“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” I could see her getting ready to decline. “Caitlin, I was blessed with opportunities that most children don’t have. I have a whole lot of money as a result. I’d like to pay it forward.”
She looked over at Sean, who shrugged and said, “Hey, it’s a golden opportunity. Those don’t come along very often.”
She smiled wryly and shook her head. “Except when I’m around you, apparently.”
My confusion must have shown on my face because Caitlin’s cheeks colored. “I guess Sean didn’t tell you—we met him and his brother Liam while we were living in a homeless shelter. Chris got hurt working at a construction site, and since they were paying him under the table, they got away with not paying for his medical care. It wiped us out.” She put a hand on Sean’s arm. “Sean found out I was in school for hospitality management and hired me to work here. Once Chris recovered, Sean introduced him to someone he knew in construction. He gave Chris a job and is helping him get licensed. Sean is amazing. We couldn’t have gotten this far without him.”
Sean’s face had gone pink with embarrassment. It was cute. “It was all you two. I just pointed you in the right direction.”
“Wait,” I said as a thought occurred to me. “Is that the shelter Maya was talking about? The one that burned down?”
She nodded sadly. “Yes. We volunteer there now. They had a fire last night, and the residents lost all their belongings. For most of them, that was everything they had.”
“That’s awful. Was anyone hurt?”
“No, thank goodness. The smoke alarms woke everyone up, and they all got out safely.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m just trying to figure out how I can help them.”
Sean put his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll put our heads together and come up with something.”
I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked down to see Maya standing next to me. “Mr. Jeremy, can you teach me a new song? ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ is boring.”
Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “Maya!”
I gave her a quick shake of my head and turned to the little tyrant with mock outrage. I put my hands on my hips dramatically. “Boring? I’ll have you know ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ is anything but boring.” I guided her back to the piano and had her sit next to me. I then proceeded to play the second of Mozart’sTwelve Variationswhile Maya watched with her mouth open. “Once you know the basics, you can do anything. But you have to be patient.”
Caitlin came over and lifted Maya up off the bench. “And on that note—pun sort of intended—it’s time to go home. Daddy’s waiting for us.”
“I’ll talk to you on Monday about setting up a schedule,” I said to her.
After they left, Sean sat beside me on the piano bench. It was a tight fit, but his nearness soothed something inside me. “That was nice of you to do that,” he said.
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Thanks. I wish I could do more. There are so many kids like her out there.”
“Maybe you can someday.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “Who knows, maybe Maya will be another you.”
I huffed out a short laugh that held all my dissatisfaction with my current state. “Hopefully better than that.”
Sean straightened and put his arm around my waist. “All right, that’s enough serious shit for one day. Let’s go have some fun. Do you like roller coasters?”
TWENTY-ONE
SEAN
It turned out Jeremy had never been on a roller coaster—like ever. What the hell? Apparently, amusement parks were too bourgeois for the snob circuit. So I took him to Great Adventure—only tourists call it Six Flags, thank you very much—and introduced him to roller coasters. I also introduced him to funnel cake, midway games, and blowjobs on the sky ride. That last one was an impulse because he was all windblown and sexy up there while he looked around the park. We stayed until the park closed and then went back to my place and heated up the sheets for a couple of hours. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.
We spent the rest of the weekend together, but Monday came, and I had to deal with the fallout from the hacking. Michael hadn’t found any of my customers’ data on the dark web—which was very good—but there was no guarantee the hacker wouldn’t return. When I mentioned my concern, Michael suggested moving my web hosting to his company. They had all the protections of the big hosting services, coupled with the ability to monitor their clients’ websites more closely since they hosted so few in comparison. I was really happy with the work Michael had done for me, so I agreed. The whole thing cost me a bit of change, but I figured it was worth it to prevent something like that from happening again.
The reservation mess was another story altogether. Caitlin worked her butt off to get people back. Some were happy to have their rooms back, while others were upset by the “glitch” and didn’t want to do business with us anymore. The worst were the people who made it clear they canceled because of Evan and Raphael’s wedding. They didn’t want to be associated with “those kinds of people,” as if we were hosting an orgy here instead of a wedding. It hurt, too, because many of those people had known me for years.
It was now Thursday, and as of two twenty-five p.m., Moonlight was only half full for Memorial Day weekend, which was a little more than a week away. We were a small hotel and didn’t have the amenities big fancy hotels offered. What we did have was an intimate experience in a small shore town, tucked away from the rowdy crowds but close enough that our guests could go to where the crowds were with little effort. If we started the summer off this badly, it would be hard to recover.
Honestly, the best part of the week was the time I spent with Jeremy. We worked out together, either running the boards or lifting in the hotel gym, and had most of our meals together. Then we’d tear up the sheets at my place or in his room, depending on where we went beforehand. The weird thing was we had a lot to talk about. You wouldn’t think so since our backgrounds were so different, but it turned out we liked a lot of the same things and shared many of the same values.
Case in point: he was currently with Caitlin visiting the Family Promise shelter and meeting with the executive director. I hoped that meant he was considering making a sizable donation. I did what I could, but with how things were going at the moment, I didn’t want to dig too deep.
My phone buzzed with a text message:
Ryan:Are you still up for meeting at Reilly’s tonight?
