Page 54 of The Husband Hour
Game six of the Stanley Cup finals played out on the two screens on opposite ends of the bar. He watched one of the centers fly down the ice and imagined how it would feel to be knocked into the boards at that speed.
“Hey,” someone said, tugging on his T-shirt, barely audible over the music and the crowd. He turned around. Stephanie, holding a beer, smiling drunkenly.
“It’s your unlucky night,” she said.
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“I’m here with someone,” she said conspiratorially.
He looked around. “Well, good for you.”
“He’s in the bathroom.”
“More information than I need, but okay.” He turned back to the game.
“Who are you rooting for?” she asked, squeezing in next to him.
“Myself,” he said, downing the shot. “Hey, let me ask you something. Do you think Rory changed over time? Did he become…angrier? More difficult?”
“Hmm,” she said. “Was Rory Kincaid born an asshole or did he become an asshole? That’s a tough one.”
“I still don’t know why you keep insisting he was such a bad guy.”
Matt barely got the question out before a man appeared, put his hand on Stephanie’s shoulder. He had reddish hair and wore an expensive watch. If Matt had to bet, he’d say he wasn’t local. He was a New Yorker. Maybe LA.
“See ya,” Stephanie said, slipping off with the man into the crowd. He watched her until she was out the door, his unanswered question hanging like a rope around his neck.
Chapter Twenty-Four
What’s up with these?” Lauren signed in at the counter, stepping around a stack of framed photos. “Redecorating?”
“A little business venture,” Nora said. “What do you think of them?”
Lauren bent down, looking at the first in the pile. It was a black-and-white shot of an empty beach and the ocean, mounted on white in a simple black frame. She flipped through, looking at the rest. All were in black-and-white, all various nature scenes around town.
“Simple. Nice. What’s the business angle?”
“The photographer offered me a commission if I hang them on the walls here for sale. They go for a couple hundred apiece so it could be a nice chunk of change for me.”
“Do you even have space on the walls?”
Nora handed her a scribbled list of the day’s specials. “Can you please get these on the board for me? I have to check on the pastry delivery. They were stale yesterday. Did you have complaints?”
“No, not from my tables.” Lauren walked to the chalkboard and realized all of Henny’s signs were gone from the main dining room. “Nora, what happened to Henny’s signs?”
“Yeah, that’s the catch in the photography deal. I need to take those down.”
“Oh no! Henny is going to be devastated.”
“She’ll be fine. She doesn’t make more than twenty bucks or so a sign. It’s a hobby, but this place is a business. If I can generate some income off the wall space, I gotta go for it.”
Lauren knew it was tough to run a business year after year. Just look at what her parents went through with the store. Still, she felt bad for Henny. She would try to remember to buy a few of the signs before the end of the day. It was difficult, though, to think of anything once the breakfast rush started. When she was in the zone, her life and thoughts outside of the rhythm of taking orders, filling drinks, and delivering plates to the tables didn’t exist.
That’s why she was oblivious when her past walked through the door.
She rounded the counter, holding two full pitchers of iced tea, freshly sliced lemons floating on top. She didn’t notice Emerson Kincaid until she nearly collided with him, at which time she promptly dropped both pitchers, soaking herself and the floor. Lauren was vaguely aware of busboys and Nora scurrying around her, containing the mess. All she could do was back away, useless.
She was never more thankful than she was in that moment that he and Rory didn’t look very much alike. It was not like seeing a version of Rory walk in the door. But it was very much the physical incarnation of a different life, of a time that had begun to feel more and more like it existed only in her memory. The idea that players from that particular drama still roamed freely, still had lives beyond the brief moment when their worlds intersected with hers, was almost too much to think about.
