Twice Shy
: Chapter 12

THE FOLLOWING DAY, I head over to the manor to get to work and it’s a relief that Wesley’s away doing a job. Why did I think friendship with Wesley would be a good idea? It’s a terrible idea. I’m going to catch a crush on him. He’s dreamy, but until now his grumpiness has saved me from making an idiot of myself. If he shows me the barest hint of warmth, my weak knees will buckle like clockwork. It’s my worst habit.

Right now, a crush swelling with the most dangerous undertow I’ve ever laid eyes on flits at the horizon, tearing it up at warp speed, but I’ve still got time. I’ve got willpower. I am resolving myself here and now to keep my distance, which should be easy enough. Wesley loves distance! We’ll ignore each other. Wesley loves ignoring each other! I’ve picked so many insensitive, cold hearts to give mine to, but his is a new record. I’d be the least safe in his hands: What if we dated and it went south, as most relationships do? We share a house! Neither of us wants to give it up. I’d be living directly under my ex, unable to escape him. If he cheated on me like most of the others did, that would ruin Falling Stars for me forever. It’d be too painful to stay—I’d have to give up the hotel of my dreams. Unacceptable.

I can’t decide if that scenario is better or worse than another contender: that I’ll develop feelings, and those feelings will be unrequited.

I’ve got to stamp out those feeble quiverings now, before they become a problem. He’s gone and dug a tent out of storage—one tent, singular—to use on Saturday, as he casually mentioned the trip will take us all day and most of the terrain we have to explore will have to be trod on foot. If it gets late, we’ll camp out. In the same tent. Together. Maybe he’s able to be blasé about it because he replaces me so unattractive that I’m not even a shadow on his radar; I’m like a shovel, just part of the expedition gear. Or maybe he plans to seduce me. I envision us lying next to a roaring fire as he feeds me s’mores . . .

“You don’t like him,” I tell myself sternly. “He’s a grouch.”

I walk into the ballroom, determined to lose myself in cleaning. The first thing I see is the handmade tinfoil star that’s appeared at the top of my Christmas tree, which I’m not able to reach. Someone has indulged my untimely holiday spirit.

I groan louder, spin on my heel, and walk right back out.

“He doesn’t like me,” I growl at myself. “I’m just the pesky equal inheritor. The necessary evil he can’t get rid of, so he’s sucking it up and making the best of a bad situation.” I smack my face lightly. “Even if he does like me, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the fact that muddying those waters is a bad, bad, bad idea.”

Think long-term, Maybell. Priorities. Eyes on the prize.

I open the dumbwaiter longingly and despair that it’s empty. He made me a tree-topper. It’s even better than a store-bought one, with its cute little irregular edges . . . I have no willpower at all.

I smack myself again.

There’s only one tried-and-true method to escape dwelling on this. I pace back and forth, giving myself a workout, mentally reaching for the door of my café. It won’t open.

A sign on the door reads out for lunch.

“Can’t stop me,” I grumble, probably losing it, as I pick the lock and the door in the clouds shoves open with a tinkling chime.

I definitely didn’t put all these ferns here. Moss creeps up tables, swarming napkin dispensers and condiment bottles. I hack vines out of my way, sidestepping hazard signs, breaking a sweat to get behind the counter. A gurgling sound of rushing water is coming from the jukebox. My doting parents pop their heads in, concerned. “Are you open?”

“Yes! Just give me a minute. It’s . . . ah . . .”

“You’ve got a forest,” Mom notes, eyes large as she stares around.

I scratch my head, three small birds circling. I’m going to get cited by the health inspector. “It would appear so.”

A familiar figure nods politely to my mother as he saunters over, making himself at home on a stool. “What are you doing here?” I exclaim, dropping a pot of coffee. Glass shatters everywhere. “Oh, goodness. So sorry, that’s never happened before.”

“Hi, Maybell.”

“Hi . . . you.”

He grins wider, propping his chin in his hand. “Not gonna say my name?”

“Don’tseetheneedto,” I mumble under my breath. “You really shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Why’s that?” He flicks open a menu. “I’ll have one of these.” Taps the Grumpy/Sunshine Platter: a frowny face of blueberries and banana slices on French toast with a sunny-side-up egg.

