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Her hand moved to her stomach, which didn’t show any signs of having a baby inside there just yet. “Thanks so much. We’re thrilled.”
“I bet.” Zoe and I had talked about kids a few times. We both wanted them at some point.
“Owen,” Lusanne said, “I can stay for the game but have to head to my aunt’s house for dinner after. I told her there was no way you could make it.”
“Yeah,” he said, seemingly apologetic. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lusanne said, moving to the other side of the bar to take an order.
“Have you been to Grado Valley Vineyards yet?” Owen asked me.
“We have, last weekend. Hit the brewery,” I said. “I’m not much of a wine guy.”
“You and me both. Tough sell around these parts.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Then you met Lus’s family. The owners of Grado are her cousins.”
“No way? Small-town dynamics,” I said, more than familiar with everyone in a town either being related or at least knowing each other. My own wasn’t quite so small, but it wasn’t a metropolis either.
“Exactly,” he said. “So you thinking of sticking around these parts?”
That was the question of the day. “Maybe. The original plan was to head home to take over my uncle’s restaurant when I got back, but that fell through. Now with Zoe here. . .” I shrugged.
That seemed to pique Owen’s interest. “You have experience in the restaurant business?”
“Only if you count working for my uncle as a kid and a bartending gig or two before I left for the military.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
“Why’s that?”
Owen looked as if he was about to answer when his fiancée called him to the other side of the bar. When Owen left, I turned my attention back to the game.
“They’re pathetic,” Lucas said, nodding at the TV.
I admired his ability to care. There was a time I might have said the same. Yelled at the television screen too. But now it just seemed so. . . trivial. Nothing but a game when there were still men and women out there risking themselves as we sat here. Third-world countries where mothers struggled to feed their children.
“Hey, buddy, you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Lucas swiveled his stool toward me. “It gets easier. Trust me.”
“I hope so.”
My phone buzzed.
Whatcha doin’?
Lucas laughed. “Wonder who that is.”
And with that, all my attention was on my phone.
Watching the game. You?
Missing you
