles interrupted my thoughts. “It was fun…” His eyes shifted to the floor.
“Definitely,” I agreed. My brain seemed incapable of coming up with something else to say.
“Right,” he replied, drumming his fingers against the desk, and rocking back and forth. “So, I heard the plans to fix up the lounge are in full swing.”
I eyed him nervously and nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Bev mentioned it to me. I thought maybe you might need some help or something. A ride, maybe? There’s a hardware store in the town over and a secondhand furniture shop.”
“You-you want to help?” I stumbled over my words, surprised he was being so cooperative.
