Page 25 of Doughn't Let Me Go

I pull myself out of my car and head inside.

“Porter!” Simon calls out.

I give him a weak smile. “Afternoon, Simon. How ya doin’?”

“Can’t complain since I see we’ve made a repeat customer out of you. Here for dinnerandlunch the next day?” He taps his chest. “Hits me right in the heart.”

I chuckle at him. “Can I get a Slice of breakfast pizza?”

I don’t think about the fact that I’m ordering a comfort food.

There’s nothing to comfort. I’m fine.

“Sure thing. You want the biscuits and gravy one or thinking eggs and bacon?”

“Surprise me. I never turn down any sort of breakfast food.”

Simon brings me a water—because it’s much too early for a beer and I should probably settle down on the coffee for the day—and leans against the bar top.

“How’s the East Coast treating you so far?”

“Not too bad.” I take a sip of my drink. “Gonna get a little easier since I hired an assistant yesterday and am working on hiring a nanny today.”

“God, I wish I’d had a nanny when I was raising the twins. Those two kids were hellions.”

“Having met them both, I can see that.”

“Add Foster into the mix and the missus and I were screwed. They were always getting into trouble.” He shakes his head. “Exhausting bunch.”

“I heard the first time they all met each other, they got into a fistfight.”

“Sure did. Little shits.” Simon grins. “But it cemented their friendship. I guess shedding some blood for each other will do that.”

“Their friendship has definitely stood the test of time, gone the distance. Hell, when Foster was out in California with me, all he did was talk about Winston and Wren. He’d remind me all the time that I was his ‘Californiabest friend,’ like he didn’t want to replace either of them, even with words.”

It’s obvious in the way Simon smiles that he loves Foster like a son, which I guess is lucky for him since he’s now his son-in-law.

“He’s a good kid,” Simon says fondly.

“Yeah, he is, but don’t tell him I said that. I don’t need him rubbing that shit in my face.”

“How’d you and Foster meet? I don’t think he ever told me.”

“At a bar. We were both there drowning our sorrows one night, trying to drink away our awful marriages, and we bonded over the fact that we’re both from around here. Eventually we crawled our asses out of the bar and out of the funk we were in and made changes in our lives, but our friendship stayed strong.”

“I didn’t realize you were from here.”

“Kind of. I only spent the first four years living on this coast before my parents split and my mom whisked me away to California to live that Hollywood lifestyle.” I laugh dryly at the thought of what my life turned into because of her making that move. “My dad still lives a couple hours away. We reconnected a couple years ago, and he was ecstatic we were moving back. He finally gets to meet his granddaughter.”

Simon watches me closely as I lift my water to my lips, gulping nearly half of it down.

I fucking hate talking about my past, not just because it sucks and it hurts, but because I feel that all-too-familiar anger begin to boil whenever I think too much about it.

I don’t want to be angry anymore.

“You’re doing a good job.”

He says it so quietly I almost don’t hear him.

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