“I don’t really listen to the music. It’s just white noise.”

  “Shuffle music.” She told her phone and then turned the volume down just enough. “Is that okay?” She looked over at Alyssa.

  “Thank you.” Alyssa rolled onto her side facing Hannah. “Why are you so good to me?” She asked with sleepy eyes.

  “Because maybe it’s time someone was.” Hannah answered in the most honest way she could and decided to take another risk. She laid flat on her back, but held her arm out to the side. Alyssa gave a very small smile, but shuffled over enough to lay her head on Hannah’s shoulder. Hannah wrapped her arm around her and then after a moment, felt Alyssa’s tense arm over her stomach begin to relax. Holding this woman felt amazing. It felt natural. Her arm wasn’t uncomfortable in its position and when Hannah placed her free hand over the one Alyssa had on her stomach, Alyssa intertwined their fingers gently at first and then appeared to tug them closer to her own in a tight embrace before she let her hand relax again. “Good night, Aly Lynn.” Hannah whispered. She heard nothing but even, steady breathing.

  When she stirred later after having been asleep for several hours, Alyssa was clinging to her body. She kissed the top of her head gently so as not to wake her and fell back asleep. Another hour passed and she woke again to Alyssa rolling over on her side. Hannah felt this, but didn’t open her eyes. When she woke for the third time, it was to Alyssa getting out of the bed. She felt the lift of the mattress first and then opened her eyes to watch Alyssa give a small stretch and then turn to face her.

  “I’m sorry. I was trying not to wake you up.”

  “What’s wrong?” Hannah asked.

  “Nothing. I just have to go take a shower and get ready for work.” She looked down at Hannah with an expression of gratitude in her eyes. “Thank you for last night.”

  “Did you sleep okay?” Hannah questioned.

  “Better than I have in a while.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Are you still thinking about getting lunch together today?”

  “If you’re up for it.” Hannah sat up a little more.

  “I am, but you should go back to sleep. You don’t have to go into work until the afternoon and I kept you up most of the night.” She leaned down and pressed a light kiss to Hannah’s cheek. “How’s noon?” She asked when she stood back up.

  “I’ll meet you at the office.”

  “Just meet me at the fence.” Alyssa suggested with a smile. “I’ve got to go.” She stared for a moment longer as if she had to force herself to leave the room and then Hannah watched her walk out and heard the front door close behind her.

  ***

  Hannah slept for another hour before waking up fully and taking a shower. She ate a granola bar to hold her over and then continued unpacking until she had to ready herself for work. She dressed in one of her new business suits and black boots and headed out the door toward the hole in the fence and waited until Alyssa approached.

  “Hi.” Alyssa greeted in a pair of black slacks that fit her well enough, but Hannah could sense there were at least a size too large for her and a navy-blue silk button down blouse that she’d rolled the sleeves up to her elbows. It was a combination of professional with casual that Hannah loved on her.

  “Hi.” Hannah greeted her. “Are we really making the walk dressed like this?”

  “I hadn’t really thought that through.” Alyssa admitted.

  “Let me drive us to lunch, please.” Hannah offered. “We can still go to the truck if you want or we could go to a restaurant. If anyone stares at you, I’ll glare back at them until they stop.”

  “Let’s just drive to the truck today.” Alyssa smiled at the offer.

  “Baby steps.” Hannah said in response. “My car’s over here.” She looked over. “Oh wait, you know that because you left me a note.”

  “It wasn’t a note. It was just my number.” Alyssa replied to the mocking as they walked toward the car.

  “It was a note with your number on it.”

  “I needed a phone.”

  “It seemed like you weren’t working too hard on making that happen until you wanted to give me your number.” Hannah unlocked the car remotely and the two of them climbed inside.

  “That’s it. I’m canceling my plan.” Alyssa retorted lightheartedly.

  “Don’t you dare. I like texting with you.” Hannah winked at her and then pulled the car out of the lot. She looked over as they made their way toward the entrance. “The van’s probably still out here. Do you want to duck or something?”

  Alyssa looked ahead around the corner and saw that one van was still parked at the entrance.

  “I’ll just look down.” She told Hannah as they approached.

  The reporter must have been inside the van at the time because no one was outside to notice her. She still kept her head down as they passed until Hannah placed her hand on her thigh.

  “You’re good.” Hannah shared and then removed her hand.

  “Do you mind if I roll down the window?” Alyssa asked.

  “Sure.” Hannah watched as Alyssa rolled it down and rested her arm on the door.

  “I haven’t left since I’ve been back. I guess I did when we walked to the truck the other day, but this is the first time I’ve been in a car and left.”

  Hannah kept her eyes on the road, but caught glimpses of Alyssa who was focused on staring at the landscape passing by them.

  “Do you trust me?” Hannah asked her after a few minutes.

  Alyssa turned to look at her.

  “I guess, why?” She squinted her eyes.

  “You have an hour, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if we just grabbed something from the truck, but stayed in the car and just drove around on the empty roads until it’s time to take you back, Cinderella?” She winked at her and then looked ahead again. “I’ll even get out and get the food so you don’t have to worry about being seen.”

