Page 4 of Happy After All

“You looked just like the picture on the back of your book when you were glaring at me in the lobby,” I say.

“I don’t think I was glaring at you.”

“You were. You’re doing it now,” I say. He continues to glare. “I’m sorry, I realize you probably came here to work and be left alone.”

“I’m not used to being recognized,” he says. “That’s sort of a new thing.”

Right. The TV show had most likely pushed that into a different sphere.

“Are you on deadline?” I ask, even though I’ve always found that to be an annoying question. When I was writing scripts, if I wasn’t on deadline, I was out of work. I still feel that way now that I’m writing romance novels. It’s one reason I chose the niche I did. It was the closest thing to steady work you could get in publishing.

Plus, I’d always read them, and I’d always gravitated toward stories with a romantic bent, even in my previous writer iteration.

Right before my life imploded in LA, I’d been working on a Christmas movie about a prince who marries a commoner, and I adapted it into a short romance novel instead—with way more graphic sex—and sold it.

After that book, I got offered a four-book contract, which I just started working on. I consider being on deadline a blessing, not a curse.

I work on writing while I man the front desk. It keeps me busy, and I like it that way. “Always,” he says.

In that moment I like him just a little bit more.

Just then we arrive at the door of room 32. “This is it,” I say.

I consider telling him I’m also a writer. I consider telling him my name.

“I would appreciate it if you ... if you don’t mention who I am.” He looks pained at having to say that, which I think is funny. I’ve watched many minor celebrities posture and act as if being recognized is the last thing they want, when in fact they want it more than anything because it never happens. “I’ve never been recognized in public before. I’d rather continue not to be.”

“Of course. You absolutely have my discretion.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s an itinerary. I forgot to give it to you.”

“I don’t need an itinerary.”

“We do a lot of really fun things.”

“I’m just going to be working.”

I nod, and he pushes the key in the lock and opens the door. Then he disappears inside and closes it behind him.

Over the rest of the summer, I barely see him. Every so often he leaves the motel property, though not regularly. Mostly, he gets food delivered to his room, and on the odd occasion I have to bring it from the lobby to him, we exchange few words.

I realize I should give thanks. Because the moment he walked into the motel, I felt like everything in my life had been turned on its head, but it wasn’t. It was exactly the same as when he had first shown up.

Before he leaves in August, he makes a reservation for the whole of next summer. I start to wonder if I’m wrong.

If Nathan Hart is going to find a way to disrupt my life after all.

It makes me all the more resolved to stay until at least next summer.

Chapter Two

One Year Later

Grumpy/Sunshine—a romance trope where one character exhibits a sunny, optimistic personality and the other has a more taciturn demeanor, resulting in friction between the two.

I’m slightly surprised when Nathan Hart keeps his reservation. Almost as surprised as I am to discover I really am gritting out a second summer in Rancho Encanto.

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