CHAPTER THREE
DANI

Sophie tugs my sleeve. “He’s inside. Waiting.”

“Great,” I mutter. “Nothing like being judged by a stranger before ten a.m.”

I climb the steps anyway. Each one groans like it’s filing a formal complaint. My tablet thumps against my leg. I pause at the door, sucking in a deep breath as I take in the peeling wood. “I should’ve come by before…”

“What was that?” Sophie asks as she knocks twice then walks right in.

I grab the sleeve of her shirt and tug her back. “Shouldn’t we wait for someone to come to the door?”

“Relax,” she scoffs, stepping inside. “Jake’s already here with his whole crew.”

I swallow the nerves trying to wrap themselves around my throat and follow Sophie inside. “Still smells like Mrs. Sewell’s freshly baked bread,” I say, but that’s not what gets me. It’s the light. The way the sunlight muscles its way through the cracked stained glass, painting beautiful mosaics on the floor. 

My boots leave ghostly prints on the hardwood, which is definitely still original, meaning it’s seen more disasters than FEMA. The wallpaper is peeling in long jaundiced ribbons and the whole foyer smells like wet plaster and mildew’s uglier cousin. But if you squint—and if your personal brand of self-destruction means looking for hope where everyone else finds condemnation—you can see the bones. The curves of the staircase. The carved newel post. The ceiling medallion that’s been crowned in generations of spider silk.

I set my tablet on what’s left of the hall table and run my hand along the banister and imagine the stories it could tell after a century, trying very hard not to think about the stories it might tell with me in them. It’s peeling, but the wood underneath is solid.

A door somewhere in the back of the inn snaps open and out steps a man who looks like he’s been grown in a laboratory exclusively for running meetings where they discuss financial forecasts and ROIs. Crisp white button-down, sleeves rolled with military precision. His dark brown hair is also aggressively tidy, as if each strand has a detailed itinerary for the day. The only thing out of place is the smudge of pencil near his temple, which feels less like a human error and more like a calculated attempt to seem approachable. Like he woke up and thought, How do I make myself less intimidating? Oh, of course. Graphite.

“Did you put that there?” I ask, before my brain can intervene.

“Huh?” He blinks at me, genuinely confused, which only makes it worse. Or better. It’s hard to tell.

“You’ve got a little… something.” I flick a finger vaguely in the direction of my own temple. “Right there.”

He lifts a hand and rubs exactly the wrong spot, dragging the smudge halfway into his hairline. It’s impressive, honestly. A real commitment to escalation.

“Did I get it?” he asks.

“Yep,” I say, nodding solemnly. “You definitely got it.”

“Thank you.” He’s holding his tablet like it’s an extension of his spine, posture precise, expression neutral in the way people get when they’re used to standing at the front of rooms and having the people in those rooms take what they have to say very… very seriously. And judging by the way the air seems to arrange itself around him, people do take him seriously. Possibly against their will.

I try to process the image in front of me but my brain is doing that thing where it receives information, but just… sits on it.

Like a CD skipping.

Or my brain’s video is buffering instead of loading and playing in 4k, which it should be fully capable of doing because I know that face. I know those eyes and the way he rolls his sleeves exactly like that, but I haven’t allowed myself to think about the man who is standing in the middle of the lobby with blueprints under one arm and a measuring tape clipped to his belt in nearly a decade. 

Jake chooses this exact moment to barrel in from the hallway like a golden retriever. “Oh good, you’re here!” He claps once then goes to stand by his wife first. “Hey, babe,” he says, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Dani.. Sophie… this is—”

“Ryan Calloway,” I interrupt. He looks exactly like himself, which is honestly the most personally offensive thing that could’ve happened today. Except… Is he taller? Or maybe I just forgot to remember that part. His dark wavy hair still swept to the side and aggressively tidy, like every strand signed a behavioral contract. 

He reaches his hand out, “Hello, Dani.”

“How’d you…” Sophie stops mid sentence as she glances between me and Ryan then back at Jake like he’ll have some answers but he looks just as confused as she does. 

“You two know each other or something?” Jake asks, glancing between us.

“Or something,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Ryan sucks in a breath of air through his teeth as he pulls his hand back.

Jake purses his lips together then gives his head a quick shake like he’s trying to reset himself. “Well, Dani’s got the best eye for interiors in the county and she’ll argue with you about tile until her face turns blue but she’ll be right every single time.”

Ryan looks at me like a ghost instead of someone who sat on this exact staircase beside him eating his grandmother’s snickerdoodles off paper towels while we argued about how we would split up our homework assignment for Mrs. Frost’s science class. “You always did have a passion for design,” he says, finally, still looking at me but with a voice so professional it feels cold and distant. Nothing like the Ryan I knew. “Thank you for coming.”

