Page 40 of Once Upon a Fall

Oh boy.

Dean

There was a couch. The prince was very gentlemanly about the whole thing.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to see when Rosie takes me into her room, but this is not it.

“Welcome to my room,” she says, holding the door open, her voice tinged with something like nervousness.

I look around as I walk in, noticing how everything is so floral. And drab. Boring, muted tones. Nothing like the vibrant, overworked innkeeper I have come to know.

Nothing in the decor screams Rosie lives here.

There’s some evidence that she does, though. Clothes piled on a chair, papers stacked on a desk. But then there’s an entire bookcase completely empty, except for one large book lying on its side on the second shelf.

“Oh,” she says, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “Let me just remove that.” She quickly swipes a lacy white bra hanging over the back of a desk chair. “Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to clean the room with everything happening today.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her.

There’s an unmade queen-size bed in the back corner of the room and a decent-sized brown-and-blue plaid couch sitting perpendicular to it along the right side of the room, with some clothes piled in the center.

Above the couch hangs a crooked sign that says Live, Laugh, Love.

“Nice sign,” I say wryly, pointing to yet another thing that doesn’t seem to belong in Rosie’s room.

“Oh,” she says with a laugh. “That’s not mine. That’s from the previous owners. The Jacobsens, the couple who sold me the inn. I’ve been so busy updating the inn that I haven’t gotten to this room.”

“That makes sense,” I tell her.

And it does. From a consultant’s point of view, the place where you make the most money should be the focus. Guest rooms first, her own room last.

Still, she’s put so much of herself into every other room in this place and almost nothing into her own.

So, why does it bother me? I think I’m just tired. And I’m going to have to spend the night on this couch, which I don’t think I’m going to fit on, because there’s no way I’ll let Rosie take it.

“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing toward the couch. She notices the pile of clothes in the middle of it and quickly looks around for somewhere to put them before settling on the desk chair.

“It’s a pretty small space,” I tell her.

She nods. “I’d like to make it bigger eventually, but for now, all of my resources have to go to the guest rooms.”

“What did they look like before?”

She holds out a hand, gesturing toward the room. “This.”

“Ah,” I say, now understanding why she decided to redo them all. I know nothing about interior design, but I’m pretty sure grandma florals went out a while ago. Even as a kid, I never loved how my grandma Vivian decorated her place.

Rosie takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and I sit back on the fairly comfortable couch, lacing my fingers behind my head. “Are you going to make this one princess themed as well?”

She snorts out a laugh. “Uh, no. I think when I finish the Beauty and the Beast room, I will be done with all things frilly and lacy.” She looks around the space. “I actually have no idea what I’ll do with this room.”

“No under-the-sea theme? Or what was the other one with the flying carpet?”

“Aladdin,” she offers. “And no, no more princess themes for me.”

“What made you decide to do it for the guest rooms?”

She gets up from her seat and walks over to the empty bookshelf, picking up the large worn book with a faded blue cover and gold lettering across the front.