Page 5 of Caden

“I can’t imagine moving like that.”

Their food arrived and they spent a few minutes eating before Olivia remembered what she was going to ask.

“With your dad in the military, and a cop to boot, how does he feel about this?” She reached over and slid one finger along the tattoos on the back of his hand.

One corner of Caden’s mouth lifted in a wry grin.

“He wasn’t thrilled, I can tell you that. Said I was ruining my prospects at a good job. And if I were looking to get into the military, that would probably be true. But I’ve never wanted to enlist, or even be an officer. I did briefly consider law enforcement, and from my research when I was, most departments don’t care about tats, as long as they are not offensive or on the face. But as for Dad, he’s come to terms with them. Kaley loves them and tells me she wishes she were brave enough to get one, but she’s terrified of needles.”

“Kaley?”

“My sister. My parents had a thing for Irish names. I shudder to think what they would have named a third kid… it might have been something easy like Liam or it could have been something else entirely.” Caden shook his head but couldn’t seem to keep a fond smile off his face.

“You don’t really mind though, do you?” She was only guessing, but from the look on his face it was a good one.

“No, not really. It’s something Kaley and I tease our parents about. We come up with the craziest spelled Irish names that look nothing like they’re pronounced and ask if the next one would have been called that.”

“Like?”

“The only one that comes to mind is E O I N.” He spelled the name out for her.

Olivia scowled and tilted her head to one side as she tried to puzzle it out. “How do you say that?”

“Owen. And that’s one of the simple ones.”

Her jaw fell open and she gaped at him for several seconds.

“How?”

Caden shrugged.

“I don’t know. There has to be rules and reasoning behind it, but I have yet to figure it out. Not that I’ve studied it.”

“I had no idea,” she said slowly shaking her head.

“What about your family? No theme to the names?”

“None. There’s Lainey, Olivia, Richard, though we call him Rick. Tom and Steve and the oldest is Jennifer.” She smiled, thinking about how her siblings would react to find out she’d lied about the new guy she was seeing and was on a date with a guy she’d met the night before.

“Let me guess, Lainey is the one right before you.”

She frowned again and tilted her head to one side to watch him. “How did you know?”

“Jennifer is the oldest, then Rick, Tom and Steve in some order. All common names. Then there are the two less common names, it seems they started looking for uncommon names the more kids they needed to name.”

“I’m not sure I would call that a theme,” she said, still frowning.

“I wouldn’t either but it’s interesting, either way.”

She wondered for a moment if Lainey and Brant had given any thoughts to what they might name their kids? Were they planning to get started right away on starting their family or would they wait? Did they even plan to have kids?

“You look a million miles away.” Caden’s voice pulled her from her musings and Olivia realized she was being rude as she let her mind wander.

“Sorry, I was thinking about Lainey. Last night was her bachelorette party. After all our talk of naming kids, I started wondering if she planned to start their family right away and if she’d thought about names yet.”

“She’s getting married soon?” Caden’s interest seemed more polite than real interest.

“This weekend.” Olivia sighed. “I originally told them I was bringing my boyfriend but a few weeks ago we broke up.”

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