Page 6 of #Resort Romance
“What? Um…just saying how nothing’s changed!” Another small laugh. “I kind of feel like a kid again. Although I hope I still fit on the sleeper sofa. I’m a bit taller now than I was at sixteen.” That really hadn’t occurred to him until just that moment. “Maybe I should see about a room up at the lodge…”
“Nooo,” his mother whined. “We always stay here together!”
“Mom, be reasonable. I’m not a child anymore and it’s a lot to ask of me to sleep in a bed that’s too small for me for ten days. Plus, all the other relatives who are joining us are either staying in another cabin or up at the lodge.”
Dammit, why didn’t I think of this sooner?
“We can check it out after dinner, Jayce.”
“But then it will be too late. I’ll just call the front desk and see if they have anything available. I can’t imagine them being booked solid.” And before anyone could argue, he whipped out his phone and looked up the number.
“You could just use the cabin’s phone,” his grandmother pointed out. “It has a direct line to the front desk.”
“Thanks, Gram. That would be much easier.” He walked over to where the phone was hanging on the wall. “I didn’t think anyone used phones like this anymore.”
“It’s part of the charm!”
Rather than comment, Jayce simply pushed the button for the front desk.
“Lakeview Harbor Resort, this is Dotty. How may I help you?”
“Hey, Dotty. This is Jayce Nash. I’m staying in cabin fourteen with my family, but I was curious if you had any other rooms or cabins available.”
She gasped softly. “Oh no! Is something wrong with the cabin? Should I send the maintenance team over?”
“No, no, that’s not necessary. There are five of us in the cabin and it was fine when I was a kid, but it’s a little tight now.”
“Ah, okay. Whew! Let me see what we have…hmm…we have availability here in the lodge, but cabin number fifteen is also vacant. I can have someone come down there and bring you the key if you’d prefer.”
His first thought was how it might be nice to be up at the lodge for the sake of privacy, but then he thought of how nice and convenient it would be to stay right here where he could potentially spend more time with Kelsey.
“The cabin sounds perfect! Thank you, Dotty!”
For the next few minutes, he did the registration over the phone and when they were done, she promised someone would meet him within the next fifteen minutes.
“Done!” he said as he hung up the phone. “And I’ll be right across the path in number fifteen, so it will almost feel like we’re all still staying together.”
“I just hate that it didn’t work out.” His mother was a little famous for her guilt skills, but Jayce wasn’t going to be swayed. “What if we want to have a late-night game of Scrabble?”
“I’m literally going to be twenty feet away. I can still play the game and walk across the path to go to sleep, Mom.”
She sighed dramatically. “Fine. I guess we should enjoy the time we have together now before you leave…”
“To walk right across the path,” he interrupted. “You can see my cabin from your window. Just turn your head and you can see it.” Pausing, he glanced around again. “Besides, if they had updated these cabins, it probably wouldn’t be a problem! A Murphy bed with a regular size mattress would have worked. I have a feeling if we unfold that sofa bed, it might be the same mattress I slept on as a kid.”
“You know he’s right,” his father agreed. “We’ve all complained about the lack of updates. It’s no wonder they’re closing at the end of the season.”
“So you knew about that too? Kelsey mentioned it to me while we were walking here.”
“Jayce, of course we know. We’ve been coming here every summer for almost thirty years. It’s why we decided to have your grandparents’ party here. It just felt like something we needed to do. After all, it’s the end of an era.”
“Do you know what they’re going to do with the property? Did they sell it to another resort company, or is it all going to be knocked down?”
“Last we heard, it was just closing. The couple who owns it didn’t want to see it destroyed, but no one else in the family wanted to take it on. So sad,” his mother said wearily. “A family-owned business and no one in the family will save it.” She made a tsking sound. “I can’t even imagine how heartbreaking it is for them.”
“Some businesses aren’t for everyone, you know?” he suggested. “I mean…I have my firm, but if I ever have kids of my own, there’s no guarantee they’ll want to be electrical engineers.”
“It’s not the same, Jayce,” his father said. “You can sell a firm or someone else can take it over. It’s a different kind of business. A place like this resort is just…it’s special. The sheer number of people who have vacationed here, made memories here, is probably too much to even imagine. No offense to what you do, but when an engineering office closes, there aren’t going to be generations of families reminiscing about all the memories they made there.”
