Page 77 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“Which is exactly when you need a chance to relax. Reset. Recharge. There are probably other ‘re’ words that work here, too.”
“Restore. Recreate.”
He grinned. “Exactly.”
Just then, Wyatt came into the kitchen, dressed for school, his hair slicked back, still wet from his shower. The boy routinely took half-hour showers. I didn’t ask him what he was doing in there besides washing because I pretty much knew what a fifteen-year-old boy was doing in the shower when he wasn’t washing, and I did not want to have that conversation. We’d done The Talk. I consider that box checked for all time.
“Hey, Wy,” Roman said, “You got plans for the weekend?”
Wyatt ripped a banana off the bunch and started to peel it. He didn’t like a big breakfast before school most days. “Tryouts for the fall play are next week, so I’ll probably do some prep for that. Other than that, working on the Sea-Mist. Why?”
“I was thinking we all need a chill weekend. No filthy work at the motel. No work at all. Maybe camping, or just hanging around here and resting. Movies and popcorn and junk food. Thoughts?”
Wyatt was already grinning. “Can we pull a mattress into the living room and make a fort like we used to, Mom?”
Roman turned to me, wearing a very similar goofy expression of hope and anticipation. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, yes. We will camp in the living room, eat crap food and soda, and be slobs for the whole weekend.”
Wyatt and Roman high-fived. It scared me how much I loved to see those two together.
It hadn’t escaped me that my son had stopped trying to be the man of the house. He was acting like a teenager again, and I loved that even more.
THIRTY-ONE: Reckonings
“Idon’t know,” I told Jessie and Erin at lunch that day, “It’s great. Really, really great. But it’s happening so fast.”
We were having lunch at O’Grady’s. The tavern was routinely closed one day a week, which was Erin’s regular day off. But she didn’t yet trust the new home care nurse, so we’d agreed to have our lunch date in the empty bar right downstairs.
I liked it, and I’d been marinating in nostalgia since I’d entered the place. Daddy Ned used to let us play ‘saloon’ in the mornings before he opened up for the day, and the bar had changed so little in the years since that I could practically see our little selves pretending to draw pints and serve customers.
Jessie picked up the bottle of sauv blanc and topped us all off. “Roman Mendoza is the most perfect human being in Bluster, Lennie. Possibly in all of California. Not only does he have the whole hot daddy thing happening, he is a genuinely good guy. There is no black mold behind his walls.”
“Ugh. Please don’t mention that disgusting crud,” I lamented. Black mold is the bane of any flooded homeowner.
Jessie laughed sympathetically. “Sorry.”
Erin sipped her freshened wine and nodded sagely. “It’s true, though, about Roman. I mean, he’s kind oftoogood, if you ask me.”
“How can anybody be too good?” I asked with a laugh.
Jessie answered before Erin could. “Erin likes black mold.”
We all laughed, and Erin threw an apple at Jessie, who caught it and took a sassy bite.
“I do like some dark in my man, yeah,” Erin admitted. “I mean, come on. I’m not easy, I know this. I don’twantto be easy. Somebody like Roman, always understanding, always gentle, never getting mad enough to yell—the guy has, like,noedge at all. I need a good, loud fight every now and then. Cleans out the gutters, you know?”
I shuddered. “I’ve lived with enough edginess, thank you very much.” Jessie reached out to squeeze my hand, and Erin nodded with knowing sympathy. “Roman’s gentle positivity makes me feel safe.”
“Didn’t you feel safe with your first husband?” Erin asked.
The phrasing of her question caught me. “I’ve only been married once, Er.”
Jessie laughed. “I think she’s counting Roman!”
“Oh shit, I was!”
“See?!” Smiling, I raised my voice over their crowing laughter. “This is what I mean! We’re going too fast!”
Jessie leaned in. “You didn’t answer Erin’s question. Did you feel safe with Micah?”
