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“What are you doing here?” I ask Warren, both happy and suspicious to see him at the same time.
“Leona kicked me out of my house to steal my newborn and said she had an appointment with you and that I needed to do it instead. I never disobey my mother-in-law if I can help it. Plus, I hadn’t heard from you after your meeting with the lawyer, so I knew I had to corner you somehow.”
He knows me too well, which is both a blessing and a curse.
“Sneaky. You know I’m a sucker for a pretty gem like this.” When I was in college, Warren gifted me many a coffee table book about old hotels and resort architecture.
“I have the keys if you want to go in. But be warned, I’m not sure how well the construction has held up. This place has been abandoned since the eighties.”
The building is actually in pretty good shape for being out of business that long.
“What was it originally?” I ask, needing to know so many more facts about it.
“It was opened as an orphanage in the twenties, actually, before someone else bought it and opened it as an inn during the sixties. That lasted about twenty years. Leona told me she and Thomas stayed here for a few nights away during their early years. It had about twelve bedrooms, a functioning chef’s kitchen at one point, a billiards room, and the lobby often had rotating musicians or pianists. Sadly, the woman who ran it died tragically in the eighties and her family let it fall into disrepair.”
I frown. “That’s so cruel. A place this beautiful deserves to be seen.”
Even now, I can almost hear the keys of the piano playing as guests socialize in the lobby like ghosts of this place’s past.
Wordlessly, Warren and I stroll around the property, and I take it all in. We understand each other and the need for companionship without so much communication. In a world that has been pretty cruel to both of us at times, we are a pair who were meant to find one another.
As he unlocks the front door, a wood and glass creation that would look gorgeous if spit-shined, I can’t help but try to look further inside. The hardwood groans under our feet as an ornate staircase splits the foyer in two, a grand double with stairs ascending on both sides to the second level.
“You could open it.” His tone is quiet as he cuts through the silence, shocking me.
Internally, my heart is already beating hard for this place. Its charm, rustic beauty, and history all appeal to me. The thought of running a place like this flitted through my mind not moments ago, and Warren has chosen to give it life.
“Yeah right.” I laugh bitterly because what a dream that would be.
A dream that will never come true. One of those dreams that makes you furious because you know it could never actually happen.
“Even if, on some pipe dream, I wanted to do that, it’s not an option now. Or, well, ever.” Since my credit might be in the dirt if I fail to make all the payments on the house.
What if something else goes wrong? What if I can’t pay off the mortgage, and I’m forever saddled to that place? Not to mention, how will I live and afford my own life while I’m putting all my extra money toward the house she neglected? The answer is, I truly can’t.
I want to scream in frustration.
“What’s going on, Auggy?” Warren’s hand on my shoulder is what finally breaks me.
I’m not a crier. I learned from an early age that tears solve nothing. And in most cases, when it came to my mother, they only fueled her nastiness more.
But now? I sob. Ugly, wrenching, whole-body-shaking sobs. My tears soak Warren’s shirt as he pulls me to him, and I lose it for all the roadblocks I’ve encountered in life.
After a few moments, I straighten, wiping my snot and tears with my sleeve. I take a deep breath in and then tell him what happened at the lawyer’s office.
“My mother’s house is underwater. She owes a hundred and fifty thousand that I have to pay before I can even consider selling it. Her life insurance covers a good chunk, but I can’t come up with fifty thousand. I have no idea where I’ll get that kind of money, or how long it will take me to come up with the difference. Which means I either live there, because I can’t afford to rent or live in another city while I’m strapped with the mortgage, or … fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I’ve always had a plan, I’ve always known how to take a step forward. But this? God, she’s screwed me over again, and perhaps in her death it’s the biggest fuck you she’s ever given me.”
Warren’s face is deadly angry, his jaw clenching so hard I think he might break a tooth. “That fucking bitch.”
I snort bitterly. “My thoughts exactly. Good thing she’s dead, or I’d be thinking about throttling her.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he grits out. “But you know I can help you. I’m always right here.”
He says it so sincerely and gently, as if I might spook at just his words.
“And you know that I won’t take it,” I snap, but there is no heat behind it.
Warren came into a huge inheritance when his adoptive father died years ago. An inheritance so big that he could probably buy multiple private planes. And maybe an island or two.