“I don’t serve French toast and eggs!” I grab the menu from him, panicking. “Where’d that come from?” Other options I never approved write themselves into existence. Forced Proximity Pancakes. World’s Biggest Cinnamon Roll: Recommended by the chef! Crispy outer layer conceals a soft, delicious center.

“Slow-burned toast,” he begins to read over my shoulder. I snap the menu closed, my cheeks hotter than a stove. “Did I just read something about a secret baby?”

“We’re all out of toast. And secret babies. You can have a donut. We serve donuts.”

“I’ll take your special of the day.” He points at the chalkboard menu on the wall behind me. “Opposites Attract: coffee cake and sweetheart tea. Aw, isn’t that cute.” A dimple pops in his cheek. I die.

Fireworks begin flaming up behind him, huge heart-shaped bursts that transform into confetti. He turns. “What was that?”

“Oh no.” My heart sinks. Flutters. I wring my hands. “It’s happening.”

A skywriter zigzags through the clouds outside the window, barely visible between dense branches. I leap in front of it to block the view, shielding the banner proclaiming MAYBELL LIKES—

He spins back toward me and tosses his head, giving me a knowing look. He has no idea how sensual it is. The tingles that course through me course through the electricity, too, popping breakers. “Oh, yes. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?”

I kneel (or collapse) to clean up the mess of glass and coffee, but it dawns on me that I don’t have a broom and dustpan here. I glance sadly at my 5,840 days without an accident sign as the number switches to 0. What is going on around here lately?

He leans across the counter, surveying me on the floor. I wish it would open up and swallow me. “You all right down there?”

“Fine,” I reply faintly. “It’s fine, I’m only dead.” It was the dimple. It killed me.

RIP, me.

“Did you fall asleep like that? Odd place for a nap.”

The fireworks shape-shift into a chandelier, and as he extends a hand to help me to my feet I’m zapped out of the café. This is IRL Wesley, gripping my hand in his (oh, his hand is strong) and standing me upright in the real world. He hands me my glasses, then holds up a white paper bag. Gives it a shake. “I finished early for the day. Brought home some—”

“Ahhhhhhh-ahh,” I interrupt. He cannot finish that sentence. If that bag has pastries in it, I’ll swoon. Resist! Resist!

I stare into his eyes, which are sparkling like fire agate. Do ordinary eyes sparkle like these? These are chocolate and hazelnut. Smoky earth. They would make angels weep and they’re boring into mine, calmly oblivious to the truth that I’m spiraling, demanding no answers as to why I was lying on the floor with my glasses off.

“You look feverish,” he murmurs, gaze dropping from my eyes to my lips.

My default recording plays itself, lacking air. “I had red hair . . .” I wheeze. “When I was born.”

“Oh, really?” He should be stepping away, but he doesn’t know it. He keeps getting closer, filling in the distance as I shuffle backward step by step. There’s nowhere safe for my eyes to rest. I look at his hair and words like gilded and Apollo explode in my mind as I imagine plunging my fingers into the wavy strands. I look at his eyes and hunger. Forget his mouth.

His mouth. It’s too late, I’m looking.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I blurt. “It’s going to be a while. Don’t wait up.”

Wesley smiles confusedly, eyebrows knitted, as I dash away. “O-kaay?”

I throw myself into the bathroom and give up on life. This is bad. It’s so, so bad. All it took for me to flush my sense down the toilet was an attractive man cutting a star out of aluminum foil. Surely I am not this weak.

I check my reflection in the mirror. The Maybell I replace opposite me is a damn disappointment: chest heaving, red and blotchy all over, hairline damp. I’m a certified mess. I check the window, that threatening horizon looming closer—a stone’s throw away. I’ll be fine. I only need some space. Until Saturday, I need to avoid all interaction with Wesley, and thinking about him. We’re talking zero-tolerance policy. Total ban.

Or else I’m screwed.

