That earned her a laugh from Brynn, which made Hallie feel weirdly proud. Maybe the next couple of weeks wouldn’t be sobad. Having someone else around would break up the slowness until the winter crowd picked up, and it would be a good distraction from her impending trip to Colorado.
Brynn picked up one of the cards on the desk with The Stone’s Throw information on it and twirled it between her fingers. “I’m trying to put Grant in the rearview mirror, but I appreciate the offer. Fresh start and all that.”
Hallie lifted a dubious eyebrow. “So you come to an inn owned by his sister, who happens to be in a relationship with his ex?”
Brynn shrugged, and Hallie was a little in awe of how simple Brynn made showing up at the inn seem. Either that, or she was completely delusional. Time would probably tell on that one. “I wanted to help Reese. And I’m not going to let someone like Grant stop me from being the type of person who helps other people.”
This woman was like an honest-to-god, real-life Disney princess. Hallie wondered if birds would be flitting about Brynn’s head if it wasn’t winter.
Shaking her thoughts away, Hallie completed the check-in process so that Brynn’s room was switched to “occupied” in the system. She placed a blank keycard into the encoder and waited the few seconds until it popped out again. Handing it over, she gave Brynn the most sincere smile that she could manage in spite of the tumult knocking around in her own veins. “Your room is down the hall, last door on the right. We can get started at seven a.m. tomorrow if that works for you?”
“I’m going to assume seven ‘working for me’ is rhetorical, unless you really do plan to let me set my own hours.”
Hallie cocked her head to the side, her tongue pushing against the back of her teeth. Brynn was the one making this weird, right? That was a very common thing to say to someone. Unless Hallie had missed some kind of rich person etiquettetraining. “I guess it’s more of an expression than anything. An opening in case you have anything that you need to bring up with me ahead of tomorrow.”
She could see Brynn thinking as she chewed at the edge of her lip. “No, I don’t think I need to bring anything up.”
Hallie put the “use intercom for help” sign out in between them, grateful to have something to distract her. “Great. Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
Brynn was just a normal person. That’s what Hallie kept telling herself. She was repeating it like a mantra as she got ready that morning, knowing that they both brushed their teeth in front of the same style of sink, at least for the next couple of weeks. They dressed themselves in matching uniforms, a pair of slacks and a long-sleeved, black button-down, though Hallie had a tendency to roll hers up at the forearms. And then they would both probably grab some type of breakfast from the kitchen, if they were up early enough.
This morning, Hallie completed the same rituals that she’d done thousands of times before. The first step was to put her long, brunette hair into a high ponytail; since she never knew what the day would bring, having it out of her face had proven useful. She dabbed on a lip gloss that gave her mouth a gentle shine while keeping the December dryness at bay. Lastly, she affixed her shiny name tag to her shirt, straightening it in the mirror.
Hallie’s entire life, personally and professionally, existed within the boundaries of The Stone’s Throw Inn. Until a few months ago, that hadn’t really bothered her. Honestly, shehadn’t given it much thought. Lots of people worked at family businesses, and she’d considered herself no different.
But now… her parents had sold the inn, and everything was different. She used to feel like she was investing in something. And now? Well, it mostly felt like she had a job instead of a future.
She walked from her en suite bathroom, out through the bedroom, and into the living room. When the Art Deco mansion had been converted into an inn, three of the rooms nearest to the kitchen had been fused together into what became the owner’s quarters. It was where Hallie had grown up and where—you guessed it—she still lived today. Sometimes, she wondered if she was taking the whole “cradle to grave” idea a bit too seriously.
There were still fifteen minutes until she was meeting Brynn, so she shifted her attention over to the small kitchen that ran along the side of the living room and started prepping ingredients to make a morning smoothie. It functioned well enough to meet her meager lifestyle needs, considering that all she really did was sleep in the apartment or watch TV in the evenings. If she really needed or wanted to cook something more extensive, she could always use the industrial kitchen next door, which only served breakfast on the weekdays and then offered lunch on the weekends.
Today, she grabbed a bag of frozen strawberries and bananas from the small freezer to act as her base. Add in a cup of oat milk, some peanut butter to thicken it up, a tablespoon of maple syrup, and a large handful of kale, and she was on her way to a morning meal that could sustain her if the day took a wild turn.
Hallie turned on the blender and let it whir, watching the blades start to aggressively break down the frozen fruit. The concoction was quickly becoming a puce color, which meant that it was on its way to being perfect.
Growing up living at an inn hadn’t seemed strange to her until recently. The sale of the inn to Reese had dislodged something in her that was causing Hallie to feel more unsteady by the day. And the more she tried to ignore it, the more it was all that she could fixate on.
It was like she’d looked up one morning and everything suddenly felt unfamiliar in a subtle way. Not jarring, just… not quite right anymore.
But nothing had changed, at least as far as her life went. The owner’s quarters still had two bedrooms, each with an en suite, and then the living room-slash-kitchen that anchored them in the center. She’d always lived in the same bedroom, which she’d shared with her brother until she’d turned eight. Once he’d entered high school, he’d moved into a room next door, technically separate from the apartment. Hallie could remember how she thought it’d been so cool, thefreedomof living independently like that. Even if he was only about twenty feet away.
A teenager living in his own hotel room was unorthodox, sure, but Mason had always been disciplined. He, unlike Hallie, did a really good job of staying out of trouble, a fact that her parents had no trouble reminding her about over the years.
As she poured her perfectly blended smoothie into a plastic cup, she started making another one, like she had done when Sydney stayed with her for a few months over the summer. She missed having someone else around, and even if it would lead to as many problems as solutions in her life, it was incredibly gracious of Brynn to step in for the next few weeks.
She thought about Mason again, knowing that in just a few weeks, she’d have a first row seat for the “Perfect Brother” doll experience—now complete with Deluxe Add-On Wife and Twins. Mason was the quintessential accomplished oldest child. Captain of the Stoneport football team, he’d earned a full rideto Colorado, where he’d met his now-wife, Claire. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d also played varsity basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. There were numerous awards and broken school records lining the glass cases of their high school that were dedicated to him and his athletic accomplishments. Did Hallie mention he was valedictorian of his class, too? Seriously, what D1 college athlete also majored in computer science?
She sighed at the same time she turned off the blender, feeling the twinge of personal embarrassment that was cropping up more and more often with her trip to Colorado looming.
With her parents running the inn and ferrying Mason to sports practices, Hallie’s childhood was mostly spent at The Stone’s Throw, trying to occupy her own time without getting into too much trouble. Which wasn’t exactly an easy accomplishment for someone with her natural sense of curiosity.
Maybe if she’d been more like Mason, her parents would have gotten on board and supported her goals. She didn’t blame them. For one thing, she’d never set any goals. For another, running the inn was a 24/7 endeavor, and she’d never been easily focused. Hallie’s biggest interests growing up had been running around with Sydney and talking to the guests.
Still, she hadn’t expected that her parents would pick up and sell the inn. By high school, Hallie had shifted into working different positions at The Stone’s Throw most evenings and weekends, given that she had free time after school and Sydney was always busy with tennis. And she’d even gotten a four-year hospitality management degree at a local college to ensure that she could take on more responsibility as her parents got older.
It’s not like she was expecting to inherit the property or anything, given that it was her parents’ retirement plan, but she thought there’d at least be a conversation.Something. She’dbeen hoping for at least another decade to get her life together and figure out a clear plan for her future.
And now, the future had come knocking, and she felt woefully unprepared to tackle it.
