“And then she had to come back in and ask Kevin for a ride home because she’d been dropped off.”
Siobhan laughed. “There’s nothing worse than having a grand exit ruined. Did he give her a ride?”
“Of course.” He took a sip of his beer and then leaned back in his chair. “And most of us took a turn working for Emma, too—landscaping, or building with Sean—and that was definitely more my thing. I still do a lot of work for them, actually, as a subcontractor. Joey’s full-time with them since he quit playing ball, and Danny can’t tell a dandelion from an orchid, but he’s good with a hammer.”
Siobhan leaned forward and fiddled with her napkin, wondering how to best phrase the question forming in her mind. “So was it mandatory?”
He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“Did you have to work in the family businesses? Like, whether you wanted to or not?”
“Are you asking if our parents forced us and if I’m going to try to make Oliver wash beer glasses and haul bags of mulch?”
Her cheeks grew hot. “Maybe a little bit.”
“We all had to work, of course. Working for family gave us the ability to have a first job with a boss who wouldn’t hesitate to give us a kick in the ass if we needed it, but also cared about stuff going on in our lives. Plus, they’re our family’s businesses. They built them and having the next generation learning the ropes means something. Nobodyhasto stay. There’s no legacy stuff, likemy father built this and now I run it and you have to and so on. Joey stayed on with Emma. There’s a good chance Lily’s going to run this place someday, but it’ll be because she wants to, though my dad talked her into getting a business management degree so her dad will have to pay her more. I think it was just an opportunity to be taught to be out in the workforce by somebody invested in how we turned out as human beings.”
“That makes sense.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, which was okay with Siobhan because it all sounded great. Except for the facttheirson lived almost an hour and a half south of here. Oliver could only take his place in the Kowalski family business rotation if he was staying with Brian.
Maybe he would be, she thought, and then she took a big swig of beer. If a teenage boy had a choice between living with his mom in an apartment in the suburbs or living up here, with all the family and opportunities they had to offer, why wouldn’t Oliver choose Brian?
“Hey, you okay over there?”
She blinked away the moisture in her eyes before it could coalesce into actual tears and smiled. “Of course. Just lost in thought for a minute.”
“While we’restillwaiting on Kevin, I wanted to talk to you about Oliver’s birthday. My family would like to be there, of course.”
“Allof them?”
He chuckled. “No. But a lot of them.”
“Fair warning—besides me and Oliver, I can fit maybe one and a half more people in my apartment before sitting on laps comes into play.”
“We’d love to throw him a party at the campground. I know it’s a lot to ask and you might not believe this,but they really are doing their best to give you space. But birthdays are a pretty big deal in our family and we missed his first one.”
Siobhan struggled to keep her smile. Coming on the heels of her worrying about the possibility of Oliver choosing him over her as a teenager, Brian’s words landed differently than they may have any other time. But she knew it was her own insecurity talking, and she took a deep breath before responding.
“It would have to be on a weekend, obviously,” she said. “I can’t miss more work, and I know you guys are busy on the weekends.”
He nodded. “Yeah, ideally it would be on a Saturday afternoon and be a day trip for my family because we definitely can’t put them all up again. But you and Oliver could spend the night and go home Sunday since it’s farther for you and a lot of car seat time for him.”
“And Robin. She’d come up with us, so she’d be staying, too. Oliver can’t have a birthday party without his auntie Robin.”
Brian grinned. “Of course. I’d love to meet her. So would my family.”
There was nothing she could really object to. And she had to admit Oliver would love to spend his birthday at the campground with room to run. “He’ll be upset it’s too cold for the pool.”
“Rob will have it covered by then, so he won’t be able to see the water. That might help him understand it’s gone to sleep or whatever until next summer.”
Kevin walked up to the table, grabbing an empty chair from a nearby table to sit in. “Hey, sorry to make you wait. Our new server grabbed a basket of jalapeñopoppers thinking it was the stuffed mushrooms for his table and let’s just say I had to sign off on a pretty big gift card.”
“This isn’t a bad place to wait,” Siobhan said. “I’m a homebody by nature, so being home with Oliver isn’t a struggle for me. Plus, my friend Robin comes over and we do movie nights. But it’s nice to get out once in a while.”
Like a date.No, it wasn’t a date.
“Thanks. We’re pretty proud of this place, and we have a second location up in the northern part of the state, too, though friends run that one.”
