Page 79 of That Time I Kissed My Beachfront Boss

This train of thought is the opposite of productive.

“So.” She tips her chin, aiming the point of it down the hall. “Should we go ahead and check for storm damage?”

“Yeah.” The single syllable comes out gruff. “Let’s go.”

“See you in the lobby,” she says, padding barefoot to the room next door.

“Wait!”

She spins around. “What?”

“Give me one minute.” I dash back into my room, grab a pair of crew socks, and return to Olivia. “These are clean.”

“They’re huge.”

“I know. But you can’t go around searching the inn barefoot. This was a construction site not that long ago. You could get hurt, which would be bad.”

“Good point.” She nods, quickly donning my socks. On me, they stop below my calf. For her, they reach halfway to her knee.

“I’ll check the outside of the buildings, the boathouse, and the storage unit,” I tell her. “You stay dry indoors.”

She looks up at me. “Thank you for taking care of my feet.”

“You’re welcome,” I mumble. Then I take off before she does something like chew her lip or blush or blink. Otherwise I’ll end up quitting my job and devoting the rest of my days to waiting on Olivia McCoy hand and foot.

A half hour later, I pass through the lobby, having finished my check of the inn. Everything looks shipshape on my end, but Olivia’s nowhere in sight, so I decide to wait until I hear from her to update the Johnsons.

Since I’m dripping wet from handling the tarps and surveying the exterior of the property, I head upstairs to change into dry clothes. Back in my room, the books stacked by my bedside might as well have a neon sign over them:

OLIVIA MCCOY’S

FAVORITE LOVE STORIES!

I grit my teeth and scold myself for basically wearing my heart on my nightstand. I mean, the woman totally busted me. Still, my explanation seemed to satisfy her, and the less I say about the subject now, the better the odds are that she’ll believe my reading Emily Bronte is no big deal.

In any case, I didn’t see Olivia in the halls or in the stairwell on my way up here, so she’s probably finishing up her check of the third-floor rooms now. That means she’ll be down in the lobby soon.

So I quickly tug on a dry pair of joggers and a hoodie, then I check my phone to see if it needs a fresh charge. There are a few new texts I must’ve missed while I was outside, so I quickly read and respond to them, one at a time.

TELLER

Just tried booking a weekend for me and Winnie to come visit, but you’re all full up. There’s no room at the inn, so to speak. That’s a great sign, man. You’re obviously killing it. But Win and I are bummed.

Hmm. Maybe there’s a workaround to this. Brady’s meeting with Lincoln James on Monday, so Olivia and I were already planning to have The Beachfront fully functional this week. She’s calling it a practice run, but I’m guessing things will be pretty smooth with Liv in charge. So. Maybe we could host Teller and Winnie, too.

HUDSON

Heeeyy. Do you want to come up this Friday and sneak in a weekend stay before we reopen? I happen to know the manager here … He’s a pretty good guy.

I’m about to hit send, but I stop myself. You need to run this by Olivia. That’s the only way to be fair to her. If I invite Teller and Winnie without checking with her first, she’ll probably go along with the idea even if she has good reasons against it. She’s the kind who makes things work to help out other people, rather than herself.

So I delete the text and compose a different message.

HUDSON

I’ll see what I can do about getting you up here early. Like maybe the end of this week. Worst case scenario, we have a roomy boathouse by the lake. You could always sleep in a couple kayaks. <—kidding. Let me talk to Olivia, and I’ll get back to you. Say hi to Win for me.

I hit send and open the next text from my dad. We haven’t been in touch since my birthday. That feels like ages ago, when in reality, it’s been less than two weeks. The thing is, time both expands and shrinks with Olivia around. My calendar is one big rollercoaster, where the individual moments tick-tick-tick upward when we’re together, but the days keep barreling downhill toward the reopening.

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