“I can’t believe you’re still wearing this.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking about my whistle.”
“I can’t believe you blew that thing all the way down.”
“I can’t believe that you— Goddammit, no! No, you don’t get to do this again, you don’t get to one-up me in the middle of a lake.” He tried to sit up, but I pulled him back down.
“Too late, I love you.”
“Stop saying that,” he yelled, leaning up on his elbows, bracing himself over me.
“I can’t. I love you. I love you. I love you.” He tried to sit up once more, but I wrapped my feet around his thighs and tugged him back down. “I’ve never said that to anyone in my entire life, and I’m finding that I love saying I love you to you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, his face still full of exasperation, but his voice was somehow softer now, somehow not as angry. “Please don’t say it again.”
“Archie,” I said, as the water from his auburn hair dripped down onto me, “I can’t stop saying it because I do. And I came here today expressly to tell you that I do. I was a stupid jerk who left because I couldn’t handle what I was feeling. I loved you then, of course I did, but I couldn’t say it. I’ve loved you every day since I left and I love you right now. I feel better when I’m around you, I am better when I’m around you. I don’t like my life without you in it. I quit my job. I bought a stupid car. I jumped off a fucking porch on the Fourth of July because I love you and I couldn’t stand one more second on this earth without your arms around me.”
He was silent. I still had my ankles locked around him, not letting him go.
“And something else.” I took a breath, but found that my chest didn’t hurt so much, not like it used to. “My mother went to prison when I was six years old. Before that happened, I’d been taken away from her three times because of her drug use. When she finally went to prison, I went back into foster care because there was literally no one else who wanted me. I never knew my father, her parents were dead, I had no uncles or aunts or cousins or anything. There was nowhere for me to go. And when she got out of prison, she never came back for me. She overdosed a year later, I didn’t find out until I was thirteen. I was with seven different foster families before I turned eighteen and was then on my own. I never looked back. I’ve spent my life knowing that no one ever wanted me, and that was how I made sure my life stayed. No attachments, no roots, no real home, no real traditions. I took care of myself, and that was it. The idea of depending on someone else, of having to need someone else, was nothing I ever allowed myself to do, because if someone else walked away from me, I would break.”
“Clara,” he said, his eyes full.
“But it’s okay,” I said, reaching up and swooping his hair back. “I can tell you all of this now because I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m not my past, I’m my present. And my future is wide fucking open. I can make whatever kind of life I want for myself, and the life that I want for myself is with you, only with you. Everything, all of it, right down to your antiques and your Archie Special and your freckles and your stupid pointy whistle, I want it. Because I love you, I love you so much, I love you with my entire heart. And until you, there was nothing in it. You’ve literally filled up my entire heart.” I held his face in my hands. “My heart, if you want it, is yours.”
He was silent once more. I barely breathed. Would he? Could he?
Finally, his eyes closed. And he lowered his forehead to mine. “I can’t believe you threw us off a balcony.”
“I can’t believe you made me chase you across a lake.”
He opened his eyes. “I can’t believe I’ve got such a bossy girl to love me so much.”
“I love you.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Now you say it too.”
He kissed my nose, my eyelids, each cheek, then my chin. And then he whispered, “I love you.”
My toes pointed. “Kiss me, Hotel Boy.”
He really just did.
The peanut gallery, an entire hotel full, cheered.
We swam back to shore. Our friends were waiting for us on the dock.
“I mean, when you go big, you fucking go big,” Natalie cried, throwing a towel around my shoulders.
“I love him,” I said, beaming up at my guy.
“C’mere, Bossy.” He laughed, tucking me under his arm. He looked up at the third-floor balcony. “Did no one else jump?”
“No way, man, everyone just watched to see what was going to happen,” Leo replied, clapping Archie on the back. “Maybe you can do a Labor Day Porch Jump instead.”
“I might sit that one out.” I looked up and saw how high that balcony really was. “Good lord, that’s high.”
“Esther Williams over here.” Roxie laughed. “But you weren’t going to miss out on your man.”
“I love him,” I repeated. It didn’t get old, hearing those words coming out of my mouth. Thrilling.
“I know you do, sweetie.” She laughed, then waved at someone in the crowd. “Hey, I’ve got someone for you to meet.”
“Can it wait? I kind of want to go kiss on Archie a little bit.” And without waiting, I reached up and tugged his very willing mouth down to mine, not caring a bit who was watching or who I was supposed to be meeting.
“Ahem, uh, Clara?” I heard Roxie say.
“Yeah yeah, in a minute.” I sighed as Archie’s hands snuck around to the small of my back and pulled me closer.
