Hannah shook her head. “Being stuck in the middle means I should just stay out of it entirely. Please let me be sorry I made it harder for you.”
She took a deep breath before letting it out slowly and opening her arms. “I accept your apology.”
The hug felt good, but Kenzie was grateful when Frank yelled Hannah’s name because being hugged also made her want to collapse into her friend’s arms, sobbing out all of her heartbreak.
There was no time for that.
Once Hannah’s tables were finished eating, she gave Kenzie another quick hug and left. And when she finally got to flip the sign to Closed and turn off the exterior lights, she breathed a sigh of relief. Exhaustion, both physicalandemotional, started setting in, and she just wanted her bed.
When she got home, she wasn’t sure she had the energy for a shower, but she forced herself up the stairs. Because she usually beat Frank home by twenty to thirty minutes, that’s when she showered. Her dad would shower in the morning. That’s what worked for their schedule and for the old hot water heater.
It didn’t work as well for her hair, which was usually still damp when she went to bed, but ponytails hid a lot of hair sins.
Once she was clean and wearing her most comfortable pajamas, not that they would help her sleep, Kenzie went downstairs to decompress for a few minutes and set up the coffee maker to auto brew in the morning.
She was surprised to find Frank sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of water in front of him. Usually he collapsed into his beat-up recliner with a weary sigh and watched a little TV before going to bed.
She reached into the cabinet for the coffee grounds and filters. “You okay, Dad?”
“Yeah.” He clearly had something on his mind, though, so she waited silently for the rest. “What was going on between you and Hannah today?”
“Nothing. Just a disagreement, but they happen. We’re good.”
“Was it about that writer?” When she gave him a look, he shrugged. “Fine. Was it about Danny?”
It was tempting to lie, but she didn’t have the energy to make up a plausible story. After pouring the water into the brewer, she hit the button so it would auto brew and poured herself a glass of water. “More or less.”
When she sat across the table, he gave her a sad, weary look that tugged at her heart. “Am I in the way, Kenzie?”
“What? Dad.”Yes,whispered a little voice in the back of her mind, but she ignored it. “Of course not. Where is this even coming from?”
“I don’t know. When the guys and I were fishing, you being down south with Danny came up, and they made a big deal about how you finally got to go have some fun for once. They’re always on me to date and I would—I mean, your mom’s been gone a long time—but I haven’t met the right woman yet.”
“I’d love for you to find somebody. Mom would want that for you.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, one of the guys made a joke about how they had to kidnap me for a fishing trip and force the restaurant closed in order for you to go on a date, and how if I got a life, maybe you could have one. It’s just…been in my head, I guess.”
Kenzie didn’t speak for a moment because maybe none of the advice was wrong, per se, but it didn’t mean they could change anything. The chances of Frank falling in love and wanting to quit cooking and move away were pretty slim, and there was no sense in both of them dwelling on it. “I’m not sure if Mom ever told me not to take life advice from men sitting out in the hot sun drinking beer, but I’m pretty sure she’d say something like that.”
He gave her a half-hearted chuckle. “You should have time to go out and have fun.”
“So should you, but we have a restaurant to run.” She took a sip of her water, wishing this conversation could wait until she wasn’t already on the ragged edge, emotionally. “I’m fine. I promise.”
He nodded slowly, and then lowered his gaze. “I’ve been digging around in the numbers, and I think we can close on Tuesdays. Maybe Wednesday, too. We can look at that together.”
“Dad, if this is about Danny, don’t. That’s over, and you and I aren’t rearranging our lives because of him.”
“It’s not about him.” He turned the glass around in slow circles, his eyes on the patterns the spinning made in the condensation on the table. “Maybe seeing you with him jumpstarted it, and then what the guys said—I can see I’ve been asking you to live like me. But I’m a sixty-year-old man who lost the love of his life, and I ease that loss by feeding my community in the restaurant she loved. You’re a young woman who never got to make the choice.”
“I had a choice, Dad,” she said, doing her best to keep the unshed tears out of her voice. “You never asked me to stay—I chose to. Maybe feeding my community in the restaurant Mom loved helps me feel close to her, but I also love Corinne’s Kitchenmyself. It’s ours as much as it was hers.”
He nodded, then cleared his throat roughly. “I’m glad, Kenz. But you need time and space away from here if you’re going to find someone—or something—of your own. Whether it’s Danny or some other guy or pottery classes or… I don’t know.”
“Pottery classes?”
He held up his hands. “I don’t know why I said that. I remember that weird space rocket thing you made in school, and Idobelieve you can do anything you set your mind to…other than working with clay.”
“It was a pig.”
