Page 280 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“Everything,” Kayla said. “What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you since, what, that trip we took in junior year? When you came up to Arches to climb that spring?”
“No, it was Cuba, the summer between junior year and senior year,” I reminded her.
“Oh yeah!” Kayla said. “For some reason, I always think that that was the summer before that. What a great trip.” She paused and then looked at me in surprise. “Matt! Are you still dating him? Or married or something?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Nah, Matt’s long gone,” I said, shrugging. Actually, it was weird to even think about Matt now. It seemed like it had been a lifetime since I had dated him. Since I had even thought about him.
“What happened?” Kayla asked, and I shrugged again.
“I don’t know, we just weren’t meant to be. He wanted so much more, so fast. Like, he wanted to get married the second we were out of college. And I just wanted to live my life a little first, you know?” I glanced away from Kayla. I knew what she was probably thinking; that I was just as commitment-phobic as ever. And honestly, that was what doomed most of my romantic relationships.
I just couldn’t seem to find anyone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And I couldn’t help thinking about my parents’ divorce. They had still claimed to love each other. But they could barely stand to be in the same room with one another.
It all just left me pretty jaded, feeling like maybe the idea of marriage wasn’t something that I really wanted to pursue. If that doomed my relationships, then so be it. I had more fulfilling things in my life anyway.
Like this new undertaking, Brooks Mountain Resort.
“But you’ve dated other people since then?” Kayla pressed, and I remembered suddenly that Kayla was one of those people who basically couldn’t stand to not be in a relationship. Hers never lasted all that long, but she seemed to always have a new guy. She wouldn’t understand if I said that it had actually been two whole years since I had dated anyone at all.
“I’ve dated,” I hedged. “It’s just been a while. I’ve been busy with work and stuff.”
Kayla groaned. “You can’t let your work be your whole life,” she said.
I laughed. “Well, I just bought a new business,” I reminded her. “For the moment, it might just have to be.”
Kayla shook her head but before she could say anything in response to that, one of the guests came up to the two of us. “I’m sorry, I think I remember you from before,” he said to Kayla. “You work here, don’t you?”
“I do!” Kayla said, giving the man a bright smile. “What can I help you with?”
“I just was wondering if you could do anything about the lights out in the main hall of the new condos,” the man said. “I might be missing something, but I can’t seem to get them to turn on, and it’s mighty dark in there.”
Kayla frowned. “I’m so sorry about that!” she told the man. “I’m not sure what the problem is, but we’ll get right on that.” She looked over at me as the man thanked her and walked off. “That would be a task for Adam. I’ll give him a call. Maybe you can chat about the business with him while he’s here, too.”
I shook my head. “We don’t need to call Adam in for something like this, I’m sure,” I said. “We’re smart enough to figure out what’s wrong with the lights. It’s probably just a blown fuse or something. Come on, let’s go take a look.”
“Okay,” Kayla said, but I could tell she wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea.
I didn’t know why I was so reluctant to call in Adam. Obviously, I was going to have to get used to working alongside him. There was no reason for this flutter of nervousness in my gut every time I thought about him.
But no, I told myself. That wasn’t the reason why I didn’t want to call him in. I just was sure that there was no reason to call him in on a day when he wasn’t working, just to fix some silly problem with the lights. Besides, I didn’t want to be just a figurehead at the company. I wanted to be involved with everything. If that meant fixing lighting issues, then that was just another thing for me to do.
When we got to the hallway, I saw that it really was pretty dark in there. The five overhead lights that went down the middle of the hallway all seemed to be out. I frowned, peering up at them. “They probably didn’t all go out at once, but we should check the bulbs anyway, just to be on the safe side,” I said. “I bet if just one or two of them went out, no one would really notice it, so maybe things have just been getting progressively darker in here until suddenly they were all out.”
Kayla looked skeptical, but she helped drag a chair over so that I could reach one of the bulbs. I gave it a small shake and, sure enough, there was a faint noise inside. “Definitely gone out,” I confirmed. “We have spare bulbs, right?”
“Yeah, they should be back in the supply closet under the stairs,” Kayla said. “I think that’s where the fuse box is for the condos, too; maybe we can try that as well.”
“Sure,” I said easily. “Like I said, I’m thinking it’s probably more to do with the bulbs, but it wouldn’t hurt to see if there’s something wrong with one of the breakers too. Lead the way.”
Kayla guided me down the hall to the supply closet. Once there, she started rooting around for more of the bulbs while I pulled open the fuse box and tried to make sense of the small letters labeling each switch. I frowned and tried one of the switches experimentally, glancing back over my shoulder towards the hall. Still no change.
I tried another switch, not sure which hallway this was in terms of the labels. Suddenly, everything got even darker than before, the emergency lights turning off as well as the lights here in the supply closet. I hurriedly flipped the switch back in the other direction, but there was no change.
“What did you do?” Kayla groaned from somewhere off to my left.
“Oops,” I muttered, flipping the switch back and forth a few more times. But there was still no change. I sighed. “Maybe we should call Adam.”
“Told you we should have done that from the start,” Kayla said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh. I was glad for the darkness to hide my flaming cheeks.
