“I do,” I say, shaken by her bold approach.
“So what’s the deal?”
“You…” I lower my voice, somewhat aware of how childish I am to bring up a couple-years-old article. “You slandered my hotel in a review.”
“The Mirage is cute.” She looks genuinely confused. “What’s there to slander?”
“Slandermight be exaggerating. But you gave my hotel a three-star review.”
“Three is good.”
“Not great, and The Mirageisgreat.” I grit my teeth, my anger over the whole situation returning. “You stayed with us when we were in transition. My mom had died, I was taking over, and—”
“Oh, fuck.”
“For a small business, three stars hurts. The first thing that shows up in Google is that review.”
“Seriously?” She whips out her cell phone and taps the screen with rapid-moving fingers. “Damn, he did a great job with my SEO.”
“People see that before the link to my site.”
Dawn’s expression shrinks when she catches my eyes. “I’m really sorry, Daisy.” She shakes her head and leans toward me. “I didn’t realize…and honestly, I wrote that when I was starting out on my own. After years in journalism, I wanted everyone to take me seriously as I got the blog going. Guess I kind of took it out on The Mirage.” She continues scrolling on her phone. “Geez. I called it ‘standard’? This is nothing like how I review now.”
“I know.” I don’t need to tell her I visit her site multiple times a week.
“Like, I’m honest with my readers. But The Mirage is adorable.”
“Then why not include it in roundups or something?”
“Because I thought you hated me. Why would I promote your business?”
“Oh, my god.” I can’t help but laugh. “We’ve been disliking each other for years for basically no reason.”
“Well, not no reason. That review sucks. I’ll take it down. No, wait—I’ll revise it. I’ll book a room at The Mirage and update the page.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I update posts all the time when I go to a place more than once. Aren’t you doing some kind of event?”
My brain does a cartwheel at the prospect of a revised review. I clear my throat and give her the spiel, as best as I can.
“My friend, he’s a curator, and we’re making a museum together. Temporary, but with all kinds of popular artists. It’s—Max explains it better than I do.”
“Wait, is he that hottie with the dark curly hair who was following you around at the sustainability meeting?”
“He’s…” I chuckle, taken aback by thehottiecomment. In high school, I wouldn’t have called him that, but we’re not in high school anymore. I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t good-looking.
“Sure, that’s him,” I say. “He’s a friend.”
“He’s not my type, but damn, girl. If I had a friend with a penis who looked at me the way he looked at you, I’d be having a lot more fun post-separation.”
I don’t want to think about Max’s penis right now. Or ever. Or just not now. Because that thought unearths more thoughts, like how big he might be. How it would feel to wrap my hand around his length. What he’d look like, erect and pressed on top of me. The sounds he makes when—
“Daisy?”
“Y-yeah?”
“I was saying, you deserve to have fun, too.” She waggles her brows, which makes me smile.
