Chasing Sunsets: Epilogue

Chasing Sunsets: Epilogue

ONE YEAR LATER

When Philip Haskell had said he’d purchased a manor outside of Boston, he’d failed to explain just what state that manor was in.

The renovations had taken several months longer than budgeted, and as a result, the Ivory Castle Hotel & Spa had opened its doors to its first guests almost a year after Grant had arrived on Dane’s doorstep.

Feet aching, Grant shuffled into his office—an office with a window, thank you very much—slumped into his chair and groaned at the ceiling. Opening day had been a success, but Christ, he was tired. And the guests weren’t even real guests. In order to ensure that everything was running smoothly, he and Philip had opted to host friends and family for the first week.

Because who else would make such perfect guinea pigs?

Except for the phones in the guest rooms not connecting to room service for reasons Grant couldn’t explain, everything had gone off without a hitch. When the first real guests began arriving next week, Grant was confident they’d receive nothing but glowing reviews.

Getting to this point, though? It hadn’t exactly gone like clockwork.

A year ago, Grant had stood with Philip in the circular driveway of the manor in Swampscott and stared first at the house, then at his new employer.

Philip had raised both hands and laughed. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Half the roof is missing.”

“Well, uh, not half.” Philip had scratched his head. “And the roof is the first thing I’m fixing.”

Indeed, contractors had been hard at work already, the sounds of whatever they’d been doing on the roof echoing around the secluded 20-acre property bordered with leafy trees.

“Let me show you the inside,” Philip had said, leading the way to the front door.

Grant had gulped. He hadn’t had much hope that the inside would be better than the outside, where it wasn’t only the roof that needed repairs. The walkways and pathways had been overgrown with weeds, the gardens hadn’t had a single sign of life, and the limestone exterior of the 26,000-square-foot manor was dull.

It had potential, though. The house was all hand drawn stone, picture windows, iron balconies, and Grecian columns. On one end of the house, there appeared to be what looked like a solarium, and Philip was already talking about how he wanted to turn it into the dining room, or perhaps a lounge.

The inside wasn’t as bad as Grant had feared. Gorgeous wood siding, cathedral ceilings, wooden floors covered by musty rugs that would definitely have to go, and more Grecian columns.

“There’s some water damage on the second floor,” Philip said. “Most of the rooms need repainting, the carpets need to be replaced with hardwood, and I’m pretty sure the electrical work needs an overhaul, but she has good bones.”

“Why is it in such disrepair?” Grant asked.

“The previous owners declared bankruptcy before selling. They didn’t have the finances for the upkeep. My contractors are hiring extra people, and they say six months, max, for the renovations.”

But the renovations hadn’t been as simple as electrical work and fixing water damage and painting and replacing the flooring. Philip wanted bathrooms added to every room, and since some of the rooms were massive even for a suite, he wanted those divided into two, adding more guest rooms to their catalog.

A year later and here they were, with 34 en suite guest rooms, a library, a dining room that served breakfast and dinner, a spa equipped with a healing salt cave, a lounge, a small gym, several fireplaces, and a concierge desk.

And staff. Lots and lots of staff. The Ivory Castle Hotel & Spa was no family-run inn. The house had more than twice the amount of square footage than Oakley Road Inn and almost 10 times more acres. Grant had been kept busy in the last year working with Philip on a business and marketing plan, brainstorming ideas for décor, and interviewing and hiring staff, starting with an HR person. Grant had sat in on final interviews, but Amara had taken over the day to day hiring activities—posting job opportunities, screening resumes, conducting screening interviews, and all the other human resources stuff that wasn’t on Grant’s list of fun things to do.

Kicking off his shoes, he booted up his laptop and flexed his toes. Even his baby toes hurt. While everything had gone as smoothly as possible today, Grant had spent most of the day on his feet, making sure his employees and his guests had everything they needed.

There’d been times in the last year when Grant hadn’t been convinced he had the chops to run a hotel of this size. Those thoughts usually came at the end of a long day, after he’d made the 30-minute drive from Swampscott back to Boston, and was lying on the couch getting a foot massage from Dane. They were days he and Amara struggled to find decent candidates to interview, or Philip told him there might be budget cuts coming, or the contractors informed him that an en suite renovation would take longer because there was, like, a bulkhead slowing things down or something.

Most days, though, Grant thrived on the challenge.

Dane appeared in his office doorway, wearing sandy turquoise swim trunks, a T-shirt in heather gray, his baseball hat, and bright orange flip-flops. Leaning against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets and a half smile on his face, Grant wanted nothing more than to fall into bed with him and sleep for days.

Grant still lived with Dane in his and Oliver’s two-bedroom apartment in Back Bay. Occasionally, they talked about getting their own place, but Oliver and his cat named Cat were easy to live with, and the apartment was spacious enough for all of them. And it wasn’t like Grant and Dane were going at it on the kitchen table or the living room couch or up against the fridge. Sexy times were confined to their bedroom, and if Oliver was home, he popped in his earbuds to listen to an audiobook or went down to the ground floor to use the building’s gym.

