Just like Walker, before this, he had never experienced the kind of chemistry that made him feel like once wasn’t enough.
But with Marlowe, twice wasn’t even enough.
And it wasn’t until he was getting ready for dinner that he realized he had asked her to sit at his family table. No wonder she had looked at him like he was crazy.
He would add a couple more people, but that would put Laney out, and he didn’t want to do that either.
“Marlowe is joining us for dinner,” he said when he and his siblings all pulled up to the front of the hotel. “So, behave yourselves.”
Walker and Lila exchanged glances. He wondered if Lila had any idea about him and Marlowe. Odds were she and Walker would’ve had a good laugh about it at this point. But both of them kept their expressions neutral as they went inside, which was a shock.
“This place is really something,” Walker said. “Back in the day, we would’ve been eating scraps out of the dumpster out back, and now we own it.”
Yeah. They did. If only Cody found that more satisfying.
It was such a strange, unsatisfactory feeling that sat down low in his gut. He had expected this to fix everything. Instead, he felt… On edge. It was like that toast they had back at the barn the other night. Them singing his praises, which just made him feel like…
He hadn’t thought that getting here would make him worry this much about being like his father.
He figured that he would just feel triumphant. Instead, he felt like all he’d been doing was climbing a ladder, ready to assume his father’s same position.
When he had taken Marlowe out to Painted Ridge the other night, he’d been trying to recapture that feeling he’d had when he was younger.
Longing for that place.
The way that it had consumed him. All his anger, the feelings of unfairness.
The drive, the knowledge that someday it would be his, and now it just was.
It felt like his due, and he felt like it fit him, rather than feeling like it was some great triumph, it just felt like something he should’ve always had.
This kind of bone-deep certainty that it had been meant for him, and maybe that was fair, but…
It hit him in a way that felt uncomfortable.
Maybe this was the problem with never trying to talk to his father.
Maybe it was the problem with denying the man the chance to tell him what he really thought.
Because sometimes Cody wished that he could understand his father more, just so that he could be absolutely certain he wasn’t him.
There was a bright, sparkly – literally – hostess standing at the front of the restaurant. Her blonde hair was in tight braids, and she had glitter on her cheeks. “Welcome to Painted Ridge Dining Room,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said. “Miriam will be here to take you to your table soon.”
Like a choreographed dance, Miriam, a short young woman with curly dark hair, walked them over to a table at the far end of the dining room. There was an incredible view of the mountains behind the resort, and of the lush green lawn that they’d had put in.
He was enjoying it, but he could see a price tag on every single thing he looked at in the place. Could see just how much money he’d spend, and how much they were going to have to earn back to make this place work. Yeah. That was not exactly a soothing element of the experience.
But at least it looked amazing.
They got seated, and he looked up just in time to see Marlowe walk through the front of the restaurant, wearing ablue dress that swished around her knees when she walked. Her hair was down, bouncing around her shoulders, and she was making direct, hard eye contact with him. Like he was the only person in the room.
He lifted his chin, and she smiled just slightly.
She paused and chatted with everyone at the restaurant on her way to the table, and it was clear that everyone knew her, and loved her.
Someday, he wanted to meet her idiot husband just so he could ask what the hell was wrong with that guy?
