Page 118 of Once Upon a Fall

“Proud of you, Rosebud,” he says before leaving.

After I eat my spaghetti and meatballs—only tearing up once, which I’m calling progress—I get to work on cleaning some things up around the inn, getting stuff ready for the guests coming this weekend.

My dad’s words keep coming back to me while I fold towels, putting the big fluffy white towels in one pile and the ugly brown ones in another.

Something that’s mine.

I want something that’s mine, too. And if I’m being honest with myself, that something is Dean. But I’ve already done the math on that. I know it doesn’t work.

And unlike my fantasies, he never said I want to leave my career and move to Autumn Ridge and work at the inn with you, my beautiful goddess, Rosie.

Of course, Dean would never say any of that. He also wouldn’t say it in the British accent I gave him in my head.

I have the inn, though, and that’s mine. The best part is that it’s hardly ever lonely here anymore, not with guests coming and going, and I’m proud of what I’ve done with the place. The reviews that have been coming in seem to agree.

But when I carry the ugly brown towels into my room, my eyes land on the Live, Laugh, Love sign hanging over the couch.

I hate that sign. No, that’s mean. It’s a perfectly good saying. We should all live, laugh, and love a little more. But why is it still hanging in my room? This space is supposed to be mine, and yet it still has the Jacobsens all over it.

I set the towels down on the desk, then climb onto the couch, balancing on the cushions as I pull the sign off the wall.

“Goodbye, live, laugh, love,” I say to the frame.

Then I pull my phone out of the back pocket of my overalls, snap a picture, and send it to Dean.

Me: Look what I took down.

It doesn’t take long before he responds.

Dean: Good.

Me: Do you want it? I’ll save it for you.

I send a laughing emoji.

Dean: No.

We’ve been texting a bit here and there. It didn’t take me long to learn that Dean is a bit of a dry texter. Which wasn’t all that surprising, to be honest.

I set the frame on the desk, but now there’s a perfect rectangle where it used to hang, making the taupe paint I’ve never been a fan of look even worse.

I could find another picture to cover it. That would be an easy fix.

Or, I could paint over it. I’ve got plenty of leftover paint in the garage. This wall would look lovely in Fairest of Them All. Or plain old white, according to Dean.

I stare at the rectangle, then toward the garage, and, without overthinking it too much, I go grab the supplies.

Two days later, and that Live, Laugh, Love sign has had a massive snowball effect.

I started with only the one wall—painting the whole thing from top to bottom. But then that wall turned into more walls, and then sometime around two in the morning, I ran out of paint. I considered using the other colors. Maybe my room would be a hodgepodge of all the different room colors.

But that’s not what I wanted. So that night, I slept in the Snow White room because of the paint fumes, with a plan to go get more in the morning.

Did I choose that particular room because that was the last place Dean slept before he left and I wanted to feel close to him, like a weirdo? Of course not. But also, maybe a little.

The next morning, I went to Berk’s Hardware to get more paint so I could do the entire room. It was money I hadn’t budgeted for. But, for some reason, I was okay with it. And when I was done painting, I knew why. It was so much better. The room was brighter and felt somehow bigger.

But I didn’t stop with the paint.