Grant had opted to keep his house in Glen Hill as well, at least for now. Considering how often Grant and Dane returned to visit whenever they could, his house made a convenient place for them to stay, giving them their own space while they were there.

On Grant’s laptop, a listing for the hotel was open, with nary a single review. He turned the computer toward Dane and said, “Where’s my five-star review?”

Dane raised an eyebrow. “Fix my phone and maybe I’ll leave one.”

“What could you possibly need room service for? You haven’t been here all day.” Dane had spent the day at Fisherman’s Beach with Oliver and a couple other teammates who were also playing guinea pig this week, throwing a frisbee or suntanning or doing whatever hockey players did at the beach in the off-season.

“I want extra pillows so I can cuddle my boyfriend in comfort tonight,” Dane said. Waggling his eyebrows, he added, “And let’s be real, we’ll probably need extra towels considering what I have planned for you later.”

Grant half-laughed, half-groaned. “Hate to break it to you, but I might be too wiped for whatever you have in mind. Unless it involves me just lying there and you doing all the work.”

More eyebrow waggling. “That can certainly be arranged. Now, come on. Let’s get out of here. Your day’s technically over, right?”

“It is,” Grant said. One of his assistant managers would take over form here. “Where are we going?”

“Where do you think? Go change.”

Reluctantly, Grant put his shoes back on, went up to the room he was sharing with Dane for the week, and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. He met Dane in the lobby within a few minutes, and with a wave to his front desk staff, headed out to the parking lot.

“How was the beach?” Grant asked as Dane tossed his hat into the back seat and pointed the car east. He ran his hand through Dane’s hair, the strands slightly stiff from saltwater. “You have sand in your hair.”

Dane grunted. “Not surprising. Some kid was kicking sand all over the place.”

“Did you have a good day?”

“It was fine.” Taking one hand off the steering wheel, Dane placed it on Grant’s thigh. The touch through Grant’s shorts was firm, making his body erupt in shivers.

What Dane could do to him, even after all the time they’d known each other…

Sometimes, Grant wondered how he’d gotten so damn lucky that Dane had waited six years for him.

Twining their fingers together, Grant brought them up to kiss the back of Dane’s hand.

“I missed you today,” Dane said quietly. “It felt wrong going to the beach while you had to work all day.”

“We knew it would happen, though, especially during the off-season. There’ll be tons of times when I’m working and you’re not or you’re working and I’m not. Now that your team scheduled has been announced for next season, I can work around your off days and try to make sure I’m off too.”

Grant wouldn’t always be able to make that work, but he’d try. Otherwise, he and Dane would be like two ships passing in the night.

Dane squeezed his hand. “How was your day?”

“Good. Really good. Busy, but the good kind of busy, you know?”

They chatted as Dane drove them the few minutes to their favorite local beach, arriving a couple of hours before sunset. It wasn’t quite the same as chasing the sunset to Lake Champlain and watching the sun go down behind the mountains of New York State, but the beach was pretty. The tide was high, so once they’d parked, Dane grabbed a reusable shopping bag from the trunk and they found a picnic spot on the grass.

They ate chicken wraps, sliced fruit and vegetables, and chocolate chip cookies that Dane had asked the hotel’s kitchen staff to prepare. When the sun finally began to set, Grant fit himself between Dane’s thighs and leaned back against him. The sky turned an eye-popping tangerine, then pink-and-purple before finally fading to blue and indigo. The first stars began winking to life, and Grant reached up, as though he could cup a star in the palm of his hand.

Dane made a sound behind him, and Grant turned his head to look at him. “What?”

Dane kissed his neck, his arms tightening around him. He met Grant’s gaze, his eyes full of something dark and unfathomable under a twilit sky, and whispered, “I want to marry you under the sunset.”

Grant’s breath caught. His heart kicked against his ribs. The rest of the world fell away as he lost himself in Dane’s eyes.

He cupped Dane’s jaw, the bristles of his short beard rough against his palm. Speaking past the lump in his throat proved a challenge, but he managed a hoarse, “It’ll have to be a quick wedding. Sunsets don’t last long.”

Letting out a quiet chuckle, Dane kissed him, light and quick. “I’m taking that as a yes.”

“It’s only a yes if you leave me that five-star review.”

Dane laughed into the evening, the sound surrounding them with warmth and love and hope.

Grant had had a fantasy not long ago, hadn’t he? He and Dane, married and sharing a home on the edge of town that was all fields and trees. Drinking coffee on the front porch or enjoying a glass of wine after a long day while their dogs played in the yard.

Grant had pictured their home in Glen Hill at the time, but the location didn’t matter, did it? As long as they were together.

Somewhere in Grant’s history was a sad recent college grad watching the love of his life drive away in the rain. Grant wished he could go back and tell that younger version of himself that everything would work out the way it was supposed to.

Him. Dane. Sunsets. Love and laughter and life.

Grant couldn’t wait for all of it.

* * *

THE END

Copyright 2023 Amy Aislin. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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