A moment later, we head inside and stop by a small front desk where an older woman with bright red reading glasses and a floral-print blazer lights when she sees us.
“Well, hello! Welcome to the Rain Drop Inn!” she says, bright eyes blinking. “And what name might your reservations be under?”
“We don’t have reservations,” I say, digging into my back pocket to retrieve my wallet. “I was hoping you might have a couple of rooms tonight.”
Her jovial expression fades, replaced with confusion and a hint of concern before she begins tapping at the keys of her computer.
“Well. Um. We’re a little full tonight. There’s a car show up the road at the VFW and since we’re the only hotel in town, our rooms filled up quickly.” Wrinkles cover her forehead as she leans closer to the monitor and then readjusts her glasses. “Oh! Here we go. We have one room left.” She glances up at us, gaze moving back and forth. “It’s our honeymoon suite. Would that be all right?”
Olivia looks to me, shrugging. “I’m fine with it if you are.”
“I can just take the couch,” I say. Most suites I know of have some kind of pull out sofa.
“Actually, there is no couch in the room,” the woman says. Her name badge identifies her as Irene. “There’s a heart-shaped bed and a jacuzzi as well as a mini bar.”
Olivia chokes on her spit.
Life can be cruel sometimes, especially when it forces a sweet woman like Olivia to spend what would have been her wedding night in a room with a heart-shaped bed.
“The nearest hotel is another eighty miles east of here,” Irene informs us.
I place my credit card on the counter. “We’ll make it work.”
“On your honeymoon?” Irene asks, one brow lifted as she enters my card information into the system.
“Not exactly,” Olivia says.
“Oh?” Irene’s gaze passes between us.
I can tell she wants to pry, but I’m thankful when she doesn’t—for Olivia’s sake. No need to make her re-live some of the worst moments of her life all to quell the curiosities of a nosy stranger.
Ten minutes later, Irene hands us two key cards and gives us our room number: 314. I carry our Target sacks and Olivia gathers her skirt in her hands, and we head upstairs.
Sure enough, the room contains a heart-shaped bed and a jacuzzi in the corner. Two towels folded into swans rest at the foot of the bed, along with a scattering of artificial red rose petals.
Olivia stares at the scene for a moment, lost in her own thoughts, and then she takes her bag and heads into the bathroom to change, not saying a single word.
When she emerges a few minutes later, she’s wearing leggings and a soft pink sweater that hits just below her hips, and all traces of her wedding makeup are gone.
She plops on the bed, grabbing the remote to the little TV across the room, and begins to flip through the channels aimlessly.
I change next—navy sweats and a white v-neck t-shirt. When I come out, she’s perusing a handful of takeout menus she found by the room’s phone.
“Pizza or Chinese?” she asks, her tone casual like it’s any other day.
“Olivia.” I take a seat beside her on the edge of the bed.
“What?” Her button nose crinkles.
“What happened today was unfortunate,” I say. “And I'm sure you’re feeling numb. But you can’t act like it didn’t happen. You’re going to have to process it. And take it from me, it’s better to process it now than to stuff it down and pretend like it doesn’t bother you. The more you ignore it, the angrier it’ll make you. And eventually you’ll be forced to deal with it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil.” She winks at me. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
I get the impression she does this a lot—handles things with humor because it’s easier than breaking down and showing your weakness. And I know from experience that showing your vulnerability is one of the hardest things a person can do.
“When you asked me last night if I’d marry my ex if I could do it all over again,” I begin to say, “the reason I told you ‘no’ was because she betrayed me. In the worst way. And she’s a deplorable human being.”
Olivia places her hand over mine.
“Seeing him—your fiancé—cheating on you the night before your wedding … it brought up all those old feelings, and I wanted to protect you. I wanted to warn you because no one ever warned me. And believe me, I’d have much rather called off the wedding than lived through the nightmare of the year that followed.”
A rhythmic pounding from the other side of the wall is followed by the moans of a woman mid-orgasm.
Olivia snorts through her nose and we share a laugh.
“I’m sorry you have to spend the night here,” I say.
"Don’t be.” Her voice is sweet and her dark eyes study me. “I like being with you.” She lifts a hand. “And I don’t mean that in a crazy, clingy kind of way. I just mean … I like your energy. There’s something genuine and grounding about you. Like you know who you are and you know what you want and you know what you stand for and you don’t take anyone’s crap. I like that about you, Gabriel.”
I refrain from allowing my attention to land on those rosy, pillow-soft lips of hers, but I let my mind wander, thinking of all the things I could do to her if we weren’t fresh off the heels of one of the shittiest days of her life.
I’m not an opportunist.
The couple on the other side of the paper-thin walls finish and Olivia fans herself. “I’m not a smoker, but I feel like I might need a cigarette after that.”
God, I love her sense of humor.
Any woman who can maintain that during one of the lowest moments of her life deserves all my respect. She’s a class act. Graceful despite her humble roots. And I bet she doesn’t even know it.
I’d also be willing to bet she doesn’t even know how beautiful she is. And I’m not talking about her looks. Olivia can turn heads, no question. I’m talking to her inner beauty. The sweetness and softness that radiates off of her, drawing me to her like a magnet.
“You hungry?” I ask, changing the subject because clearly she’s handling this a lot better than I assumed.
She slaps a menu into my hand. “Starving.”
Two hours later, we’re lying on our backs, bellies full of delivery pizza as we watch some Dateline special on the hotel TV.
“Do you ever think about the timing of things?” she asks out of the blue when a commercial comes on.
“What do you mean?”
She rolls to her side, tucking her hand under her cheek as she faces me. The reflection of the flickering TV screen shines off her eyes.
“I just think, like … what if I never would’ve met you?” she asks. “If I never would’ve went down to the hotel bar to have a drink, I never would’ve met you, and I’d be married to that lying asshole right now, none the wiser.”
“Everything happens for a reason.” I’m not one for cliche sentiments, but this one fits now more than ever.
“It’s the craziest thing,” she rolls to her back, hands clasped over her chest as she stares at the ceiling, “when you told me that he’d cheated on me … I wasn’t angry, Gabriel. I was relieved. Relieved not to have to marry him.”