Page 114 of When We Were Reckless
Mason exhaled a breath, and then he nodded, struggling to come to terms with something that was obviously not part of his life plan. Ever since I could remember, Mason has been a planner. It was almost funny that he and Jesse were such good friends. They were total opposites. Mason was risk averse. He never did anything until he’d weighed all the options and considered it from every angle.
“Can you cover the bar?” he asked Holden.
“Whatever you need.”
“Thanks.”
Holden and I watched Mason drive away before we turned and walked to the taproom together. I couldn’t believe Mason was going to have a baby. With Carly, of all people.
“Do you think he loves her?” I asked Holden.
“Judging by his reaction, I’d say that’s a hell no.”
I’d suspected as much, but it still made me sad. “What would you have done if Avery had gotten pregnant?”
I didn’t usually bring up Avery, but it had been a year since she left, and I wondered if he still thought about her all the time. Or if he’d moved on and forgotten her.
“I would have been happy. I always wanted a bunch of kids. Not her, though. It’s one of the reasons she left me.”
“Avery didn’t want kids?”
He shook his head no. “She wanted a career. She wanted to be able to pick up and travel whenever she wanted. And she wanted a beautiful, smudge-free interior that wasn’t littered with toys.” I heard the bitterness in his tone.
“Wow. I didn’t know that. About the kids, I mean.” Although it shouldn’t surprise me. Avery was a perfectionist. She was also an interior designer. Beautiful. High maintenance. And entirely wrong for Holden. But people in love don’t always see things as clearly as the people around them do. “You’re better off without her.”
“I know,” he said, but there was no conviction in his voice.
Love made fools of us all. Why else would someone as smart as my brother fall in love with a woman who was so wrong for him? Guess I could ask the same thing about Jesse.
* * *
I had the table from hell. A middle-aged couple that bickered non-stop and complained about every single thing. Judging by the way they treated each other, I don’t even think they liked each other. They ordered a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, and the woman wanted to taste it, so I poured a bit in her wine glass. She brought it to her nose and sniffed before she took a sip and promptly spit it back into her glass.
“This wine is corked. I should know better than to let you choose the wine,” she accused her husband. “You never get it right.”
“Let me try it,” the husband said. I poured some in his glass and stood back while he tasted it.
“There’s nothing wrong with this wine.”
“You’re only saying that because you chose it,” she hissed.
“I’m saying it because the wine is just fine. If you don’t want to drink it, I’ll just have to drink it myself.”
I took a couple steps back from the table. “So you’re okay with the wine?”
“Bring her a cider. Good wine is wasted on her.”
I walked away from their table mid-argument. When I returned with the cider, the couple was still arguing. “He’s a lazy good-for-nothing. I don’t know what she ever saw in him.”
I set the cider next to the woman and cleared the table next to them, pocketing the tip before collecting the empty glasses.
“If you’d given him a job, they wouldn’t have had to move in with us.”
“Those kids need discipline. Shouldn’t be surprised with the way you always spoiled our daughter. She doesn’t know how to cook or clean, let alone look after her own kids.”
“I paid my dues. I’m not looking after the grandkids too.”
“Where is that waitress?” the man complained. “She just took off and left us here.”
