Page 30 of An Adventure For Aster

“Just not all the guys she dates,” Aster said. He and Raine had talked about it. She filled him in a bit on her dating history and what she was looking for and not finding.

He didn’t know much about this guy she dated all through college that she’d thought she’d be married to with a bunch of kids by now and he hadn’t asked.

“Guess you two talk more than do activities. And now I need to go meet with my boss. Bye,” Ivy said, waving her hand and speed walking to the house where Lily was still working from home part time.

“Activities, huh?” Zane asked. “Like a first grader?”

Zane was laughing and he knew that would happen. “A bit more than her class.”

“Want to share?” Zane asked. “Or tell me to shut the hell up?”

“Not much to share,” he said. “We’ve gone to dinner, apple picking and the tasting room, cooked a few meals, the movies.”

Last Friday night was the movies. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to the movies. Before the service for sure. After sitting in the theater with a bunch of teens on a Friday he remembered why.

Raine had laughed and said it was part of the experience. Guess she was right. And the movie was interesting.

Saturday, he’d had her over to his place and they cooked together. He’d felt bad she’d done so much baking the weekend before and wanted to show he wasn’t all thumbs and could only cut and clean up things.

She seemed to appreciate the basic meal he’d made, but it gave them time to talk and get to know each other more.

And for him to get his mouth on hers again, but that was all they’d done.

They hadn’t seen each other on Sunday. He didn’t expect that they’d spend every single moment together on the weekends. She had things to do and so did he, but they talked that night.

“Just like a normal dating life,” Zane said.

“Like you know what that is,” he said. “You’re an old married man now with kids.”

“And loving every minute of it,” Zane said.

“Do you want to keep standing around here gabbing like a bunch of chicks or get to work?”

“Remember what I said about calling them chicks,” Zane said. “They don’t like that.”

He let out a rare laugh. “I think I can figure that out enough.”

He got in his truck and followed Zane to the plant where a lot of men were working.

He was barely parked when his phone went off and he looked down to see a text from one of the floor supervisors that a machine was acting up.

He replied he was outside with Zane and would be right in.

“What’s going on?” Zane asked.

“The bottle machine is starting and stopping,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can figure it out before I call the company.”

“I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time researching everything to see how they work.”

Zane was smirking at him again. It was something he’d done before. If Aster could find plans or videos or manuals, he read them or watched them to get an idea of the working parts.

“Of course,” he said and made his way into the building.

It amazed him when he heard the story behind this plant and how it all came about. Most came from Zane saying how proud he was of his wife and her sisters and their growth over the years.

Now it was so big they had to all but double the size of the plant with product expansions and increased sales.

The new side would have all the accessories and jewelry, as most of it wasn’t completely machine operated but more manual labor putting the finishing touches on or lots of sewing machines and stations there.

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