Rebecca rolled her eyes. “He tried to climb into my bed through the window, and I refused him. I may be affectionate, Cora, but I do have taste. The only thing warming my sheets recently has been one infuriating shifter who thinks knocking is for mortals.”
“Ezra.”
She gave me a feline smile. “Exactly. And for the record, the last time I invited anyone in of my own free will, I also invited them to leave when they bored me. Should I handle this?”
“Absolutely not. You will not escalate,” I warned.
She leaned back and crossed her long legs. Rebecca was effortlessly alluring, and that was the crux of the problem. “Me? Never.”
“And if you see someone giving you the eye, you make it clear you are taken.”
“I’m not going to lie.”
“Rebecca.”
She shrugged with a sigh. “Ezra is relentless but wrong for me. I just need him to understand that I am also so very wrong for him.”
It dawned on me what her problem was. “You don’t think you deserve unconditional love and devotion.”
Her lips pressed together, and she stiffened. Her parents had so much to answer for. “I am not cut out for relationships.”
Wrong. Like me, she is terrified of gifting her heart and getting it trampled on.
“Anyway, one bad review is hardly worth an urgent meeting while the world rearranges itself in preparation for the apocalypse.”
She’s right, but this I could do something about. The brewing war was a mammoth issue still under consideration.
I flicked the laptop back open and grimaced.
“Oh good,” I said. “There’s more.”
Summer Grove House
Think more brothel than bed & breakfast. Walls too thin. Growling from the top floor at all hours, and for hours on end. The room next to mine had a revolving door of suitors the blonde ice queen took for a test drive.
“Growling?” Rebecca repeated, faux-innocent. “Do we know any growlers? Pretty sure you can’t lay that one at my door… or my bed.”
Hudson’s absence prickled under my skin like heat rash. “Fine. Not all of these issues are linked to you. But I refuse to discuss my mate in a TripAdvisor thread.”
Rebecca hummed. “Is that because he is absent, or because he is…” She held up a hand and extended her fingers. “Impressive?” she finished.
I gave her a flat look. “I am about to dock your cookie privileges.”
She gasped, hand flying to her heart. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
We sat in silence for a heartbeat as I scrolled to the last circle of hell.
Summer Grove House
Avoid room three. Upon using a UV light, I observed several suspicious stains on the bed, ceiling, and walls. The carpet was strangely clear. Perhaps it was new. Don’t get caught out: order here — www.spraythatstain.com
Thank you to my sponsor for gifting me this trip across America.
“Sponsored slander,” I grumbled. “I hate the internet.”
Rebecca leaned in. “Room three is where Dave and Liz regularly stay.”
