Page 66 of The Inn Dilemma

I turn in Holt’s arms, and I feel the need to go to war for my friend with the look in her eyes. All the excitement and hope that once filled her face has been replaced with a frown. She looks as if she’s on the verge of tears.

“What happened?” I ask.

Reese looks from me to the exit. “I need to go. You can stay.” She motions to Holt, whose arms are still wrapped firmlyaround me.

It takes everything in me to step away from him. Immediately, my body misses the warmth he provides.

“Let’s go,” I say.

When I turn to tell Holt goodbye, the look on his face has all the happiness I felt only moments ago draining out of me. His expression is full of regret.

My heart slowly implodes, and my voice is thick when I say, “I need to go with her.”

I can’t read him when Holt looks up at me. It’s as if his face has turned to stone.

“Bye,” I say in a small voice.

The bartender sets our two root beers on the bar. Holt picks them up.

“I’ll see you around.” He stands with both drinks and heads to the table with our friends.

I can’t even look at them, too afraid of the expressions I’ll find on their faces.

The moment we are in Reese’s car, I file my own emotions in the back of my head to focus on later. Reese needs to come first right now, so I ask, “What happened?”

“The guy turned out to be a grade-A jerk. Apparently, something in my bio made him think we’d end up at his place at the end of the date.”

I scrunch my nose. “Eww, I’m sorry. That stinks.”

Reese blows out a slow breath and shrugs, merging onto the highway. “It is what it is. I shouldn’t be surprised. He is a man, after all.”

“Not all men are like that.”

She gives me a sympathetic smile and wiggles her eyebrows. “That’s all I want to say on the subject of my date. However…” She trails off and practically giggles. “What I am far more interested in is what happened with you and Holt.”

“Umm, no. We will not be discussing that.”

As the streetlights highlight her face, I notice the side-eye she gives me. “I’ll give you until we get to your house to process everything.”

Reese fulfills her promise to let me process. But once we’re in my kitchen and I’m pouring us sweet tea, she spins on me.

“What exactly happened there with Holt?” Her words are clipped and to the point.

I stare at her, feeling like a fish as my mouth opens and closes, unable to form a coherent thought about what just occurred. I set the glasses on the marble countertop.

She crosses her arms and leans a hip against the island opposite of me.

After a moment of careful thought, I answer, “Holt was trying to push away that bold blonde and asked me to kiss him to throw her off for good.”

“That was not a spontaneous kiss. That was a kiss that was calculated and planned. He looked like a man who’s been starving in the desert and you were the water and food he’d been deprived of. And you, well, you matched his intensity.”

The look on Holt’s face surfaces. The regret in his expression, the way he didn’t even look at me when I told him goodbye. A heaviness fills my chest. This is what I’ve been trying to avoid. Since coming home, I’ve ignored this growing bond between me and Holt…because of what just happened. He will realize that I have way too much baggage and that I’m not worth the effort of working through it.

Without warning, I release a very ugly sob. I thought crying was supposed to help release these painfulemotions. But these tears burn as they stream down my cheeks, only reminding me of how weak I am. How much I don’t deserve Holt.

“Oh, Nova. Don’t…don’t let this get you down. It will be okay.”

“I’ve fought my feelings for him for weeks. Five minutes is all it took for my defenses to be obliterated, and his instant regret was obvious.”

---