  “Are you sure? We don’t have too.”

  “It looks like you could just use a drive.”

  “And how will you eat?”

  “We’ll stop somewhere for a few minutes.” She replied as they pulled into the parking lot where the truck was parked. “Same as last time?”

  “Sure.” Alyssa leaned back against the seat and watched as Hannah climbed out of the car, ordered and paid for their food and then hustled back to the vehicle.

  “Okay. Let’s hit the road.”

  They drove for several minutes. Alyssa had their food in her lap, but made no effort to eat. She stared out the window in silence as Hannah drove them further from the complex allowing her to enjoy the freedom of this moment. After about fifteen minutes though, she pulled over on the side of a deserted road that was between two farms and climbed out of the car. Alyssa followed and watched as Hannah pulled a blanket out of her trunk, sat it on top once it was closed and then motioned for Alyssa to sit beside her.

  They ate in silence as Hannah observed Alyssa watch birds fly around and peck at the dirt periodically. Their caws drew her attention as if it had been two years since she’d heard them and maybe it had been. When they’d both finished, Hannah put their trash inside the bag and tossed it into the backseat before returning to the trunk to sit for another moment.

  “How are you?”

  “Better now.” Alyssa looked at her. “Thank you for this.”

  “It’s nice to get out.” Hannah replied.

  “It really is.” Alyssa reached over and took Hannah’s hand in her own. “Are we still on for Friday night?”

  “Of course.” Hannah watched their fingers mingle. “But you can come over tonight if you want.”

  “I don’t want you to have to take care of me like that again.”

  “You act like it’s some kind of imposition. It’s not.”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t want you to have to deal with the nightmare thing.”

  “Friday night, we’re going on a date.” Hannah turned to look at her.

  “I know.”

  “And if that goes well, which I’m guessing it will considering how things have gone so far, there will likely be another one and maybe another one after that.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll stay over at my place eventually, Al and once you actually get your place together, I’ll stay over there sometimes if this thing between us gets that far.”

  “You called me, Al.” Alyssa smiled.

  “Alyssa is a lot to say sometimes and so is Aly Lynn so Al.” She replied matter-of-factly.

  “Okay.” Alyssa laughed lightly.

  “I want you to stay over tonight. If you’re really that uncomfortable, I understand. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but if you’re worried about me, please don’t.”

  “Maybe I’m worried that if you see me like that, you won’t want to see what could happen between us at all.”

  Hannah let go of her hand and placed one hand on Alyssa’s thigh and the other on her cheek as she faced her.

  “I don’t scare easily.” She leaned in and placed a gentle kiss to her lips. “You don’t have to let me know now. Just think about it. No matter what, I still want to go out with you on Friday night.”

  “Okay.” Alyssa answered.

  Chapter 12:

  Hannah hated the later shifts. She’d done a few when she’d managed before, but she’d never been a GM and though no one was forcing her to work random shifts to try to get to know her entire staff, she knew it was the right thing to do. She would never tell Alyssa this, but she was exhausted and it was only Wednesday afternoon. She still had hours of work and the added task of approving payroll for the first time.

  She met with the payroll person and was walked through what buttons to click on timecards and she signed off on everything after adding in all the missed punches. She made another mental note to follow up with Ben, one of the maintenance guys, who seemed to miss a lot of punches.

  She had her first meeting with April in HR, who actually covered three properties so she’d only be around part-time. Hannah felt it was important to have a finger on the heartbeat of the hotel and HR was often the way to do that. She found herself walking the property at around eight checking the outdoor lighting, the parking lot, signage and picking up any trash she found as she went. She took a look into the pool area to make sure everything seemed to be in order there. No one was swimming at the time so she’d been able to check the filter and chlorine levels. There were people that took care of this stuff, but it was part of her inspection to verify the work.

  “We have someone take takes care of that.” Penny walked up beside her just as she threw the test strip into the trash and closed the pool gate behind her.

  “I know. I just haven’t checked it myself yet.”

  “You’re very thorough.” Penny observed as she began walking with Hannah. “Steve never really did any of this stuff.”

  “What was Steve’s hotel experience before he came here?”

  “He owned a couple of pizza franchises before and then sold them and semi-retired.” She paused. “I guess he got bored because after a couple of years, he came here.”

  “So, no hotel experience?”

  “I don’t think so.” She looked over at Hannah. “I didn’t have any before I came here either.”

  “What did you do before this?” She bent down to pick up a candy bar wrapper.

  “College mainly.” Penny replied.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I went to community college for two years and got my Associate’s degree before transferring and got my BS in business administration. I worked part-time as a waitress and it took me about six years to get through it. I looked around for a job for a while and became assistant manager at the restaurant I’d been working at. Took about a year for me to find this.”

  “Took me a while to find something too.” Hannah considered Penny for a moment. If she had the timeline figured out correctly, that made Penny about twenty-four years.

  “How long?”

  “A couple of months.” Hannah replied.

  “We have different definitions of a while then.” Penny laughed as she picked up another piece of trash.

  “You want my resume?” Hannah smiled over at her and they each deposited their trash into the can they’d approached and paused.

  “What?”