“No problem.” I say, matching his tone and raising him zero visible emotions. “I’m here to help Jesse and Marge make this place profitable again. Let’s not make it weird.”

Jake is already moving. “Let me show you the whole situation, Dani.”

Ryan gestures for me to go ahead of him.

The floor groans under my weight.

“Third board’s soft,” he says from behind me.

“I remember,” I hiss over my shoulder. “I’ll just add it to the list of things in this building that are going to be a problem.”

Sophie makes a noise that could generously be called a cough.

I don’t look back. I do not do anything embarrassing and I would like the record to reflect that.

Jake stops in the upstairs hallway and sweeps his arm wide like a game show host revealing a particularly depressing prize. “East wall’s the main issue up here. Previous owner drywalled straight over the original plaster in like, 2003, which—”

“Was a crime,” I say flatly.

“It was not ideal,” Jake agrees.

Ryan is already crouching down, running his hand along the baseboard. “Moisture damage goes at least eighteen inches up. Could be the roof line, could be the bathroom plumbing on the other side of this wall.”

“Could be both,” I say.

“Could be both,” he agrees, and for exactly one second it sounds like us again—the us that used to finish each other’s sentences over a shared set of earbuds and a playlist we downloaded the night before—then he stands up keeping his eyes focused on his tablet and it’s gone.

Jake is already moving toward the next room. “Come look at the space in here.”

The trim situation is a travesty. Original millwork buried under approximately eleven coats of paint in progressively worse shades of beige, each one a new low point in someone’s decision-making process. My money’s on Jesse.

“This would come out,” Ryan says, gesturing at the window casing.

I look at him. “Why.”

“We’re replacing the rotting woodwork. Clean aesth—”

“If you say clean aesthetic I will walk out of this building right now.”

His jaw tightens. “The goal is to modernize.”

“The goal,” I say, crouching down and running my finger along the wood, “should be to not turn this place into a hotel that’s afraid of having a personality.”

“We need to keep it booked.”

“Then give people a reason to come back.” I stand. “The people who book places like this aren’t looking for a hotel where every room looks just like the others. They’re running from something. Inboxes. Kids. Schedules. Whatever made them google “charming inn in the middle of nowhere” at eleven p.m.” I tap the trim. “They don’t notice clean lines. They notice if a room feels like someone already lived a life in it.”

He looks at me for a second too long. “You sound very sure about what people want.”

“I sound very sure about what this building wants,” I say. “Which is not to be gutted.”

We move into the next room. He points to a partial wall. “This comes down. Open up the sight lines.”

I walk past him and stand in the doorway, seeing exactly what he’s not seeing. The wall creates a pocket of privacy, giving guests a reason to stay in one place instead of drifting. I would know… “If you knock this down it becomes every open concept vacation rental on Airbnb. If you leave it, someone can sit here with a book and feel like the rest of the world doesn’t know where they are.”

“That’s not in the plans.”

“Neither is a mural,” I say, which I did not mean to say out loud, but here we are, “but you’re going to need one. Right there.” My brain starts outlining the concept before I can stop myself. “Something that makes people stay after they walk in. Something they can get lost in.”

Ryan looks at the wall. Really looks. “Something they can get lost in,” he repeats.

“Something that makes this place irreplaceable.” I turn to face him. “You can book a clean room with good wifi anywhere. You cannot book this space anywhere else in the world, so don’t ruin it.”

He’s quiet for a second, like he’s actually considering it. It lasts about four seconds before he shuts it down. “It’s not in the budget.”

“Add a line item.”

“It’s not in the timeline.”

“Then we overlap it with the finish work on the east corridor.” I pull up my tablet. “I can show you exactly where it fits if you want to have that argument right now or we can just put a pin in that for now and revisit it later because you know I’m right.”

Sophie snorts, trying to hold back a laugh. Not one of those cute little tee-hee snorts but a full blown foghorn.

Ryan blinks at her.

“Sorry,” she says, not even a little sorry. “I just—” She waves her hand at nothing in particular. “Nothing. Continue.”

“We’ll discuss the budget,” he says, which is basically a yes.

Jake leads us back downstairs. Ryan and I end up side by side under the lobby beams that look both tired and stubborn, which honestly tracks. He glances around the space the way I looked at it when I first walked in. Like he’s trying to reconcile what it is with what it used to be.

“Verdict?” Jake asks.

“It’s doable,” I say.

