Page 41 of Someone to Watch Over Me

“Lexi, right?”

“Uh-huh, and you’re Tom.”

“I am.”

“You come here often?” she asked with a small smile.

“First time in years.”

“Same.”

The coincidence of us being there for the first time in years—at the same time—is something I’ve thought a lot about since that night. Was it the universe finally getting involved to give me something I’d wanted for a long time?

The bartender came over to ask for my order. “I’ll have a Sam Summer and another for the lady.”

She put her hand over the top of her glass. “Thank you, but I’m one and done. I have to drive.”

“I owe you one, then.”

The bartender returned with my beer. I held it up to her.

She touched her glass of wine to my beer bottle. “Cheers.”

“Cheers. So, what’ve you been up to since high school?” I knew she went to college at UVA in Charlottesville and got married shortly after, but it’s been a while since I heard anything about her. I’m not on social media, so I’m clueless about people I don’t see frequently. After I heard she got married, I pushed my crush into a closet in my mind and closed the door.

“College, marriage, work and now widowhood.”

“Oh damn, Lexi. I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard your husband passed.”

“Yeah, it was about three years ago now. He had ALS. Four years of hell.”

The words were like a punch to my gut. “I have a friend from college whose mother has that. I’m very sorry. It’s a cruel disease.”

“It truly is.”

I had no earthly idea what to say next. “Are you… I mean… You’re doing okay?”

She shrugged. “Good days. Bad days. Today was the latter, so I took myself out for a drink after the gym to get a change of scenery. A couple of years after my husband got sick, we moved into my parents’ basement because we needed their help so badly. I still live there since neither of us thought life insurance was a priority in our twenties, so… I’m kinda stuck.”

I’d had the idea right then and there.

“It’s okay, though. My parents have been amazing. They helped us with everything, and I never would’ve survived it without them—and his family, too, of course.”

“I’m glad you were well supported.”

“Enough of all that. What’ve you been up to? Did you get married?”

“Nope. Never even came close.” Because I was still thinking about a girl I’d never even talked to back in the day, who looked positively adorable in her marching band uniform. “I own a construction company. We build houses and do some commercial stuff all over NOVA.” That’s the local abbreviation for Northern Virginia.

“Wait. Hammett Homes. That’s you?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. Impressive.”

That made me laugh. “If you say so.”

“I see your signs everywhere. I say so.”

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