Page 27 of It's a Love Story

“Artsy jobs end in homelessness. No offense. It’s just a fact.” He looks at me sideways. “I work in heating and cooling. Done it my whole life. And let me tell you, it always gets hot and then cold. People always need their systems serviced and fixed. I always have work.”

Regular work does sound oddly relaxing at this point in my life. “And Connor’s a dentist,” I say.

“People are always going to have teeth.”

“Finn’s an electrician.”

“Someone’s gotta keep the lights on.”

“What does Aidan do?”

“Plumber,” he says.

“Everybody poops,” I say. Cormack laughs, and I feel a disproportionate amount of joy at having caused it. His laugh has fingers that wrap around my heart.

I polish off the rest of my muffin, still warm. The sun is all the way up over the potato fields and the straight brown lines between the green bushes seem brighter. There’s noise in the kitchen, and Paula comes out with baby Katie and pulls a chair from the table so that we are all in a row.

“Who got muffins?” Paula asks.

“Jane,” says Cormack. He hands her the bag. “You’re sworn to silence.”

“The calm before the storm,” she says.

“Is there going to be a storm?” I sort of like the idea of it. We don’t really get weather in Los Angeles, and it would be exciting to see dark clouds roll in over the Atlantic, like in the movies.

Cormack laughs. “No, she just means breakfast. Reenie’s going all out this week because everyone’s around for the anniversary party. It’s like a diner for a couple of hours and then she throws everyone out.”

“Did I sleep late?” It’s Dan, behind us. He walks out with coffee. His hair is wild and his sweatpants are low on his hips. I have a quick thought that he looks like a bed you’d want to climb back into on a Sunday. Because it’s raining outside, and your body just wants to sink back into the warmth. I look away from him and shake off the thought before he sees it on my face.

“No, but we ate all the muffins,” Cormack says.

“Muffins? Who smuggled those in?”

Ruby gets to her feet, arms up to be lifted and swung onto his shoulders. No one seems to blush about the way his shirt rides up when he does this, revealing the low ridges of his stomach. I raise my gaze to the safety of their matching sets of eyes.

“I got some on my way back from my run,” I say. Cormack gives me a sideways glance and then looks away, innocent.

“Where’s the bag?” Dan’s voice seems kind of intense for a man with a six-year-old balancing on his head.

I pick up the bag from where it’s sitting by my feet and hand it to him. He shoves it under his shirt as his mom comes through the door. “Good morning! Who’s hungry?”

“Starving,” says Cormack, who’s eaten two muffins already. He gets up and gives her a quick squeeze.

Paula shakes her head. “You’ll get used to it.”

*

BREAKFAST IS Acircus. We spin the lazy Susan and pass plates of bacon and sliced grapefruit. The pancakes are thin and crispy on the outside; Dan rolls his up and eats it like a crepe. When everyone leaves, I can still feel the hum of their conversation. Who’s going where, who’s grabbing whose kids. Who needs to chew with their mouth closed.

“So you’ve already been to town and won over my dad?” Dan asks when we’re loading the dishwasher.

“Yes, but it was early, everything but the diner was closed. What’s our plan today? Stake out the town? Hang around the Owl Barn?”

“Jack’s definitely here, and he stopped by the Owl Barn yesterday afternoon. I told Finn we’d go around four, but he’ll text us if Jack shows up earlier. So we sort of have the whole day till then.”

“I should work,” I say. I cannot imagine how Dan and I would spend a whole day together.

He’s drying his mother’s cast-iron skillet and is a million miles away.

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