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“Wait,” I say, confused. “Didn’t you just say that Aria goes fishing?”
Zander sighs like he can’t believe I can’t keep up with him. “Noooo... I said that Uriah goes fishing. Keep up.”
I hold in a laugh at his adorable energy. “I’m sorry. My mistake.” They both had a drawn-out ‘ria’ sound. And really, ‘Ur’ and ‘Ar’ are basically the same sound.
Zander sighs again. “Yeah, so Ariaaaa goes to a cabin by the lake with her family.”
“That sounds nice,” I say, still unsure where this is going. “I have a cabin down by the lake too.”
“You do?” he asks, his green eyes—the same color as Zoe’s—growing as round and wide as his glasses frames.
“Yup. And one up here in the mountains near the ski slopes.”
“That’s a lot of cabins.”
“It’s easy to have a lot when you do all the labor yourself and own a lumber mill,” I smile.
“Labor?”
“Work. I make wood and build cabins,” I say more plainly.
Zander’s look of pure awe is the ego boost I didn’t know I needed.
“That means you can build anything!”
“Well, not anything—”
“Can you build trucks?” He holds his little, wooden green truck up for me to inspect.
“Actually, with some of the tools I have across the street at the shop, I think I can.”
“I’m going to drive a truck just like this one day,” he says with so much confidence that I wholeheartedly believe him.
“I bet you are.”
“Zoe doesn’t have a truck,” he says, deflating so quickly I get whiplash.
I peer outside of the window at the parking lot and see that he’s right. Zoe’s patchy pickup is missing. Had she sold it? Even though it was breaking down constantly, it still seemed safer to drive home in the beat-up truck late at night than walking home in the dark.
“Zoe doesn’t have a cabin either.”
Zoe. Why does he keep calling his mom by her first name?
I’m ten years older than Zoe and not a parent, so is this some new thing sparking in the younger generations? Getting rid of the terms Mommy and Daddy? I hope not. Sure, I knew I’d shift from Daddy to Dad one day, but I still wanted to hear them both. It’s a parental right, isn’t it?
“On Sundays we just stay here at the diner.” Zander frowns. “Like Saturdays and every other day. But all my friends get to do something fun on the weekends. They get to spend time with their families. Sunday is special.”
My heart twists at Zander’s defeated expression. When I was a kid, my parents let me run wild around Forester Ranch with my cousins, and I want the same for my future kids... assuming I even have access to Forester Ranch in the future. Thanks to my Uncle Buckee withholding my share of the land unless I marry, it’s a toss-up.
I can imagine Zander in a few years running around with my cousin Cali’s twins and the Woods brothers’ children whenever they come out for a visit—not sitting here in a rowdy diner until midnight week after week.
Not that I blame Zoe either. Obviously, she has no help, and from the looks of it, no family or friends aside from Connie. Being a parent is hard enough, but being a single parent is nearly impossible if you don’t have any help. Since Zoe doesn’t seem to have family, she needs a friend.
I want to be far more than a friend to her—I want to be her everything—but it’s a starting point I’ve managed to wiggle my way slowly into ever since we met a year ago.
“You know,” I say, turning the toy truck over in my fingers as I think of a way to cheer Zander up, “maybe we could build a bigger truck.”
My tactic works because suddenly Zander’s shoulders rise again.
