Page 12 of Second Chance

“Anyway,” Tony says. “We should go hiking.”

“Hiking?” Daniel sounds alarmed. He should. For someone who’s lived in the northeast for upward of five years, he has an alarming lack of decent shoes.

“Yeah, hiking. We haven’t been at all this year, and it’s best in autumn. It’s gonna be gorgeous.”

“I’m in,” Lisa says. “I haven’t been in ages.”

“Next week? Saturday?”

“Lemme check.” Blake peers down at his phone calendar. “I guess. But nothing crazy.”

“I was thinking a little light rock climbing?” Tony suggests.

Lisa swats at his arm. “Stop teasing. Can you drive us?”

With a grimace, Tony thinks of his rickety Toyota.

“I can drive,” Daniel offers. “If, uh, if you want me—”

“Always,” Tony says with a grin. “You want to go hiking?”

A flush rises on Daniel’s cheeks, which might be the cinnamon bun lager he downed pretty quickly but also might be the words. “The jury’s still out. But I could give it a try.”

Tony’s not entirely sure, but he thinks there’s afor youat the end of that sentence going unspoken, and he likes it.

They order another round—Sprite for Tony, since he’s driving now, although only Daniel has another cinnamon beer—and debate different trails to take. Tony will have to dig out his hiking boots from whatever storage closet his mom put them in. Maybe his running shoes could work if he doesn’t get home in the meantime. He left those at Daniel’s. They split an order of fries as they talk. Lisa hogs the ketchup. For the first time since this morning, Tony starts to relax a little.

Then the door opens and an all-too-familiar voice floats in.

“…just one, though, this place is way too expensive.”

Lisa looks incredulously toward the source of the voice, coming from outside at one of the patio tables, and says, “This place has the only four-dollar beer in the state.”

“College students.” Blake follows her gaze, craning to see the culprit.

Daniel’s posture straightens so fast his shoulder knocks into Tony’s. “Please no.”

Regretting most of his day, Tony looks outside as well. “Yup. Definitely college students.” Dumbass college students, he adds in the privacy of his own mind because they’re definitely drinking, and they’re definitely here by car—the car Pa and Kyle spent half the afternoon fixing up.

“Hey, isn’t that your sister?” Blake leans halfway out of his seat to see.

Tony’s head whips around. He cranes a little to the left.

“Yup. That’s…that sure is my sister.” And his niece in her stroller, Gianna carefully rocking her as she laughs at something Sean says.

He seemed so innocuous in the shop, a lost, scared student barely out of his teens. Here, drinking beer with Tony’s little sister, he kind of looks like a dick.

“Oh, shoot.” Daniel sinks lower in his seat.

“Hm?” Tony doesn’t look away from the scene outside.

“Those are my students,” Daniel hisses. “And I’m…not sober.”

“I’m so glad that can’t happen to me,” Lisa crows in delight.

Daniel glares. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. I’m told eighth graders drink cough syrup to get buzzed these days.”

“Oh, yeah, I have a few who definitely would. But not in public, where I’m drinking.”

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