So much so that she’d wanted to do whatever she could to help make things run more smoothly. As a kid, that hadn’t really panned out. Too little structure and too much free time for someone like her had left many instances of imaginative playtime gone awry.
Mason had gone to college by the time she’d become a teenager, and she’d thought that maybe then, there would be more time. For her parents’ attention. For her to try new things. But the inn had gone through its first—well, only—renovation the year before, and it had finally started to pay off with increased bookings from word of mouth. Then, her parents had expanded into offering lunch on the weekends, along with taking more time for themselves, though it was still in short supply.
Hallie turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She sighed, realizing that she’d forgotten to get more adult-sized towels from the upstairs bathroom. Instead, all she could find was a plush robe that looked like a dinosaur.
She held it up by a hood with soft spikes sticking out. It would actually be pretty cool if it fit her. But, tragically, it wasn’t a possible milestone for a three-hundred-and-forty-two-month-old.
She dabbed herself off and used the robe to fashion a head wrap for her wet hair and started to put on—you guessed it—baby lotion. Maybe if she smelled like a baby, it would trick her family into thinking she should be included like the twins; she definitely wasn’t treated like one of the adults.
This was especially wild to her because, by age thirteen, she’d been working at the inn after school most days and on the weekends. It was simple things at first, like restocking cabinets or vacuuming when someone called out. Her parents had neverexpressly told her to do it, but in her mind, it was just what family did for one another.
Over time, she started planting herself at the front desk, waiting for guests to stop by so that she could attend to their needs and chat with them about their day. Conversation wasn’t exactly rife in her family’s apartment, and once Sydney had left their high school to train full-time, she was antsy for companionship. Her presence at the desk had started to become so constant that, eventually, her parents just expected her to be there, and they started to plan their schedules accordingly.
And now, fifteen years after she’d first started sitting at the front desk, waiting for someone to come into her sphere and make her feel less alone, she was still there.
Waiting.
A frustrated groan worked its way out of her, though it did nothing to quell the uncomfortable churning in her stomach.
At the same time she wondered if she could sneak out of the house and take a few hours to explore the city, she heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet running down the hallway, heading toward the living room.
Being in a house filled with people had never made her feel so alone.
Hallie sat in Mason and Claire’s living room, waiting for dinner to be ready. Her day had been spent traipsing around the great outdoors—not her favorite activity—with four surprisingly athletic adults and two babies strapped to their parents’ chests.
She flexed her thawing fingers; she was just thankful she was finally starting to be able to feel her extremities again.
It made it easier to turn the pages in the book she was trying to read, even if disappearing into a story wasn’t her first choice of activity. She’d desperately wanted to lie down once they’d gotten home from their obscenely long winter hike before another busy night of inane small talk. But her de facto bedroom for the last week was currently a giant playpen-slash-football-arena.
There was a Monday night game on, which she wasn’t interested in watching. Mason and her dad, though, were in their element while Claire and her mom made dinner.
Gender roles at their finest, with the exception of the twins being in the living room with her and the menfolk.
And, really, she’d tried to join Claire and her mom in the kitchen and make herself useful, but they’d literally bumped into her multiple times, no matter how hard she tried to either help or simply stay out of the way. So she’d retreated to the living room, where she’d tried to find something to occupy herself.
Hanging out with the twins wouldn’t have been a problem for her except that every time she tried to open her book, it was like Henry and Elliot, a tag team of terror, had some type of sixth sense to interrupt. She could sit there and do nothing without a single look from them as they toyed with their blocks, but the moment she lifted the paperback, suddenly, she’d committed a personal grievance against them.
Apparently, the twins were just as used to being the focal point of the Thatcher family attention as their father had always been.
For the last fifteen minutes, she’d been testing this theory out. It wasn’t the most fun she’d ever had, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it was something to keep herself occupied outside of the nonstop football commentary from her dad and brother.
Rob Thatcher, like his son, had played football through college, but neither of them had gone pro. Though it was never mentioned, her dad had only played for a Division II school whereas Mason had played for one of the best football programs in the country.
Her dad wore it like a badge of pride that he himself had sired an even more gifted collegiate athlete. How magnanimous of him.
Right on cue, as the crowd on TV exploded with energy, he slapped Mason on the back. “You ran that route even better at CSU. You could have gone pro.” This was a conversation that, whether football was on or not, came up at least once a day since she’d been in town.
Mason side-eyed their father in a way that so clearly said professional athletics would have been settling. He always did. “And spend the millions I’d make way too quickly once I retired, just to stave off the injuries?”
Her dad ruffled Mason’s hair, like he’d done when Mason was a kid. Like hestilldid. Hallie could see Rob Thatcher ballooning with pride, looking at his only son with a mix of awe and love. “Too smart for your own good,” he beamed.
Honestly, it was for the best that there was nothing in this world that could make either of her parents ever descend from the tippy-top of Mount Mason. That would be a familial upheaval no one could withstand.
Blech.
It wasn’t that Hallie begrudged her brother’s intelligence and athleticism. Quite the opposite. She was proud of him and all that he’d accomplished. But the way her parents’ fervor was so… encompassing when it came to him was hard to stand. Especially because their curiosity about her own life was so different.
There was nothing quite like traveling more than halfway across the country only to be made to feel like furniture at bestand an imposition at worst. And it’s not like she didn’t have anything in common with her parents. Just like Mason and her dad, with their love of football, she shared one huge similarity with them: The Stone’s Throw Inn.
