Free So Inn Love by Catherine Clark Page A

frowned-upon belly button ring. “This is an Inn towel, so doesn’t that count for something?”
    “You’re in a bikini, so no, and it’s not a skirt,” she said. “In fact, if you wouldn’t mind stepping away from the desk? I don’t want a guest walking in to be offended.”
    I stared at her. “There’s something offensive about me now?”
    “No! Of course not. I just meant—you know, not everyone’s comfortable around people who aren’t dressed. That’s all,” she said.
    “Uh huh.” I wasn’t buying it. I believe in being the tiniest bit blunt, when someone won’t ’fess up. “Caroline, what gives?” I asked her.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “What do you have against me?” I asked.
    “What? Nothing.” She kept flipping through her magazine, not making eye contact with me.
    “I mean, I haven’t seen you in a long time. Did I do something to offend you, the last time we hung out? I hope you’re not holding a grudge over something I did way back when,” I said.
    “Of course I’m not,” she said. “I wouldn’t be that petty.”
    I raised my eyebrows. Really, I thought. Are you sure?
    She laughed. “Look, is this because I took the front-desk job away from you?”
    “That’s a whole separate issue, actually,” I said. “But no. I’m glad I have my job, even if I don’t know what it’s going to be from day to day.”
    “I’d hate that,” Caroline said.
    Of course you would, I thought. You’re tooinflexible to move around from place to place .
    Caroline also struck me as the kind of person who couldn’t stand to get her hands dirty. She’d never want to build sand castles and jump over waves with the little kids. And she’d for sure never want to have to clean someone else’s room.
    Not that I wanted to do that, either.
    “So why were you out on the beach a while ago as if you were spying on me? And why did Miss Crossley—who, from what I can tell, practically never leaves the building—come running out as soon as you went back inside?” I asked. “What did you tell her?”
    “Nothing. She was on her way out when I was on my way in,” Caroline said.
    I thought about that for a second. It could be true, I supposed, but it was quite a coincidence. I decided I’d wasted enough of my lunch hour on this, and I was about to step away from the desk when she said, “Liza? It’s just—you should know. Hayden and Zoe? They dated last summer. Like, very seriously.”
    “Oh.” This was kind of big news to me, butkind of not. I’d seen the way Hayden and Zoe acted around each other, sort of awkward and maybe a little annoyed. Which I could see was the way exes acted, now that I knew about it. I briefly wondered who broke up with whom, and when. No doubt Caroline was dying to tell me, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of asking. Anyway, I could get the information straight from Hayden, if I really wanted to know. And I wasn’t sure I did.
    Caroline was watching me for some sort of stunned, or pained, reaction.
    Instead I just shrugged. “Well, okay. What about that? I mean, why tell me?”
    “I just thought you’d want to know. They were really close.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Really close,” she repeated.
    I figured she was trying to say, in her Caroline way, that they’d slept together. “I don’t see how it really matters, but okay, now I know.” I shrugged. “What other news you got?”
    “What do you mean?” Caroline asked.
    I leaned forward on the desk. “Tell meabout Miss Crossley. Who did she date last summer?”
    Caroline glared at me. “Ha ha. You think you’re so funny.”
    “Come on, if you’re spilling gossip, tell me everything. In fact, who did you date last summer? If I don’t have the background on every single person here, I won’t feel comfortable,” I said. “I mean, this is the kind of stuff I was looking for that night at the bonfire. The dirt on everyone. But no one said anything.”
    The phone rang and Caroline