“No worries, Rox, we’ll meet up with her later, they both look a bit busy, yeah?” I heard an oddly familiar voice with a distinct British accent say.
My eyes blinked open even though I was still kissing Archie. I looked to my left even though I was still kissing Archie. And saw none other than Jack Hamilton standing there, looking a bit embarrassed . . . while I was still kissing Archie.
“I love you,” I said to him, while still kissing Archie. “I mean—”
“Ow!” Archie said. “You bit my lip!”
“Why is Jack Hamilton standing there looking at me?” I asked Archie out of the corner of my mouth. I looked at the gorgeous redhead standing next to Jack. “Shit, and Grace Sheridan is looking at me too, what is happening?”
“We caught your porch jump, brilliant, wasn’t it Crazy?” Jack asked Grace, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Grace replied with a naturally warm smile.
“Someone tell me what’s happening,” I said, not able to take my eyes off the Hollywood royalty standing in front of me. “Also, Jack, I love you.”
“Okay, quit it,” Roxie said, jumping in. “Remember how you were talking about trying to drum up some celebrity clientele here, bringing some new blood to Bryant Mountain House? Well, I mentioned to Archie that I might have a couple that would fit that bill exactly, and he invited them up for the weekend, isn’t it great?” She linked arms with the two of them. “I haven’t seen these two since I left Los Angeles last year.”
“She said she’d be back to cook for us, but she stayed away forever,” Jack said.
“And now that I’ve met Leo, I can see why,” Grace said, flashing another movie-star grin in Leo’s direction.
“Grace is doing a show in New York for a few weeks so we thought we’d pop up here, see Rox, and check out this hotel she’s been raving about. Which is great by the way, cheers, mate,” Jack said, reaching out to shake Archie’s hand.
“We’re glad to have you here,” Archie said, and I suddenly realized I was meeting the star of Time, one of my favorite movie franchises ever, while wearing a soaking wet dress after throwing myself into a lake to kiss the man I loved.
Best. Day. Ever.
“I just wish someone would have told me, is all I’m saying,” I said again, from underneath the towel. Archie and I had finally managed to step away from the gaggle of well-wishers, guests and staff alike, who’d been gathered around us
down by the lake and escape to one of the rooms to clean up a bit. I was scrubbing at my hair, trying to get most of the wet out, and when I emerged from underneath, it stood out around my face in spikes. “I mean, it’s Jack Fucking Hamilton. That’s like not telling someone, hey, by the way, Robert Pattinson is picking apples in your front yard, no big deal.”
Suddenly, warm hands slipped around my waist and tugged me back against a warm body. “They’ve been here for a few days already, Bossy. It’s not really a big deal anymore. Remember, royalty has stayed here. You get used to it.”
“Royalty,” I scoffed, turning around in his arms. “They’re Hollywood royalty, and I still think someone could have told me. I looked like a fool.”
“You looked amazing,” he replied, kissing me on the nose. “Especially when you were telling him you loved him.”
“I do.” I grinned. “But not like I love you.”
“Let’s hope not,” he warned, lifting my chin with his hand. “How much time do you think we have up here before they come looking for us?”
“Fuck ’em,” I said, reaching up and taking his hand in mine. Turning the palm up I pressed a kiss in the center. “They don’t know what room we’re in, and I have no idea where my phone is so they can’t call me and . . .” My voice trailed off as I stopped cold, looking at his hand.
“Clara?”
I held his hand in mine. “Your ring. You’re not wearing it.”
“No.”
My heart beat faster. “When did you take it off?”
He lifted my chin once more so he could look into my eyes. “The day you left. I haven’t worn it since.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve only loved two women in my entire life, Clara.” Those indigo eyes, feathered with the most beautiful auburn lashes, began to deepen.
“To be clear, I’m one of them, right?”
“Ridiculous,” he murmured, softly brushing my cheek with his fingertips.
I reached up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Want to stay here and not watch TV?”
He lifted me up off my tiptoes. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He had me naked in seconds. And the way he looked at me told me we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. “We’re going to miss the fireworks,” I said as he carried me to the bed.
“We can watch them from the balcony.”
“Sort of like a new tradition, huh?” I threw my arms over my head as he began to kiss down my body.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” he told my belly button.
“I love you.”
He lifted my leg over his shoulder. “Never stop saying that.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I . . .
“Oh,
“Oh,
“Oh,
“. . . loooooove you!”
Epilogue
I watched her from across the dining room. She hadn’t noticed me yet, but when my girl was focused on something it was tough to get her to look away. Which was okay by me, because I loved to watch her work.
