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“Can you look up hotels or anywhere nearby that might have two rooms available?” Cole continued.
Right, two rooms, of course. Because, obviously, two work colleagues who hated each other would stay separately. My stomach unknotted, and I batted away the disappointment that threatened to seep in along with the relief of having that anxiety resolved.
As Cole focused on crawling us forward, I called everything at the next several exits, and everyone was full. I was told there was “No Room at the Inn” more than once, and experienced a taste of Christmas exasperation that Cole seemed to be so familiar with.
I finally hit some luck with The Old Coach Inn, the proprietor letting us know that they absolutely had space for us and to come on over, they would keep some dinner warm for us too.
“Okay, Cole, we’re heading to The Old Coach Inn, it’s at the next exit which is exit—”
“69,” he finished for me.
I snorted, the stress and length of the day finally catching up with me. Cole chuckled as well.
“What are you, a fourteen-year-old boy?”
“Maybe when I’ve been in a car for an hour and traveled three miles, it sends me to that mindset, Thomas. Okay?!”
Cole laughed softly at me, and then we were on the exit ramp, and I directed him to the bed and breakfast’s parking lot, taking the last spot that someone had plowed out, though it was a losing battle, the falling snow refilling the parking spot and coming up to the bottom rim of the tires already.
I couldn’t help my squeal as we got out of the car. Now that we were off the road and had secured a place to stay, I was able to focus on how beautiful the snow was and what a perfect Christmas scene the B&B portrayed in it. It had snow-covered eaves that were illuminated by strands of white lights, the porch railings were draped with garland, a candle illuminated each window, and wreaths hung on the front doors. If we had to be stranded for the night, at least it was somewhere they did Christmas right.
“Good grief,” Cole muttered as we opened the front door, and more of the same level of festive decorations were displayed in the interior.
“Shhh!” I shushed Cole, not wanting to hurt the feelings of the kind-looking woman at the desk, who had looked up as soon as she heard the door open.
“Hi there!” the woman called as we approached the desk. “You must be my last stranded travelers! I’m Louise, and welcome to The Old Coach Inn.”
“Hi Louise. I’m Blaire and this is Cole. Thanks so much for holding rooms for us. Everywhere else we tried was full, and it was time to get off the road, get warm, and wait for the snow to stop.”
Louise’s expression morphed into one of concern.
“Oh dear. Rooms? No, I’m afraid we just have one room left. It does have a king-sized bed in it. I heard you say you need a room for two people, not that you needed two rooms. Everything else is full, either with people already staying with us, or folks like yourselves, who needed to get off the road and rest their heads for the night.”
“Is there a couch in the room, Louise? Or maybe a cot we could have brought up into the room?” Cole chimed in at this point.
“I’m afraid not. It’s a cozy little room. There isn’t space for much besides the bed, nightstands, and armoire. It does have its own bathroom, though!” Louise answered brightly, either immune to grumpy travelers or choosing to ignore Cole’s look of displeasure at the lack of sleeping options.
I jumped back in before Cole could say anything to lose us this room for the night.
“Thank you so much Louise. We understand there are a lot of people who need a place to stay on a night like tonight. We’ll figure it out.”
There was a bathroom. He could sleep in the bathtub for all I cared.
“On another note, do you happen to have any extra toiletries or some lost and found clothes we could raid? We weren’t planning being out overnight, obviously, and it would be a bit uncomfortable to sleep in this.” I swept my hands at my business attire, not at all conducive for sleeping.
“I have some toothbrushes here and there are typical toiletries in the room, but our lost and found has been thoroughly raided already.”
Louise started to ring her hands as she delivered this news, apparently not as immune to Cole’s glower as I had originally estimated.
“Okay! I mean, a dress is basically a nightgown, right?”
“I have my gym bag that I got out of the back of my Jeep. I have a few things here. We’ll make it work.”
“When did you get that?”
“When you were gazing at the Christmas card scene like you just stepped into a snow globe, Greene.”
I refused to be ashamed of my love of all things Christmas, so I just raised my eyebrow at Cole, knowing my arch wasn’t as good as Gretchen’s but would still get my message across.
