Page 3 of Bed and Breakup (Dial Delights #15)
Molly
The nerve of this woman, inviting me into a building I own. Keyana only barely convinced me these six weeks in Eureka Springs were a good idea, and I’m already regretting it on day one. But I made promises, and I can’t go back on them now.
I shift my bags on my shoulders and push past Robin toward the entrance to the inn. “Come on, Marmalade,” I say to the cat, who betrays me by plopping down next to Robin’s feet, belly up.
Fine. If she wants to forget which one of us took care of her and which abandoned her, that’s her choice. She’ll come running back to me when Robin leaves again.
As soon as I make it into the inn’s entryway, I freeze, nearly dropping everything I’m holding.
What the hell happened to the Hummingbird?
The paint job on the exterior looked a little faded, but mostly the same.
The inside looks completely different. The beautifully refinished wooden floors we labored over, sanding and staining and polishing for weeks after buying the inn, have been covered with cheap laminate.
Keyana’s gorgeous floral murals have been painted over with a neutral pale gray.
All the painstakingly restored antique furniture is gone, the sturdy oak check-in desk and hand-carved breakfast buffet replaced with ready-to-assemble pieces made of plastic or cheap particleboard.
In place of the old crystal chandelier is some atrocity with bulbs on metal bars pointing in all directions.
Even the wooden banister on the staircase is now a nondescript white.
Walking into the Hummingbird used to take my breath away.
Now the inn’s vintage charm is gone; the whole place looks soulless.
“What in the ham sandwich?” I blurt out.
From behind me, Robin says, “I figured this wasn’t your style.”
“How could the management company do all this without my permission?” I say, fuming.
Sure, I approved some minor design updates the company suggested might help boost bookings after the lull of the pandemic, but this cheapskate nightmare flip is not something I would have agreed to.
I feel an overwhelming rush of guilt that I let myself get so far removed from the inn, let strangers strip it of what made it great, let the beloved staff members who stuck it out be subjected to all that.
I know Caro and Jesse must have fought against this.
“Who did you hire to manage the place when you left? They must have been some real tasteless morons,” Robin says. I don’t turn around, because if I see even a hint of smugness on her face, I might spontaneously combust.
“Whatever. I’ll take the Zinnia Room,” I say, starting up the stairs to the second floor and hoping that it still has the Jacuzzi tub and the great view of the back gardens.
“I’m using the Zinnia Room,” Robin calls from the base of the stairs.
I pause at the second-floor landing, fuming and calculating which room is the farthest from that one.
Technically it’s the penthouse suite that used to be our apartment together, but it’ll be a snowy day in hell when I face that room again.
“Fine. The Snapdragon Room, then,” I grumble.
It’s a floor higher, but it has a lovely bay-window reading nook.
I added a thematically floral stained-glass pane across the top once I figured out how to make my own designs.
Surely the management company didn’t go so far as to remove those.
It takes two trips up the stairs to unload my things, and another trip around the back to drop off equipment in the shed-turned-studio.
Robin watches from the porch with a beer in hand, not offering to help, while Marmalade the Traitor lounges at her feet.
Each time I return to the car, the sight of her drives me up a neutral gray wall.
What is she really doing here? Isn’t she too rich and famous for Arkansas now that she’s a hot celesbian chef?
Didn’t she say loud and clear that Eureka wasn’t enough for her?
I’m doubly thrown by how different she looks in person compared to what I’ve seen on TV.
I admit I followed her career for a while.
Who could pass up the chance to stalk their C-list-celebrity ex online?
But I eventually stopped looking because it hurt too much.
Key even taught me how to block her name with a Google extension.
But for those first couple years after she left, seeing how different she looked onscreen from the Robin I knew actually helped me face reality and get some distance.
I fell in love with a messy-haired, makeup-free, baby-faced lesbian I met while working at the West Little Rock Home Depot.
When I saw her guest-judging what seemed like every single show Foodie TV could come up with, I decided the Robin I married had clearly been abducted by aliens and swapped for some hot clone with an artfully styled pompadour, contoured cheekbones, and a crisp white chef’s coat.
But the figure on the porch in front of me looks closer to the Robin I used to love, with a baseball cap pulled over unwashed hair, baggy jeans, and not a smidge of makeup.
Infuriatingly, she doesn’t have any new wrinkles or signs of aging on her face, but her body shows the years a little more.
She’s not as lanky as she used to be. A little weight has settled around her hips, and she’s got thicker arms and legs, like she’s spent a decade building muscle by kneading dough.
Robin looks better like this than when she’s all done up for the cameras.
Once I’ve unloaded my car and filled Marmee’s food and water bowls, I debate saying something else to Robin.
Telling her I’m headed upstairs for the evening.
Asking what she’s working on while she’s here.
Breaking the seven years’ worth of ice between us with some nod at politeness.
But no one ever said I was nice. I stomp up to the third floor without another word.