The Albright Hotel (A Frosty Season #4)

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I t was five minutes past midnight at the Albright House. It meant that in just twelve hours, they’d open their doors to their very first guests. That night, Aunt Veronica, Maya, and Olivia were in the kitchen nursing the last drips of their wine. Phoebe and Braxton had gone upstairs; Brad and the others had gone home. Aunt Veronica put Simon and Garfunkel on the little speaker they’d gotten her for her birthday, and she dropped her head with nostalgia as their voices rose and fell. It was the music of long ago, yet it still ached.

Olivia was heavy with food and wine, but her stomach sizzled with the adrenaline of the coming days. Tomorrow morning, she and Maya would wake up and jump headfirst into the world of hotelier madness.

“That was some surprise today,” Maya said, her eyes pointed into her glass of wine. Her tone was dreamy.

Olivia winced and made eye contact with Aunt Veronica. A heavy silence draped over them. Olivia couldn’t figure out what Maya was really thinking about Braxton. Did she like him? Did she like Phoebe’s newfound situation? What?

Maya’s face broke open. “I just don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to be a good mother here.”

Olivia’s shoulders fell. Aunt Veronica cast her a look that meant be careful. Don’t speak out of turn yet. We don’t know what she’s thinking.

“It’s just, he’s really different from my Phoebe,” Maya said. “Don’t you think?”

“He really is,” Olivia agreed. “But opposites attract sometimes. And it’s clear he’ll take her on many adventures. That’s great, isn’t it?”

Aunt Veronica tilted her head but didn’t agree outwardly.

“I just don’t want her to get hurt again. Henry was a good man … on paper,” Maya muttered.

“Maybe he was too good to be true,” Aunt Veronica suggested.

“It feels like I dated half of New England,” Olivia remembered. “It was usually better with the richer guys. At least they could take me out. They could drive me places and had stories to tell.”

Olivia had dated her fair share of very poor men, too—not just Bill the fisherman. In many ways, the poorer men had better hearts and open and honest eyes. They’d been giving with what they had. Her relationships with them had never crumbled because of their monetary situation. With photography and marketing, Olivia had always been able to support herself. Usually, those relationships had crumbled because they’d been too giving of their love, and Olivia had retreated, panicked. We need to unpack that, her therapist had said. We need to look into why you retreat from men who want to love you.

Ha ha, Olivia had thought at the time. That will take a lifetime.

Now, Maya curled her hand into a fist and banged it on the table. “I just don’t like how he talked to us and you, Aunt Veronica.”

Aunt Veronica raised her eyebrows but remained quiet.

“I don’t want her to make a mistake,” Maya said. “Goodness knows I’ve made a number of them myself.” She wet her lips. “I couldn’t help but think about Nick.”

Nick was Maya’s most recent ex-boyfriend. She’d dated him for five years in Manhattan, but he’d cheated on her. Immediately after she’d found out, she’d retreated to Hollygrove and never returned—not even when Nick came to Hollygrove to make amends.

It was clear to everyone that Nick had just been after Maya’s newfound wealth. Too little, too late, Olivia thought now.

“He was so arrogant. So proud. Just like Braxton,” Maya breathed. “I hope I didn’t teach my daughter to go with that kind of guy. But I guess we teach our children all kinds of things without us knowing it. Don’t we?”

Aunt Veronica sighed. She’d never raised children of her own. Neither had Olivia. What could they offer Maya but their own sorrow about the Braxton situation?

Olivia’s phone buzzed with a text from Brad—a surprise. He very rarely texted. Olivia made sure Maya couldn’t see what he’d written.

brAD: Well, that didn’t go as planned.

OLIVIA: Ugh. I’m so sorry!

OLIVIA: It would have been perfect.

brAD: I didn’t want to steal Phoebe’s thunder.

OLIVIA: Of course.

OLIVIA: We’re up talking about Braxton.

brAD: He’s the worst. I give it six weeks.

Olivia chortled.

Maya furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Nothing. Just a text from, um …” Olivia searched her mind for someone who might have texted her. But her friendship with Rainey had dried up, and she wasn’t dating anyone, and her entire social calendar involved the people in this house.

“An old friend,” Olivia finished.

Maya waved her hand and sighed. “We should get to bed. We have a huge day tomorrow.”

“Totally.”

“I’ll be out front with my best dress on,” Aunt Veronica said as she got up. “Just tell me where to stand so everyone gets my best side.”

Maya and Olivia giggled and hugged their aunt good night. Olivia then hurried to her bedroom, put on a nightgown, and washed her face, performing a multi-step ritual that involved several types of expensive creams. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fight time forever. But come on. If she was ever going to meet a man—a man who really stuck around—she had to take care of herself.

A man who stuck around. An oxymoron, she thought.

Except for Brad. Brad would stick around.

Olivia lay in bed and felt her stomach burn with a strange jealousy for Maya’s relationship.

That night, she dreamed of dark corridors and flashing lights and ominous Christmas music. When she woke up at five thirty, she leaped out of bed and thought, Today’s the day.

It was time to open the Albright Hotel.