Page 77 of A Novel Love Story

“With all the things I still need to see?” I asked, breaking the moment, and he pursed his lips, as if he was a little disappointed. “Perish the thought. You know, all this talk of naps has me wanting to take one,” I said, sliding off the counter. “After I come back—backdown here,” I quickly clarified, “we can think about dinner? It’s my last night, you know. It should be special.”

He gave it a thought. “I think we can do that.”

“Perfect.” I felt terrible lying to him, butnoI wasn’t going to overthink the flicker of disappointment in his eyes as I climbed the spiral staircase two at a time, and disappeared into my loft. Once the door was closed,I locked it and waited long enough for him to think that I probably had gone to bed.

Then I did exactly what my teenage self would have been proud of—I crept over to the window, missing all the creaky floorboards, and climbed out of it and down the trellis.

GEMMA HAD SAID THAT JAKE WOULD BE AT THE DAFFODILworking on renovations with Junie and Will. So with Ruby still MIA, that’s where I started. I’d have preferred not to start with Jake’s side, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Besides, maybe Junie had made some progress with the haunted toilet.

“Hello? Junie? Will?” I called, stepping into the inn. “Jake?”

“Is that you, Elsy?” Junie called from somewhere downstairs. A moment later, she poked her head out of the dining room, paint splatter on her shirt, a smudge on her face. “Oh thankgod, you’re just in time.”

That wasn’t a good sign. “For … what?”

“Jake is trapped.”

I stared at her. Blinked. “Trapped … ?”

“In the dining room. With a can of wood stain.”

“Oh, good, I thought you were going to say with a candlestick,” I joked. She rolled her eyes and grabbed me by the hand, and dragged me through the parlor to the doorway to the dining room, which had been painted a lovely sage color, a new crystalline chandelier installed that refracted rainbow colors across the room, and most of the floor was a warm dark wood stain. Except for one small patch in the middle of the room, where Jake stood.

Unable to escape.

Will stood at the edge of the dining room, shaking his head,his hands on his hips. “Bro, you said you were an island unto yourself but this is a bit far.”

Jake threw up a middle finger. “Just help me out.”

“Gimme a sec, we gotta find some leverage—oh, Elsy! Perfect timing,” he added as Junie dragged me up to the doorway.

Jake groaned. “Oh no, please don’t tell anyone.”

I crossed my heart with my pinkie. “Not a word but … yikes, dude.”

He hung his head.

We ended up using a long ladder to stretch over the entire dining room, from the parlor doorway to the kitchen, and propped either side up on a chair. Junie and I sat on one side, and Will held the other still as Jake climbed onto it and made his slow crawl over the wet stained floor toward escape. He climbed off on Will’s side, and collapsed onto the floor.

Junie sighed, and held the ladder up as her boyfriend started to reel it back in slowly but surely, taking care to not scuff up the newly stained floorboards. “And here I thought wood stain spontaneously combusting was the most of my worries, not a heartbroken Jake trapping himself in my dining room.”

“Heartbroken?” I asked, suddenly inspecting my nails.

“Don’t tell anyone, but Ruby—”

“Shush!”Jake cried from the parlor. “No one needs to know!”

“—asked for a break,” she finished in a whisper, and gave me a knowing look. “You’re probably the last to know, since Jake spent most of last night at Gail’s asking everyone he could find what he did wrong.”

“Sad that I missed that …”

“Yeah, where were you? I couldn’t help but notice Anders was also missing …” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Nothing happened,” I told her.

“Mm-hmm, I don’t kiss and tell, either, but if I did, I would nod once if he’s a good kisser or twice if he’s not.”

I gave her a deadpan look, and I had half a mind to ignore her completely, but come to think of it, this might actually be a way into what I was here to ask her to begin with …

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