Page 61 of Made for You

“Clearly, I’m out of the loop. So can people start talking?” Emma asks impatiently.

“There’s a second mortgage on the inn. It’s about to be in foreclosure if we don’t come up with six thousand dollars.” He spills out instead of easing into the conversation. “I want Liam to sell. We got a good offer.”

Emma slams her hands on the table, “What? We spent all this time fixing the inn! We finally get the books to turn a profit and here you come, after the fact, with the information that should have been divulged to at least Liam when he took over!”

Her face is bright red. My anger is growing again like hers.

“I know Ems. I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Pops pleads with Emma for forgiveness. A little different from him with me.

“How much?” she demands.

“Six thousand dollars. In three weeks.” Pops hangs his head.

“I mean total.” She furrows her brows.

“Does it matter? I can’t pay it anymore. We’re going to lose the inn.” Wyatt stares at Pops’ nonchalance, almost stepping in before Emma continues.

“I asked. How. Much.” She grits out her question.

Pops stares at the table, he doesn’t want to answer her.

Mom speaks up, “One hundred thousand total, six thousand in three weeks. Emma is this something we can do?”

Emma stands so fast, she knocks her chair over. She stalks to the bookshelf where she keeps all our books and pulls out the bank ledger, and she scans it with her eyes, her line of vision tracking all over the page.

“I don’t know. We have four thousand dollars that we could use, hold off on doing the overhaul in the living room for now until we can recoup the costs, but that leaves us two thousand dollars short.” She brings the large book over, pointing to the numbers to show us the expenses. “The Valentine’s Day group will bring in more than usual but it’s not going to help us much. We’ll need to cover the extra costs of food and utilities too.”

Wyatt speaks up finally, “What if we ask the other siblings to chip in? There’s four of us left, and if we can all do five hundred we’ll make it. But will you be able to take over the monthly cost of the remaining balance?”

Emma scowls as she goes over what looks like our monthly operating costs. “Pops, what is the monthly payment?”

“Eight-fifty,” he replies quietly.

Emma sighs deeply, tapping the pencil on the table, “I mean. If we hold off on renovations, turn the heat down and use the fireplaces more when guests aren’t here, and get Violet to do more of these themed breakfasts, I think we’ll be good to make the payment, and still be able to save for our emergency fund and renovations.” She places the pencil on the budget.

“Okay. So we just need to call Cooper, Gunnar and Hunter.” Wyatt says.

Mom let’s out a breath and holds my hand.

“Cooper will be here tomorrow. So he should be at an airport. But I really hate asking you guys to pay for this.” As if anyone would think I’d be okay with it.

“I’ve told you time and time again, you’re not in this alone. We want to help. And five hundred dollars is nothing to save the inn and your dreams.” Wyatt pulls out his phone and starts to call Hunter before he walks out of the room. Emma pulls out her phone and announces that she’ll call Cooper, while Mom does the same to call Gunnar.

“I’m so sorry. I never meant to put the inn in jeopardy. I just needed the money or I was going to lose the inn for other reasons.” He looks me in the eye this time when he speaks. And for some reason, it makes me feel like he’s taking me seriously for the first time.

“If you were honest, and more open to changes we wouldn’t be here.” I take the opportunity to be honest with him.

“I know. I’m sorry for that too. I just didn’t want you to be saddled with what I was. I wanted you to go out in the world and do what you wanted to do. But now I see that the inn is what you’ve wanted all along and I almost ruined your dream.”

“I forgive you, Pops. But from now on, no more secrets. Please. Total honesty. Promise?” He gets up and walks over to me, pulling me in for a hug.

“I just have one more question, how the hell did you keep all of this quiet in town?” I ask, genuinely curious how I didn’t know about the loan when I took over the inn.

“I went to Portland,” he says sheepishly.

Now it all makes sense. The reason that no one else said anything is because no one knows.

“Okay, well I forgive you, Pops. But I have to get to work. Can you please tell Emma to come find me when we have an answer from everyone?”

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