Page 63 of Love Me Boldly

I tried to brush off running into Graham. He was most likely in town to help out with the camp. He’d be gone again, out of our lives. And that was for the best.

I didn’t have anything to offer him anymore, and that was assuming he wanted anything from me in the first place. So I ran into not one but two blasts from the past. Those things happened, and then they went away. That’s all it was.

The same as the last time I’d met Graham, I had larger things to think of. Jonah. Taking care of The Grille, Caroline…

And what I’d do if my most recent doctor visit brought back the results I was dreading to hear.

* * *

“He’s tired today,”Caroline said, grinning at Jonah scrunched up in the booth, reading through a stack of books we kept in the restaurant.

He’d been practically raised in this place like I’d once been, and he knew he had to stay out of the way, so we’d stocked a basket with books and card games and activities that would keep him seated. When it was slow, he’d help me fold silverware into napkins or clear tables, but I didn’t want him dreading the work in this place like I’d once done.

“Camp wore him out for sure.”

By now, he was usually bored and whining and wanting to run laps around the empty tables. Long gone was the divider wall between the old smoking and non-smoking sections. I’d spent time over the years renovating and updating the restaurant. I came in one weekend and painted all the walls a bright cream color. Trina and Cole had sent their friend, Robbie and some of his friends over to help tear down the dividing glass walls. After, I patched up holes and painted the beams an even lighter shade. It made the restaurant feel ten times bigger and gave me a better view of all the tables from a single spot at the serving station outside the kitchen.

“I need to tell you something,” I told Caroline.

She paused at where she was refilling the salad fixing bins to prepare for the dinner rush.

“Did you get a call?”

“No.” I shook my head. “The doctor said it would take up to two weeks for results to come back.” Results I was refusing to consider or believe for a moment.

“What else could make you look so constipated?”

I barked out a laugh. “Gross, Care. Thanks for that.”

She shrugged and started slicing cherry tomatoes in two. Her hands worked so quickly the tomato was there and gone, and I’d barely seen it before it was sliced. “Well, you get this look…”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

Jonah busted through the door. “Mommy, Mommy! Your friend is here!”

“What?” I spun, jolted at the banging of the doors and the excitement on Jonah’s face. “What?”

“Your friend. The one from the big school? My coach!”

“Oh no,” I groaned before I could stop myself.

Caroline didn’t miss a thing. “Friend?” she teased with a gleam in her eye she’d soon lose. “I want to meet your friend.” She might have some lingering left-sided paralysis from her stroke, and it’d taken her a good six months to speak clearly again, but it hadn’t short-circuited her brain. She was still too damn smart.

She moved and pushed at the door before I could stop her.

“Don’t,” I cried out, but I was too late. She pushed through the doors and then stopped so abruptly they swung back and smacked her in the backside.

“It’s good to have friends, right, Mommy? That’s what you always say. That we need to be nice to them.”

“We should, Jonah. Definitely. Always be kind to everyone. It’s important.”

“Then why don’t you want to talk to your friend?”

I folded and refolded a towel. Slapped it down onto the counter and picked it up again. “It’s…”

“Won’t that hurt his feelings?”

Jonah peered up at me with those large eyes. They had to have come from his dad, because while our coloring was similar and he definitely had my hair, his eyes saweverything. They were large, round orbs of gold that absorbed every single thing he saw and somehow understood nuances that adults still had trouble getting. It wasn’t a surprise he caught my reservations.

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