I SUCCESSFULLY EVADE WESLEY for the rest of the day, citing an upset stomach. The next morning I’ve got a new bottle of Pepto Bismol outside my bedroom door. He doesn’t initiate any more contact, thankfully. And sadly. Maybe he hates me now? Maybe he was just about to like me, but I ruined it, which I should be grateful for, because IT WOULDN’T WORK ANYWAY, MAYBELL. Maybell Parrishes don’t cycle through the five stages of grief. We burrow into the denial leg of the journey like tourists overstaying our welcome and live there forever and ever. We also chug peppermint hot cocoa whenever we’re drowning in dramatic passions (I’m on my third pint of the day) and mythologize ourselves in the plural.

But on Wednesday, Wesley texts me. It’s a serve I didn’t expect.

He’s snapped a picture of my recent addition to the ballroom mural: the tiny My May Belle chugging along near his pirate ship. I didn’t consult wind patterns before painting it and the two boats are on track to smash into each other.

He adds this question, sans punctuation: Why did you add an e

I look up the Wikipedia page for My May Belle, a showboat that cruises the Tennessee River in Knoxville, and send him the link.

A young Julie Parrish had dreams of sailing away on that riverboat, I type. When she was pregnant with me she tried to run away from home, but the sheriff found her and brought her back. My name was supposed to be May Belle, but Mom was loopy on pain meds when she signed the birth certificate.

Growing up, she built up this boat in my head until it was larger than life, the pinnacle of Southern charm, telling me we’d go there someday to have lunch in big Kentucky Derby hats and white dresses. We finally went for my thirteenth birthday, but her boyfriend at the time’s daughter came along and I got jealous of the attention Mom gave her, then subsequently moody. Mom tended to be extra-specially nice to the kids of her boyfriends, trying to win them over. I ruined the day for everyone.

I like Maybell without an e, he types back.

I went once, I tell him. I told the staff what my name was and they gave me free dessert.

The occasion had been so talked up, so looked forward to, but ultimately I remember regular old Happy Meal dinners with more fondness. I think my mom was trying to re-create a pale image of her own childhood nostalgia.

Is there a story behind the name Wesley? I ask.

He replies: I was the fifth son. They ran out of names.

A minute later, he tacks on: My mom had a dream while pregnant that she was putting wooden letters above the crib. They spelled out Wesley.

Aww, I like that story.

Better than my brother Humphrey’s. He was named after the paramedic who delivered him in a Walgreens parking lot. Then he sends another photo of the mural, playing a game of Can You Spot the Difference? A dark shape in the water swans away from the kraken.

Is that a sea snake?

The Loch Ness Monster, he says. She’s real and she’s out there.

I’m about to respond when I get a grip on myself and turn off my phone before temptation destroys the shred of self-control I’m clinging to. Distance. Space. Eyes on the prize. If I want to ward off a crush, it’s the only way.

I’m not so strong that I don’t duck into the ballroom a few hours later and paint a small island in the lagoon, complete with a palm tree and a tiny man laying out for a tan. When I check it again on Thursday, Wesley’s given the tiny man sunglasses and a sunburned nose. I also replace two miniature people, a man on board the kraken-caged Felled Star and a woman waving a handkerchief at him from the deck of My May Belle.

I STRAIN TO IGNORE the mural all day Thursday, but on Friday I’m swept away by a marathon of Hallmark movies and it punctures a hole in my already flimsy self-discipline. I take pity on the pirate, about to be sent to the ocean floor courtesy of an enormous sea monster. My May Belle throws a life preserver out. I dot all the trees with tiny silver stars, even the palms.

Wesley notices immediately, adding ornaments and lights. We take turns sneaking into the ballroom to add more and more, until it doesn’t resemble your average waterfall-lagoon mural so much as Neverland. I have a sickness. I’m communicating with Wesley more now than I was when we were verbally talking.

We’ve both fully moved into the manor, he into my old bedroom and me right below in a guest room. I hear his footsteps above at night as he paces out of his room down the hall, then it falls quiet, then he’s pacing again. I can’t fall asleep until he’s completely still, not because the noise bothers me but because I get caught up in visualizing him, wondering what he’s doing, what he’s thinking about.

