Part of Your World(48)

“Three thousand,” I said before he could answer. “I asked him yesterday. This one took over a hundred hours to make. The wood’s—what did you say it was?” I asked him.

Daniel was blinking at me. “Black walnut?”

“Black walnut,” I said, turning back to her. “It’s one of a kind.”

“I’ll take it,” Jessica said, like an afterthought. “Do you take Venmo?”

“Uh, yeah?” Daniel said, looking shocked.

I pointed to the horse. “I thought that one would be cool for the den at your house,” I told Gabby. “This one is thirty-five hundred. It’s hand-wrought from a beam that was in a hundred-year-old barn. See the color? The ammonia from the animal’s urine stains the wood,” I said, repeating what he had told me. “That’s where the bracket used to be, this lighter spot?”

She crouched to look at it.

“Can he put it in the car?” she asked. “It looks heavy.”



A text pinged to my cell phone as we drove out of Wakan a half hour later. I was in the middle of writing the Grant House a five-star review.

Daniel: WTH???

I smiled.

Me: I’m sorry they were like that. You shouldn’t have comped their stay.

I could see him writing a text. The dots were bouncing.

Daniel: It was the right thing to do. Their visit wasn’t up to my standard. It was customer service.

And then: They paid way too much for those pieces. You shouldn’t have told them they cost so much.

I scoffed quietly. It was nothing for them. Just like it was nothing for me.

I’d played with a pig in a two-thousand-dollar dress. I stepped in dog poop in a shoe that cost as much as the weekend away for three that Daniel just comped, and I just left it there. It wasn’t even worth my time to clean it. I didn’t even think about these things. They were insignificant to me.

I was floating around in some universe that I was beginning to realize most people didn’t live in. Daniel certainly didn’t.

I didn’t like how easy it was for someone like Gabby, in her position of privilege, to punch down. At all.

It was such an unfair power dynamic. She was like a kid wielding her one-star reviews like a toy, for fun. Only it wasn’t a game. It was someone’s livelihood.

And here was Daniel, doing what he felt was the right thing, refunding the whole weekend. He was in the worst position to be generous, yet he was. And she was in the best position to show grace, and she didn’t. And doing it would have cost her nothing.

And that was the fundamental difference between them.

I typed my response.

Me: You deserved asshole tax. Trust me.

And then I paused, thinking about what I wanted to say.

Me: Know your worth, Daniel.

I wish it had always been as easy to know mine.





Chapter 21

Daniel



Alexis hadn’t been out to see me since last weekend when she came with her friends, but we talked every day for hours.

I liked her. I liked her so much, it wasn’t even funny.

The sex was unreal, she was smart and beautiful, and I loved hanging out with her. I hadn’t felt like this in such a long time, I couldn’t even remember being this into someone. Maybe I never had been.

My entire life was now reduced to two things. Raising the money to buy the house and trying to get Alexis to come see me. I’d go see her if it wasn’t for the first thing.

I was working myself to the bone.

When I wasn’t dealing with guests or the house repairs I’d promised Amber, I was working in the garage on the pieces I was trying to finish. I was exhausted.

Today was the first day in a week that I was giving myself a day off, treating myself to a breakfast I didn’t have to cook before I headed over to Doug’s to help him with stuff on the farm. I should probably have just backed out and told him I had too much work to do at home—which I did. But I needed the change. And being outside and with my friends was a nice break, even if I’d be doing manual labor the whole time.

I was at Jane’s in a booth waiting for the guys. I was a little early, so I called Alexis. She answered on the second ring.

“Daniel, I can’t talk right now. I’m having an emergency.” She sounded like she was crying.

I sat up. “Are you okay?”

She sniffed. “No. Not really. The power is out, so the coffeemaker won’t work.”

I barked out a laugh.

“This is not funny! It’s been two hours and I have to go to work.”

“Okay. This is serious. You should probably drink all the vodka before it goes bad.”

“Daniel!”

I chuckled. “Okay, okay. I think I can help. Is your oven gas or electric?”

“I think it’s gas.”

“You think?”

“I don’t coooook,” she said miserably.

I grinned. “If it’s gas, it should work, even if the power’s out. You can boil water and use a French press if you have one.”

“I only have a Keurig.”

“Can you just get in the car and go to a coffee shop?”

“I tried. The garage door won’t open. No power,” she said, defeated. “I’m trapped.”