Page 43 of In Your Wake

Celia lets my words fade as I take in everything around me, from her cozy house to the garden, overflowing with the fragrance of the flowers she’s planted over the summer months. “Do you know how lucky you are to have all this?”

“The garden?”

“Everything. It’s just so… perfect.”

Celia’s laugh turns into a snort. “You’re crazy. This house is far from perfect. Perfect are those mansions on Lyndhurst.”

I tilt my head. “Mansions are overrated. I want this,” I reply. “A cute little house, nothing fancy. Somewhere I can live comfortably and raise a family.” I shrug, polishing off the cookie. “But at the rate I’m going, I’ll likely die alone and childless, still living above the tailor’s shop,” I add lightheartedly, but Celia glowers, not finding my joke funny.

“You won’t die alone. I am sure of that.” She dips her cookie into her coffee. “I didn’t know you wanted kids.”

“One day, I mean, maybe? There was a time when I had a clear path all planned out. Now it’s all shot to hell.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I wanted to go to college. I wanted to study veterinary medicine, but once I graduated high school, I took a year off to work and save some money. The next thing I knew, my part-time job wasn’t so part-time anymore, and the rest is history.”

“Wait, you’ve been at the inn that long?” she asks, shocked, and I nod in response, a little embarrassed. She places a hand on my arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Max. You run the inn really well. So, what if it wasn’t your dream? I think you ended up in a good place.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Appearances can be deceiving. Besides, if I’m running it so well, then why is it imploding?” I don’t mind talking shop with Celia since she is our part-time bookkeeper and knows more about our finances than anyone else. If anyone understands the inn’s predicament, it’s her.

She chews her cookie slowly, thinking before she speaks. “But we’re turning that around. The brewery’s opening helped and got us loads of reservations.”

When I checked the online reservation system this morning, I expected one or two bookings, not a dozen spread out over the next few months. “Sure, but that’s because we’re offering a huge discount. People love discounts. Once they have to pay full price, we’ll be right back where we started.”

“Wow,” she says, chasing her bite with a few sips of her coffee. “I always thought you were such a cynical person. Glad to see I was wrong.” Her eyebrow lifts slightly, a faint smile plays on her lips, but her sarcasm is unmistakable. “There’s still hope. We’ve got to work for it, that’s all. Don’t give up.”

I lean back into the couch cushions, looking up at the dusting of whitish-gray clouds, wondering if it’ll rain soon.

“Mitchell offered to help,” I admit.

“He has? The jerk,” she tacks on.

“I mean, I guess he has the money,” I begin, meeting her gaze. “And Bill and Robyn want the two of us to run it, once Bill’s gone.”

“Oh,” Celia says. Then, her eyes widen as if my words have finally sunk in. “Well… shit.”

“Hey, I thought we weren’t supposed to swear.”

“Ella can’t hear us out here.” She stands up, fixing her shorts. “This calls for something more than coffee.”

While she goes inside and I wait, I shut my eyes, trying to quell this ball of emotions lodged in my throat, when I hear an all too familiar laugh in the not-too-far distance and my eyes burst open. It’s loud, gruff, powerful, and makes my stomach twist.

Celia returns, holding a bottle of red wine, and fills two glasses without asking if I want any. Not that I’d refuse—wine would definitely help with how I’m feeling. Ella follows behind her mother, giving me a quick high-five before running off to play in the backyard.

“So, tell me about his offer,” Celia says.

I ramble on, explaining how against it I am, how our past will only cause a bigger rift between Mitch and me. How catastrophic working together will be.

“Okay, so here we are again, me not understanding,” she says, looking confused. “If you two were best friends, why do you hate him so much?”

Celia and I have become close since she started working at the inn. She listens to my whining any time, any day. She’s a truly good person. Why else would she be so perfect for my brother, the natural-born saint?

“Whatever I tell you cannot reach Hunter’s ears, got it?” I ask, looking her in the eye.

“I would never. Promise.”

I shove my hands into the pockets of my hoodie, then snuggle down into the couch cushions like an animal burrowing for shelter. “The summer the boys went to college, I was into Mitch. Like really into him.” I bring my knees up, hugging myself. “But then I found something out. Something big that affected both of us, only I didn’t tell him. At the time, it seemed like the best move. If he found out, it would kill him and I couldn’t do that to him.”