She was about to take that opening. She could feel the words crowding the tip of her tongue. But then something else came along: a memory of the way she’d felt that morning, serving a fluffy tomato omelet and having old Mr. Cafferty from the Rose Suite dimple up at her and say, You know how I like it, Eve. Oh, you are a wonder.
That hadn’t felt like failure at all. It had felt like creation and nourishment and openhearted generosity—and syrup-sweet success.
“I told you before,” Jacob said into the silence, “that there are different ways to fail. Imperfection is inevitable. That’s life. But it doesn’t sound to me like you’ve failed at all, Eve. It sounds like your dream broke, and you’ve been picking up shattered pieces and blaming yourself when your hands bleed.” In the low light, his gaze almost seemed to shine at her, slices of summer sky warming her up. “Performing was your dream, yeah. Is it still?”
She blurted out the truth without thinking twice. “No.” Because she really did hate being told what to do—or she had, when it came to something that should stem from her soul. To have someone directing her voice, her emotions, her interpretation of words and characters she’d understood in her own way; that had seemed a violation every time, and deep inside she’d hated it.
She loved music, loved performing, but she didn’t want to make it her livelihood. It wouldn’t suit her. She’d learned that at some point over the years.
“Well,” Jacob said reasonably, “do you know what you want instead?”
She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t answer because she’d never had a chance to ask herself that question. She’d been too busy expecting herself to simply know, and get on with it already, and succeed.
Oh, gosh.
Oh, fudge.
What if the thing she’d failed hardest was . . . herself?
Some thoughts were too big to accept all at once. She shoved this one frantically to the back of her mind before it could crack her wide open, but traces of it still lingered—like the ghost of a sparkler after you’d waved it through the air. Bright and dangerous and not-really-there.
“I like it here,” she said out loud. “I like—my job.”
Jacob’s serious expression dissolved into a beaming smile. “You do?”
Oh, she did. And not just because so much of it revolved around this man, with his insatiable curiosity and his blunt impatience and his intense eyes. Not just because of Jacob.
But he was on the list of things to like.
“I do,” she confirmed, and for a moment that pleased her—she had a job, just like her parents wanted, and she was getting along very well, and she was even having fun. But then she remembered that all this was temporary. It was a favor Jacob didn’t know he’d asked for. It wasn’t real. In three weeks, she’d be gone, back to her old world, planning obnoxious parties for Florence’s shitty brother even though she barely liked Florence or Florence’s brother or anyone else she knew.
Fuck.
But maybe that was why Castell Cottage came so sweet and so easy; because it wasn’t really for her.
She shoved the last bite of her Mars Bar in her mouth and chewed as the music went from introspective piano to the staccato beat of Hayley Kiyoko’s “Curious.” This conversation was dragging her down, down, down into a mire of confusion when what she wanted was to stay up. For goodness’ sake, this was a friendship date. She was supposed to be enjoying Jacob’s rare and adorably earnest happiness, not sloshing her life’s woes all over him.
So she turned to face him with an almost-smile that would become real in a minute, if he’d take the hint and help. “I think that’s enough talk about my life choices.”
He hesitated, but she saw the moment when he decided to let it go.
She also saw that he wouldn’t let this go forever.
“How did you know,” she asked, “that you wanted to do this? Run a place like this, I mean?”
He shrugged, turning to stare out of the window. “I . . . you know about my childhood. I never did enjoy traveling. But when I was twelve—a couple of years after I arrived in Skybriar—Lucy said we were going on holiday. I was horrified. I suppose, in my mind, you either went on holiday forever or you stayed at home, and one of those things was good and one was bad.”
Her heart squeezed for all the things he didn’t say. Because the fact was, plenty of people lived their lives on the road—entire communities, entire cultures. And those travelers never seemed hollow and restless when they talked about a life on the move.
But those travelers had homes and families that moved with them, and it sounded like Jacob’s parents had provided neither.
“I didn’t want to go, but Liam was excited, and Lucy was pleased she’d managed to save up, so.” He shrugged again. “I kept my mouth shut. And in the end . . .” A slow smile spread over his face, unexpected and twice as lovely for it. “In the end, I had a great time. It was nothing like before. I could shower whenever I wanted, I didn’t have to stay with strangers or be alone in strange places. We all stuck together—we enjoyed things together. It was the best week of my life, at that point. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast, and it almost felt like being at home. I left wanting to be that—wanting to do that for people. Any way I could. To provide everyone with a home, so when they traveled, they could enjoy it instead of wanting to die.”
The way he said everyone—the burning passion in his voice, it made her heart smile. “And that’s why you mention additional needs so prominently on your website,” Eve realized out loud.
He turned to look at her. “What?”
“Oh.” Don’t blush. Don’t blush. Don’t—she felt heat flood her cheeks and wanted to roll her eyes. All she’d done was read the man’s bloody website, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t as if she’d spied on him naked or . . . or hovered by the partially open doorway of his bedroom to take another look at the cool world of order hiding inside and enjoy the sheer Jacobness of it.
Ahem.
Okay, maybe she had done that last one a few times.
“I ordered a tablet,” she said casually. “I’ve been researching Castell Cottage. Amongst other things.”
He gave her a look of squint-eyed disbelief, but she couldn’t tell if checking out the website had been that weird, or if he was hung up on her ordering a tablet. She had noticed that her own idea of No money and Jacob’s idea were vastly different. Trying to be sensitive about that difference was an interesting learning curve.
Her sisters weren’t like this. Her sisters already knew how to budget, how to work hard and pay bills and all those other normal, adult things. Eve really was a joke.
Used to be, she corrected herself. But she was changing, now.
“It was on sale,” she said quickly, which it had been, “and you mentioned I’d be getting paid, soon, so—”
“You don’t have to justify what you buy to me, Eve. But I should’ve thought to offer you my computer.”
“It’s fine. Anyway. Back to the point,” she said, because something about the tap of Jacob’s long fingers against his thighs told her he was avoiding this topic. “On your website, I noticed you have a section encouraging people to contact you directly about any particular needs, including those relating to sensory or other issues.”