He texts on Friday night. Want to head out at 9 am tomorrow? Or 10, if 9 is too early?

This is the part where I should cancel the treasure hunt, apologies to Aunt Violet. She’ll understand if we don’t carry out this wish.

I reply: All packed and ready to go at 8:30. Just filling some virtual shopping carts with all the decorative rugs I’m going to buy with the solid gold bars you’re digging up tomorrow!

I’m about to turn off my phone, to be on the safe side, but he responds swiftly. My brother Casey built my landscaping website, and he’s making one for my animal sanctuary. He offered to make a website for the hotel if you want. Unless you’ve changed your mind and realized a hotel would be awful.

I sit up so fast that if there were water in this claw-foot tub I’m lounging fully clothed in, it would have gone sloshing all over the ballroom floor.

He’s told his brother about my hotel. His brother knows I exist. I wonder if Casey is the one who got married in that black-and-white photo of Wesley in a tuxedo, but I can’t pose this question without Wesley pressing the sensitive topic of my having seen that photo in the first place.

That would be fantastic!!! I say. What are his rates?

He replies so quickly, he had to have had the response typed up and ready to send. I’ve identified the font they used in your postcard as Fanal, in case you wanted to use it in brochures or advertising. Thought maybe you’d be interested, since you like the postcard so much. I tried my best to color-match the house. If you want to imitate sunset, we’ll need a few different colors. These ones are the closest match I could replace. What do you think? He includes links to three shades of paint—Bermuda Breeze, Raspberry Mousse, and Oxford Gold.

Neither of the pinks he’s chosen is quite identical to the hotel in the postcard, but my heart has taken too many arrows for me to dream of doing anything other than enthusiastically agreeing. He went to the trouble of researching the font. Color-matching the house. This surly giant buttoned up in ten thousand buttons, who likes plants more than people, is going to paint his house pink because a woman he’s only known for a month mistakenly thought Falling Stars was supposed to be that color.

“You don’t like it?”

I jerk my head. Wesley’s in the ballroom.

I grip the sides of the bathtub and steel my spine, praying I don’t look anything close to how I feel. “Huh?”

“You didn’t reply.”

I glance at my phone. The time stamp on his message shows he sent it fourteen minutes ago. I’ve been staring moonily into space for fourteen minutes.

“Sorry, I got distracted. Those shades are perfect, thank you. And thanks for looking up the font, too. That’s a good idea, going old-fashioned nostalgia for advertising. Playing up the historical . . . ness.” My voice is squeaky, words rushed.

Lying in a bathtub in the middle of the room feels a great deal different when I’ve got a man towering above me. He tilts his head as he analyzes me, gesture revving my pulse. “What?” I ask lowly, nervous. Wesley’s gaze sweeps over me: my knees are bent, heels propped up on the lip of the tub. My sundress has slid down to midthigh, and while I wouldn’t think twice about showing this amount of leg on any ordinary day, the position I’m in leaves me feeling exposed as well as uncharacteristically lewd.

His lips press together. I used to think that was a sign of annoyance, but now I’m not so sure.

I cross my legs in a stab at modesty, but the action makes my hem slip down even farther and I hurriedly smooth the material back up my legs. Wesley revolves to face the wall, rubbing his jaw with one hand. I am burning all over.

“Eight thirty a.m., then,” he says, voice gravelly.

I sink down into the tub, skin scorching. “Yep.”

My face hidden by porcelain, I glance at the wall in time to watch the profile of his shadow turn, throwing another look back at me. He’s got a fist pressed to his mouth.

“I gotta . . . I’m going back upstairs.” He sounds weak.

“Yep,” I repeat, an octave higher. “See you in the morning.”

I see Wesley well before morning. He visits me while we’re asleep.

I’m back in the ballroom, standing above him. He’s the one in the tub now, sprawled out lazy and regal, wearing a pirate costume. He holds out his arms for me to climb aboard. “Time for your bath, Maybell.”

I wake up at 8:29 Saturday morning hot, sweaty, and doomed. Nothing like a sex dream between friends to speed up the unavoidable: I’ve got a full-blown crush.