By the time Jessica and Gabby came back from their bike ride, I’d calmed down a little.
I went to dinner at Jane’s with them. Daniel told me Liz wasn’t working, thank God, so nobody there recognized me. And the food was good. I don’t know what they were talking about. I liked it. Doreen was there, and she said they sourced their produce locally. The eggs and milk came from Doug’s farm.
We came back after dinner and spent a few hours in the screened-in gazebo by the river, drinking wine and hanging out. It was Saturday, so Daniel was at the VFW calling bingo, and I didn’t even get to see him around the house. I would rather have been there with him than here with Gabby and Jessica.
I still wasn’t happy with either of them. But Gabby promised she wouldn’t write a review, so at least Daniel was spared that.
I snuck back in to sleep with him after they finally went to bed at midnight. I woke up at 5:45 again when he did and went back to my room. And that was it. The weekend was over.
Our last breakfast Sunday morning was uneventful—and really good. Gabby asked for the recipe for the lingonberry crepes Daniel had made, and he gave her a laminated recipe card on Grant House cardstock that he already had printed and waiting.
He was an excellent host. I felt confident that despite the squirrel/acorn debacle, he’d adequately redeemed the Grant House in the eyes of my friends.
I didn’t need any redemption from him. I was very happy with the service I got. All weekend. Seven times.
We were loading our bags in the car to go home, and I had the saddest feeling.
I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go back to the real world and my crappy situation with Neil.
And the other thing. I didn’t feel like I got enough time with Daniel.
I started thinking about when I would come again, and I realized I was already canceling plans with other people in my head to make time to be here. I’d gone from being positive I was never going to see him again, to seeing him being the only thing I felt like doing.
Somewhere deep in the back of my brain, a warning signal flashed.
I was having more fun with him than I expected. I wanted to spend more time with him than I expected—and this wasn’t a good thing. It felt good, but it wasn’t.
I couldn’t develop a dependency on someone I couldn’t have long term. And Daniel I could not have long term.
Chemistry and things in common aside, Daniel would never work in my life. He was too young, too far away.
He was too different…
I knew this. But I was getting ahead of myself. All this was just the excitement of something new. These feelings would fizzle out. In a few months we’d get tired of each other, and this would run its course, and we’d both move on. I wasn’t going to worry about it.
I dropped my bag in the trunk and came around to the side of the SUV where Gabby was leaning, looking at her screen.
She had TripAdvisor up. There was a one-star rating at the top of the page.
When she saw me, she tucked her phone into her purse.
“What are you doing?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
“Were you rating the Grant House?”
Jessica moaned, tossing her bag into the back seat. “Who cares?”
“She said she wouldn’t,” I snapped at her.
Gabby gave me a look. “Ali, people depend on my reviews. This is my honest experience.”
I pressed my lips into a line.
“Look, I was gentle, okay? And I made sure to mention that he comped our stay—”
“Wait. He what?”
She shrugged. “He comped our stay.”
I shook my head at her. “Why?”
She looked at me like I’d spoken the word in another language. “Uh, because I complained?”
“Why would you do that? He was perfectly polite to us.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Come on, Ali. A dog attacked you. A dang squirrel was in the house. We didn’t eat breakfast yesterday, and it was part of what we paid for. Jessica still has red marks on her arms from the acorns.”
“You’re holding him accountable for the damn trees?”
She crossed her arms. “Yeah. I am. If they drop acorns hard enough to hurt people, then they shouldn’t be where guests are walking around. One of us could have lost an eye. He could have at least had signs up warning us about falling debris. What’s with you?”
I let a shaky breath out through my nose.
I was furious.
I saw Daniel get up at 5:45 in the morning just to make sure we had coffee if we happened to be awake wandering the halls. I knew the cheese he put out for us every night came from Doug’s farm to help keep him in business, and Daniel had purchased that for our appetizer hour, and now he was losing money on that because we didn’t even pay for our stay.