She looked down at the new menu cards through her new eyeglasses, the ones she insisted she didn’t need but finally got. She looked adorable when she was wearing them, especially when I came to bed to find her still awake and reading. Perched on top of the thousand pillows she liked to have stacked around her at night, she’d sit primly on a mountain of white, wearing her glasses and one of my old T-shirts, spreadsheets and trade magazines spread out all around her. Sometimes when she read, the tip of her tongue would stick out. Did she know she did that? Did she know it drove me wild?
Sometimes she knew. Like when I was buried deep inside of her and she was hot and wet all around me and she’d dig her nails into my backside, just past the point of pain, knowing I’d fuck her faster and harder if she did it. Drove me wild.
My girl was wild. And loud. And obnoxious. And irritating. And bossy as all get out. And I wouldn’t have her any other way.
“Hey, Hotel Boy,” she called from across the room, and I grinned just hearing her voice. “Get over here and proof these with me.”
“Coming, Bossy.”
And she had been. This morning. All morning. Every morning. When she was in town, that is.
Clara had quit her job, and while her boss tried like hell to get her to come back she was steadfast in her decision. And while she did spend the rest of the summer with me, helping our team to implement all the changes she’d initially gotten started back in the spring, by September I could tell she was getting antsy.
“So I’d get to pick and choose the jobs I do, when I want to do them. I mean, I’d have real freedom to set things up exactly the way I want.”
“Sounds great.”
“No really, what do you think?” she asked, chewing on her thumbnail nervously. She’d approached me with the idea of going back to work in a freelance capacity. Simply put, my girl had made such a name for herself in our industry that she literally had owners beating down her door to work with her. Even with the hit job The Empire Group had tried to put out on her, her work spoke for itself. But she didn’t want to make that decision without me.
It wasn’t easy for my girl to loop people in, she was so used to doing things her way and her way alone. She’d made decisions for years based solely on her own needs, but she was trying like hell to include me in everything now, and I loved her even more for it.
“I think it sounds great, really I do,” I said, leaning over to kiss her soundly. “I’ll miss seeing your face first thing every morning, but this sounds like a great opportunity.”
“And my boobs second thing,” she said, leaning over to kiss me back just as soundly.
“If you’d just sleep naked, then I could sometimes see those even before I see your face,” I growled, pulling her down onto my lap.
That discussion had ended a few seconds after that. But she went back out onto the road a few weeks later, and so far it was working out pretty great.
Bryant Mountain House was slowly and surely making headway. We’d implemented almost every change Clara had recommended and it was coming along nicely. We were closing down part of the hotel after the holidays and we only had to make minimal adjustments to the staff. Caroline and her team had already begun the room renovations and even I had to admit they were looking great. And just a few tweets from someone like Jack Hamilton had put our hotel on the map for an entirely new group of travelers. Who knew?
And here we were, a week before Christmas. Holidays were still difficult for Clara, but she was trying really hard. We spent Thanksgiving together in Manhattan with Natalie’s family (a fight that Trudy was still sore over), and Clara did okay. Slowly but surely, we were making new memories together to replace the ones she’d missed out on for so many years. And we made sure to celebrate each and every holiday so far with as many I love yous as we could say.
I missed Ashley. Of course I missed Ashley. She’d been a part of my life longer than she hadn’t been. But where our relationship had seemed easy and almost fated, my love for Clara was work, but the very best kind. We challenged each other, we fought hard, but we loved harder. And the payoff? Christ, she was worth everything.
“Did I tell you Roxie and I found some old menu cards from the twenties? We used them as the base for these, but just as a base. We weren’t going to start serving grapefruit and tomato juice at dinner, I mean, who does that?”
“The Bryants did, that’s who,” I said, looking over her shoulder at the menu cards. “Grapefruit juice was a great palate cleanser.”
“That doesn’t explain the tomato juice.” She looked critically at me, one eyebrow raised, like she was ready to start an argument. I was ready if she was.
“It was Prohibition, the tomato juice was likely laced with basement hooch.”
“Speaking of the basement, we gotta get back down to that boiler room sometime, Hotel Boy.” She grinned. “I love the way you look when you’re holding your wrench.” Then she leaned over the table, pretending to
fiddle with the placement of the salt and pepper shakers but really, she was just making sure I saw her ass in that tiny pencil skirt she was wearing. And speaking of the twenties, were those stockings she was wearing?
My girl, she drove me wild.
“Meet you there in twenty minutes.”
She turned around, heat flashing in her eyes, and shook her head. “Make it fifteen.”
Can’t argue with that.
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About the Author
PHOTO BY LISA NORDMANN
ALICE CLAYTON worked in the cosmetics industry for more than a decade before picking up a pen (read: laptop). She enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up, and finally convinced her longtime boyfriend to marry her. And she finally got her Bernese Mountain dog.
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