His shoulders drop half an inch. “Good. I didn’t want to tackle this one without you.”

“But on one condition,” I say, turning to face Ryan.

His eyebrows arch down as he narrows his eyes at me.

“I don’t work fast for the sake of fast. I don’t paint over history because the timeline says so. And I don’t design spaces to impress investors or any other people who aren’t going to be sleeping in them.”

“I need this finished by—”

“It’ll be finished.” I meet his eyes and hold his gaze there.

He looks at me for a long moment. 

Then at the lobby. 

The staircase his grandfather built by hand. 

The medallion. 

He exhales.

“Fine,” he says quietly. “This is going to complicate things.”

“It already has.” I am absolutely talking about the renovation. Nothing else.

I stalk back upstairs to the wall where the mural is going to go and I think about history and stories and all the things this building has been holding onto for a hundred years, but I do not think about the boy who used to live here or the fact that he’s standing four feet behind me or the way he said my name in the lobby like he’d been holding it in his mouth for a decade.

Get a grip, I tell myself as I open my tablet and start sketching designs for the mural.

---

Sophie lasts approximately forty-five seconds after the front door closes behind us before she explodes.

“Okay, so…?”

“No.”

“Dani.”

I shake my head.

“You have to give me something or I’ll go talk to Mrs. Voss to find out what the scoop is here.”

“That’s blackmail.” My face pulls into a scowl as I slowly turn to face my friend. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would.” Sophie rummages for a quick second in her bag and pulls out her phone. “In fact, I think I have Mrs. Voss on speed dial,” she adds, swiping her finger along the screen like she’s scrolling.

“Ugh!” I groan and drag both hands down my face. “Fine. We went to school together. Are you happy now?” I ask, putting one foot in front of the other to keep myself walking as far away from the inn and Ryan Calloway as possible.

She grabs my sleeve, stopping me mid-stride. “You’re going to need to do better than that,” she scoffs. “The looks you two were giving each other had a whole lot more behind them than just we were both in the same graduating class.”

“We were lab partners in Mrs. Frost’s science class,” I say, which is technically true and covers approximately three percent of the actual situation.

“Dani.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“He’s cute.”

“Can we talk about the east corridor trim situation instead? Because that is genuinely upsetting and deserves our full attention.”

Sophie stares at me with the same unimpressed expression she reserves for when Jake is being impossible. “No.”

“Eleven coats of beige, Sophie. Eleven,” I repeat for extra emphasis. “Each coat worse than the last.”

“I think you’re deflecting.”

“I think Jesse did it. He has a habit of DIYing everything,” I continue without missing a beat and start walking again.

Sophie falls into step beside me. I can feel her deciding which angle to come at this from next. She’s like her husband in that way. If one approach doesn’t work she just finds another wall to push on, until she finds the load bearing ones. “I don’t want to talk about the trim.”

“Then what would you prefer we talk about, hmm?” I throw a sideways glance in her direction. “Don’t say Ryan.”

“Fine,” she says. “We can talk about the way he said your name instead.”

“Sophie!”

She swoons and throws her head back. “It was like he’d been holding it in for a decade.”

“Shockingly accurate,” I deadpan.

“Wait. What?” She reaches out and puts both hands on my shoulders, spinning me around to face her. “Spill!”

“I’m leaving you here.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She’s right, I won’t. But I do keep walking, forcing her to keep pace. She doesn’t say anything else, for almost a full block, which is genuinely impressive restraint except for the fact it’s probably just because we’re basically jogging and she’s trying to manage her breaths.

“Were you close?” she asks when we reach the crosswalk.

Sigh. “Yeah,” I say. “We were close.”

She doesn’t ask what happened. She just nods once, slowly, like she’s filing it away. I’m sure she’ll come back to it later.

“He’s still cute,” she says.

“Oh my god, Sophie.”

“I’m just calling it like I see it.”

I groan as the light changes, signaling us to start walking. “We aren’t playing say what you see. Just keep some of that shit inside. Please?”

“You’re taking all the fun out of it.”

All the fun was sucked out of whatever it was Ryan and I had ten years ago when he left Oak Valley.

We’re halfway across the square when the hum of a battery-powered hedge trimmer chews through the air. .“Oh, there’s Ray.” I wave my hand overhead and watch as he wrestles a boxwood he’s pinned into submission. 

The town’s unofficial groundskeeper squints up at us through his bifocals and lifts two fingers in an easy salute.

“Sophie,” he calls out, voice gravelly, “you bringin’ me a donut this time or just heartbreak?”

Sophie grins and produces a small white paper bag like she’s pulling a rabbit from a hat. “Apple fritter. Extra napkins.”

