Page 11 of The Heartbreak Hotel

Nine

“No, more charming.” Mei nudges my hands off the keyboard and starts typing. I’d written Run by an innkeeper with a counseling degree , and she edits it to Run by an empathetic, caring innkeeper with a therapy degree and years of experience counseling clients through heartbreak.

“I don’t want to overpromise,” I say. We’re back on my couch in our pajamas, morning light coming through the stained-glass windows. It’s sunny again today—the drippy butter yellow of September. “Or give the idea that I’m doing free therapy or something illegal like—”

“Show me the lie,” Mei says, gesturing at what she’s written. We have the vacation rentals website up on my laptop, which is propped on our knees between us. Her computer sits open on the coffee table behind it, where she can keep an eye on her work email. “This is all true.”

“I mean, technically—”

“Okay, then.” Mei keeps scrolling, reviewing my work. “What we really need to figure out is what we’re calling it.”

“Calling it,” I repeat, looking at her.

“A name,” Mei says. She tucks hair behind one ear and meets my eyes. “Every trendy spot needs a trendy name. Like, Pewter and Rye. Brimstone Sage. Exhale on the Water.”

I squint. “Those all sound like candles.”

“I think that first one might actually be a restaurant in Denver. My point is: we need a name for the B sure of herself; laughing, even—after last night.

We have less than a month before the permit goes into effect: three weeks to get the word out about the rentals and inspire enough bookings to make this worth Henry’s while.

As Mei continues to bejewel my descriptions—adding words like cozy and endearing and picturesque —my phone buzzes on the side table.

I put down my coffee mug and pick it up.

It’s Goldie: Be strong today and DO NOT let him weasel back in.

It takes a full beat for me to remember what she’s talking about, but when I do, I gasp so sharply Mei stops typing.

“What?” she says.

“Nate’s coming today.” I worm out from under the throw blanket we’re sharing and swivel around the living room, taking in the disaster of it.

There’s food everywhere—the Sour Patch Kids from last night, an open box of cinnamon rolls that Mei and I decided we needed this morning, empty glasses ringed in dry red wine.

“To get his stuff.” I look down at myself—wrinkled pajama shorts, legs prickly with stubble, hideous Peter Pan sweatshirt I got at Disneyland when I was nineteen. “Oh my god.”

“When?” Mei slides the laptop off her legs. “Like, soon?”

“Ten, he said.” I scramble for my phone again, and it glares up at me: 9:18. “Oh my god. ”

“Okay, go shower.” Mei flaps her hands at me. “I’ll clean up down here. Don’t wash your hair, just do that low bun thing, and maybe mascara and, like—” She hesitates. “Concealer? You look tired.” I groan, already making for the stairs, and she shouts from behind me, “But beautiful! So beautiful.”

In the swirl of Mei’s breakup and the new angle for the rentals, I’ve somehow managed to forget about Nate.

We set this date last week, after I’d asked for Henry’s contact information.

The band leaves for Australia soon, and Nate wants to clean house before he goes.

After talking about it with Goldie I decided not to pack all his things for him—they’re everywhere in the house, still.

Our winter sweaters mixed together in the Juniper Room’s closet, his small collection of paperbacks stacked on the dresser in our bedroom.

Make him do it all , Goldie said. Make it hard for him .

But I know it won’t just be hard for Nate.

It’ll be hard for me—to have him back here, moving through my space.

The indisputable fact of his body. The heat between us cooled a long time ago, but it doesn’t change the fact that for so many years, Nate was the most familiar thing in my life.

My nose starts to burn just thinking about it as I strip my pajamas off in the bathroom, and by the time I step into the shower my eyes are glazed over with tears. Fuck . Fuck, fuck, fuck this.

By the time I’m dressed and downstairs it’s 9:57. I’ve sucked my tears back inside, taken enough deep breaths to power a hot-air balloon, put on Nate’s favorite perfume. Just to be petty. Just to feel like someone he desired, once.

“Okay, so Henry is stopping by,” Mei says. She’s at the kitchen sink, sudsing up a wineglass.

“What?” I shove the mail on the front table into a pile, as if seeing how organized I am will make Nate regret his choice.

“Henry, your landlord? He texted.” Mei juts her chin toward my phone, which is sitting on the kitchen island. “He said he has this espresso machine he doesn’t use and asked if you wanted it for the B I was staunchly shoes-off. I look at his socked feet on the hardwood floor and will myself not to cry.

It’s not Nate himself, not really. It’s the weight of an entire life we built up around each other, suddenly just gone . It feels like a death.

“Hey, Mei,” Nate says.

“Nathan,” she replies coolly. She’s perched on the bottom landing of the carved wooden staircase: a strategic choice, maybe, because it makes her taller than Nate.

It occurs to me that he might think she’s here because I wanted backup for this, which makes me feel like a fool. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but.”

“Yeah,” Nate says. When our eyes meet, he looks sorry.

I wanted him to be an asshole today. I didn’t want him to be nervous.

I didn’t want him to hold my gaze the way he does now; the way he’s done so many times before.

I wanted to hate him, and I know—as his hand lifts, as his fingers brush my wrist, as I watch him stop himself from comforting me—that I don’t.

That even after all of this, Nate and I meant something to each other once, and nothing can undo it. “Lou.”

It’s almost like he doesn’t realize he’s said it.

I can tell he has no idea where to take the sentence, and as my name hangs between us in the sunlit entryway I nearly forget that Mei’s here.

Nearly forget that Nate came to empty the rest of himself from my life.

His lips part, and I force myself to speak first.

“Your things are where you left them.”

Nate shuts his mouth.

“Did you bring a box or something?” Mei says. Nate glances at her, like he forgot she was here, too.

“Uh, yeah.” He jerks one thumb at the door, then lets his hand fall to rub the back of his hair. “I have a suitcase in the car. Um, Lou, can we—” He looks at me, hesitates. “Talk upstairs?”

“I’ll go,” Mei says. She catches my eye. “So you can talk down here. If that’s okay, Lou?”

I swallow. Hear myself say, “Sure.”