Page 51 of Everything I Crave

“It’s so fucking hard, none of you get it. You all left to go do your own thing, start your own businesses, follow your own dreams. Meanwhile, I’m stuck with Pops who won’t listen to anything I say about marketing, or repairs, and the inn is falling apart around us. I know you see it. But none of you offer to help. None of you ask me if I’m struggling. None of you even care to check in on me, the one left behindto manage the family business and keep it going.” He exhales slowly, closing his eyes. As if saying all that lifted a massive weight off his shoulders.

“Liam -” Cooper starts.

“Don’t. Don’t do empty apologies now if you aren’t willing to help me figure this shit out.” He looks down at the table and whispers, “We’re about to lose the inn.”

Shit.

“How much?” I ask.

Liam scoffs, “More than you can throw at me.”

“What’s the biggest problem?” Hunter asks. He’s the most logical. He loves solving puzzles of problems and finding the best way to attack it.

“Pops.” Liam says quickly. “He won’t give up control, he’s too stuck in his ways, he won’t let me hire anyone for shit we can’t do, and we can’t keep up with repairs.”

“Liam, I’m in fucking construction, why didn’t you ask for my help earlier?” Hunter accuses. I shoot him a look to shut the hell up.

“Were you not over for dinner three weeks ago? Did you not see the outside of the house on your way by? Did you not notice that I haven’t been at any family dinner in a long time because I’m too fucking busy fixing everything Pops does?”

Yup. Hunter should have kept his mouth shut.

Time for me to be the voice of reason. “Listen, we aren’t getting anywhere right now, in here. Let’s all go back to the inn. We can all walk around on our own, and make a punch list of the five mostimportant things we see that need done. Then we’ll reconvene tomorrow with Emma.” She’ll be pissed as much as Liam if we leave her out.

“Fine.” Liam huffs out a breath. “But you fuckers can go on your own, I’m drinking tonight. I know every nook and cranny over there that needs repair. I have a list that runs through my mind every goddamn minute of every fucking day.” He slams his empty beer on the table and takes off to the bar counter, leaving us at the table, stunned at his revelation.

“Well, shit,” Cooper chimes in.

We all nod, because really, that’s all we can say right now.

Before Wyatt and I leave to go back to the inn I check in with Roman. I let him know to call me when Liam is ready to leave and ask him to not let Liam do something stupid.

Liam is the calm, level headed, and honestly a little nerdy, brother. But I’ve seen him kick some ass before, and he’s angry enough to make tonight a comeback night.

I get back to the inn and open the notes app on my phone. Unfortunately, it seems when you’re looking closer it’s much easier to find five things that need to be fixed than I thought.

I’ve been a shitty brother. And son. I should have come to see the inn last time I was here helping at our parent’s house. We spent so much time there fixing the flooring then I crashed with Wyatt instead of in the inn. I should have come up here. Ishould have stopped to ask Liam how things were going.

I haven’t even gone inside yet, but I can already see four things, the deck needs to be redone, everything needs to be painted, the stairs look questionable at best, and the doors are peeling. If I’m being honest, the rocking chairs could stand to be redone too.

Sighing, I push open the door. Wyatt is in the lobby with his list.

“Don’t even bother going into the rooms. I think those are the first thing that need to be done.” He winces.

“Really?” I’m shocked Liam hasn’t told us. I know we haven’t really asked but the phone works both ways.

“Yea, they’re bad.” He shows me photos on his phone. The rooms look just like they did when we were kids but abandoned.

“Maybe we should just ask Liam what he thinks needs to be done first? I don’t know how to fix the situation with Pops though.” I shrug. He’s old and set in his ways. He grew up here, and then has owned the inn for so many years, I don’t know how to get him to give up the reins to Liam.

“Yea. Let’s find Emma to let her know what’s going on. I don’t want to stress her out since she’s still in school, but she should know if she doesn't already,” Wyattsuggests.

I send Emma a quick text instead of us walking around looking for her for an hour. We had epic hide and seek games at the inn growing up.

Me:Hey, where are you?

Emma:Down in the cove with Willow.

Me:Be there in a few with Wyatt.

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