Ray’s eyes light up as he powers down the trimmer. “You remembered?” He takes the bag reverently, peers inside, nods once. “Thank you.” His gaze slides to me and sharpens. He does the slow assessment—the one that starts at your shoes and works its way up, but by the time it reaches your face he already knows more than you told in your high school diary. “Well,” he says. “The inn, huh?”

“How’d you?” I shake my head and hold up both hands. “You know what… I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Mm.” He takes a bite of the fritter. Chews. “I saw you headed that way earlier. So… are you gonna take it?”

I shrug. “I think I’m already committed to it.” I scowl at my best friend who is busy looking everywhere except at me.

Ray nods and takes another bite of the donut. “There’s a lot of history in that inn.”

“Ray…” I narrow my eyes at him. The last thing I need is for him to feed Sophie with more details.

“I’m just sayin’ what I observe.” He gestures at me with the fritter. 

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I groan.

Sophie makes a noise. 

I don’t look at her.

“It just needs a lot of work,” I say. “I’m not sure I’d be able to help with the finishing because I’m supposed to be moving in thirty days.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember that. Nashville, right?” 

I nod.

“You know what I noticed about that inn?” he asks, throwing his chin in the direction of the inn. “Every time it came up in conversation over the years your whole face would do a thing.” He waves a hand vaguely at my face. “That same thing it’s doing right now, actually.”

“I don’t have a thing.”

“You’ve got a thing,” Sophie says. 

I still don’t look at her.

Ray wipes his hands on his jeans and turns to look at the oak tree at the center of the square. It’s been there longer than anyone in this town has been alive. “You know what everybody always asks me about that tree?”

I wait, because Ray’s questions are never actually questions.

“How old it is. How far down the roots go.” He squints up at the branches, spread wide against the sky. “Like the roots are the memorable part. They’re not. Do you know why?”

I sigh and shake my head.

Sophie glances at me sideways.

“Roots aren’t what anyone sees when they look at that tree. They see the branches. The leaves. The way it offers shade to anyone who sits under it without judgment.” He looks back up and I follow his gaze, taking in the full reach of those branches, the way they’ve grown out and out and out without falling. “The roots aren’t what holds something in place, Dani. They’re what lets something grow without falling over.” He nods, agreeing with himself. “It’s a different job than people think.” And just like that, he pulls the trigger on the trimmer and goes back to the boxwood like he didn’t just say that directly into the open chest wound of my afternoon.

“Listen to him, Dani,” Sophie says in a stage whisper that Ray can absolutely hear. “He once shoved a man into a torpedo tube.”

Ray waves her off. “Only because he wouldn’t listen.”

“To what?”

“To the part where I told him not to climb in there in the first place.” He shakes his head. “Stubborn. Some people just are.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says it. He doesn’t have to.

“The whole town’s rootin’ for you, Dani,” he says, going back to his work. “Whatever you decide.”

“Thanks, Ray.”

“You two get going. Don’t be late on my account.”

Sophie gives me exactly six seconds of silence, which is a personal record. 

“He should’ve been a life coach,” she says.

“You know… that’s not a bad idea.”

“Or a therapist.”

“Don’t push it.”

She bumps her shoulder into mine. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I lie because he knows exactly how to make me question everything I thought I’d already figured out.

I laugh despite myself.

We slow at the edge of the square and I make the mistake of glancing back.

Jesse and Marge have been less than a mile away from me for years. I’ve walked past that inn a thousand times, maybe more. I’ve passed it on my way to the café, the hardware store, Jake and Sophie’s. I noticed the porch sagging and the paint peeling and I didn’t do anything. Instead, I just thought Hmm Ryan should come home and help his grandparents and kept walking every single time.

I didn’t ask to help. 

I didn’t offer to pick up a hammer or a paint roller. 

I just kept moving because that’s what I do. I keep moving, and now I’m standing here having just spent two hours telling a man I barely know anymore exactly what that building needs and the answer? It needs me. And Jake. And the crew. But the whole time its sat there begging for someone to notice and I was right here.

I was always right here.

“Hey,” Sophie says, wrapping one arm around my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I lie, again. Because apparently I’m on a roll with that today.

“Should we get some pie?”

I look at her.

“Maggie made peach today,” she adds.

“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”

We walk. I don’t look back again. I try to keep my thoughts on pie and not the eleven coats of beige, but I can’t help it. I’ve spent years designing spaces for other people to feel at home in and I couldn’t even be bothered to knock on a door a few blocks away to ask if the people inside—who I care about—were okay.

What type of person am I? A selfish one, obviously.