  “Well, part of this whole getting to know me thing is trying to figure out my experience and why I got the job over you, right?” Hannah guessed.

  Penny looked at her for a moment as if admitting to it would get her in trouble, but not admitting to it would make her a liar.

  “I pulled you up on LinkedIn when they hired you.”

  “I haven’t updated that profile since college. I forgot I even had that.”

  “Maybe that’s why it took you months to find a job.” Penny teased.

  “Could be. I’ll get you an updated copy of my resume so you can scrutinize, but the long and short of it is that I have an MS in hospitality management. I’ve worked in hotels before and this is the job I’ve always wanted for myself.” She looked around. “Maybe not in this location, but I’ve wanted to run a hotel since I went away to college.”

  “Don’t like our property?” Penny questioned.

  “I like the property fine and the people here are great, but my long-term goal is in a big city. I’m not worried about sharing this with you, by the way, because I told everyone during the interview process about my goals. I want to move up in this company, which is similar to your goal, I’d wager.”

  “It is.”

  “I know you applied and that it’s got to be hard working with someone who came in from the outside, but I think we can work together well, Penny. Part of my job is trying to help everyone here get to where they want to go.”

  “Will you show me then?” She paused. “Show me what you do? Steve never did any of this and I don’t recall him ever working a late shift.”

  “Deal.” Hannah agreed and held her hand out for Penny to shake, which she did.

  “So, we still on for Saturday night with the staff?”

  “I’ll be there.” Hannah offered.

  ***

  Alyssa wrapped up dinner with her mom and helped with the dishes again because it delayed the inevitable walk back to her empty apartment. Having some furniture made it better, but it still just looked like a collection of rooms with someone else’s stuff in it. It didn’t feel like home. If she was being honest with herself though, even her mom’s place didn’t feel like home. It felt familiar. That was how she described it to herself. She wiped down the last of the plates and turned to see her mother staring at her from the sink.

  “What?”

  “I let you get away with it all during dinner because I was hoping you’d bring it up, but you didn’t and it’s getting late and I’m tired.”

  “What are you talking about, mom?”

  “Little Miss Hannah, obviously.”

  “Mom.”

  “I saw those sparks flying between you too and I only stood there for a minute. Don’t think I didn’t notice that look of embarrassment when you saw her there and realized you weren’t put together.”

  “Maybe I would have been had I known you were going to bring someone to my front door.” Alyssa argued.

  “Oh, someone would have been fine. It was Hannah specifically that got that reaction.”

  “What are you getting at? Spill. I’m tired too.” Alyssa dropped the towel to the counter.

  “She’s pretty.”

  “She is.”

  “She’s a little older than you, I think.”

  “She’s thirty-two.”

  “You know how old she is?” Judy smiled in surprise.

  “We’ve talked a few times. She helped me put my furniture together and I helped her move in.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, we’re neighbors, mom and I am a nice person.”

  “I know that.” Judy addressed. “It just seemed like the two of you spent some time smiling at one another while I was standing there and now I’m hearing that you’ve spent time together.”

  “Yes, we’ve hung out.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Mom, come on.”

  “What? I’m your mother. I don’t get to know what’s going on?”

  “You didn’t seem this interested when I was living in LA.” Alyssa fired back. “We talked once a week, if that and I don’t remember you being this curious about Megan, Rachel or Ty and I was serious with all of them.”

  “I was interested, but you were in college. I wanted to give you space and then with Ty, you just seemed-” She stopped herself and then moved to grab plastic wrap from a drawer.

  “I seemed?” Alyssa implored her to finish.

  “You seemed happy at first.” Judy tore a piece of plastic wrap from the tube and wrapped a plate of cookies. “I didn’t want to intrude in your new relationship unless you offered the information and then you seemed less happy so I wanted to make you feel like you could tell me what was going on without me trying to pull it out of you and then I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t think Ty was the one you wanted to spend your life with and it’s hard being a mother, Alyssa.” She paused her rambling. “It’s hard because you want your children to be exactly two things at all times. You want them to be safe and happy. You want them to have people in their life that make them feel both of those things and it’s hard when you don’t think that’s the case. With you, I worry about your safety in the way that every mother does, but with your brother over there, he takes the extra safety worry off your shoulders. Well, he did until you were in there and then you both had an equal share. I was mainly worried about your happiness and that was a problem because as much as a parent wants to tell you what they think about your life to get you moving in path they think is right, they don’t because it’s important for you to figure it out on you own.”

  “You didn’t think Ty was right for me?” Alyssa asked softly.

  “No, but it wasn’t for me to say. I loved that boy, don’t get me wrong and I’d never met Lizzy, but I’m sure she was a beautiful little girl that deserved every ounce of that man’s heart, but you deserved some of his heart too. As your mother, it’s my wish that you get someone’s whole heart one day and when I listened to you talk about him, it just didn’t seem like that was the case and you sounded less and less happy and then you didn’t bring him up at all unless it was to tell me you had to go because it was time to cook Lizzy dinner or take her to the park.” She inhaled again. “I won’t fault him for putting his child first, but I’m your mother, Aly. I want someone to put you first always.”