“You’re both overcaffeinated, to be honest.”
“That’s fair,” Rob said.
“How’s your brother doing? I haven’t seen him in a while?” Before he could tell her she needed to be more specific—even though he could guess which one she was asking about—she held up her hand with a laugh. “Danny, I mean.”
“He’s good. Writing a lot, I guess, which means we won’t see much of him. He said you helped him break through some writer’s block, so I guess we have you to thank for the fact we’re not listening to a clacking keyboard in the middle of the night or having to field really random questions, like how long it takes the average person to take a shower.”
“That seems like an odd thing to want to know,” Kenzie said.
“I know, but I guess something was happening in his book while one of the characters was in the shower and he needed to make sure there was enough time for the thing to happen.” He shook his head. “He was so annoyed that none of us knew the answer, as if we timed ourselves regularly and kept notes.”
Hannah looked up from her phone. “Eight minutes is the average, apparently.”
“Eight minutes?” Rob shrugged. “Now I’m going to have to time myself to see if I’m average.”
Kenzie laughed. “We open early and I like sleep, so I’m definitely faster than average. Anyway, what are you eating today?”
They both ordered the French toast, along with the upcharge for real maple syrup rather than the store-bought stuff. When Kenzie went to pass the order to her dad and do a coffee check of her other customers, Rob leaned back in his chair and looked at Hannah over the rim of his coffee cup.
She smiled back at him and lifted her coffee to her lips. He looked at her mouth, memories of last night flooding his mind, and he really wished something would come up to keep Brian down south for another day. Maybe even two. Nothing bad, of course. But he’d love a little more alone time with Hannah.
“Stop looking at me like that in public,” she whispered.
When he stretched his leg out until it brushed hers, she didn’t pull away, but she gave him a look that told him he better not even think about getting more adventurous. He grinned, thinking about it.
“You’re distracting me from my coffee,” she warned.
Rob laughed and held up his hands in surrender, though he didn’t move his leg.
They chatted about nothing much while they ate their French toast, mostly arguing about which sitcoms weren’t funny enough to merit the title. Considering how often they laughed together and seemed to have similar senses of humor, theyreallydisagreed about funny television shows.
Like every conversation he had with Hannah, he enjoyed it and didn’t want it to end.
“So do you have any regrets?” she asked, and when he looked at her—startled and confused—she barked out a laugh and shook her head. “I mean about buying the campground. Not about... Now that it’s been open a couple of months, do you regret it? Is it going better or worse than you thought it would?”
“Better,” he said instantly. “For the most part. I was afraid it would cause fights with the four of us—not arguments or just giving each other crap like usual, but the kind of fights that destroy relationships. But we’re getting along for the most part and even though Joey isn’t totally pulling his weight, it was always him and Danny and then Brian and me, so the two of us work together well enough without him.”
“I think protecting relationships is hard when you go into business with family. The potential is always there for a big blowup.”
“Were you worried about you and Erika?”
“That was a little different. We were casual friends when we started the podcast, but our relationship grew and strengthened over time. What we have now goes a lot deeper than when we started.”
As she spoke, her eyes lost some of their sparkle and she slouched in her chair while drawing random patterns in the syrup on her plate with her fork—like a very sticky Zen garden.
Rob wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it, but he knew he’d be a jerk not to ask about one of the biggest things in her life at the moment. “Are you making any progress in your decision-making? About the podcast, I mean.”
The sigh that sounded like it came from the depths of her soul told him she hadn’t, but she shrugged. “Still working through it, I guess. It would probably be easier if I didn’t love Erika so much.”
“If you make a decision based solely on it making Erika happy, doesn’t that mean it’s not the right move foryou?”
“Not necessarily.” She shrugged. “Okay, maybe, but it’s not that easy. We’re partners and we builtImprobable Causestogether. I can’t just turn my back on that.”
Rob nodded. He wanted to keep pushing—to argue that if she only changed the format to please Erika, then Hannah wasn’t going to be happy—but he kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t be objective because her and her business partner going their separate ways opened the door for even the slight possibility Hannah might be willing to consider relocating.
It wouldn’t be fair of him to influence her—assuming he even could—based on whathewanted for her on top of everything else she had to consider.
Talking about her plans definitely dimmed the glow he’d woken up with, and it felt like the wrong time to have brought up a subject that would only remind him how temporary his relationship with Hannah had to be.
