Room at the Inn

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad—the way they’d never been able to kill off the attraction. When he went back to college, she’d given him her blessing. She’d thought she could be an adult about it, that time would take care of the abject misery she fell into when she realized he was really gone. That after a while she would stop feeling like she was going to die of it.

And she had. She could live without loving him. She could love other people. She could find purpose and experience a meaningful, fulfilling life. She’d gotten by fine without Carson.

It was just her body that refused to give him up.

His hazel eyes held the same souped-up lust that burned through her, and he cupped her shoulder briefly, his hand heavy and hot before it dropped away.

“I want you, too, Julia Marie. But I’m not going to take you, and that’s all there is to it.”

Chapter Five

Carson turned the wad of steel wool over in his palm, exposing a clean surface to buff the ceiling with. He had a permanent crick in his neck, and his right shoulder ached from so many days spent working with his arms above his head—left to brace with, right to spray, scrape, clean, polish.

But the work was good.

It had been a long time since he did so much manual labor. Maybe since college, when he’d worked construction a couple of summers, living in a crummy little apartment in Alfred with Julie. Their best summers. She’d waited tables—breakfast and lunch at a diner called Elmer’s—and they had an orange velour sofa that he’d rescued from the curb on trash day. They’d triumphantly carried it up the steps, awkwardly navigating the turns at each stairwell. Julie kept cracking jokes, making him laugh until his ribs hurt, and his arms went weak, and he had to put his end of the sofa down and wheeze.

When she wasn’t pretending not to know him, Julie could make him laugh like nobody else.

He hadn’t laughed for a year after he left her. Maybe longer than that. Nothing was funny.

It wasn’t a choice he’d ever wanted to make—Julie or the rest of the life he’d planned. She’d known that. She released him from having to make it. But he never had been able to leave her behind, any more than he’d left his hometown behind. He carried them around with him. He dreamed of deep snow and the factory by the river, chopping wood with Dad and Bruce, his mother’s lemon pound cake.

He dreamed of Julie, laughing.

Carson burnished the tin and brought out its secrets. The ceiling had a quiet shine, a dignity that had been here all along, concealed beneath the paint.

She’d uncovered so many secrets here. He felt a weird mix of pride and jealousy, admiring what she’d done with the place. All he’d had to do was point it out to her, and she’d taken it on as a project.

Oh, Carson, I want to live there!

A possibility that had never crossed his mind—but then, he’d always been mentally packing to leave.

Yesterday, he’d had a call from his boss. Give me three more weeks, he’d said. I’m in the middle of something. His deputy could cover for him for that long.

Of course, another guy could do the ceiling, too. Or Julie could.

But it felt right to be doing it himself. Right to give her something, to pay her back for everything he’d done to her over the years.

He was here. This was what he had to give.

“Don’t mind Carson,” Julie told Alicia. “He just stands on the ladder and buffs things.”

The girl smiled and covered her mouth with her hand, hunching her shoulders in that way thirteen-year-olds had, as if she wished she could fold her body into a smaller space.

“What?” Julie asked.

She leaned closer and whispered under the sound of the radio, “He’s cute.”

“I know,” Julie whispered back. “But cute isn’t everything. Come on, I’ll show you where to put the cake.”

They went into the dining room, where the table was filling up with sweets for the Friends of the Library bake sale.

“Thanks, honey,” Julie said when they’d found a spot. “I’ll get the pan back to your mom next week.”

On the way back through the kitchen, the girl shot her gaze over to Carson, then covered her mouth again.

He did make quite a picture up there. Tight butt, flexing muscles, broad back beneath a white T-shirt. Her own personal slice of beefcake, on display to half of Potter Falls this morning.