They’d hired Irene Clary when they decided to open the bar in the daytime. She worked Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to six in the evening.
“Wait a minute.” Riley didn’t get it. In her midforties, Irene was capable, attractive and always on the ball. Riley and Annette agreed that the new bartender definitely knew her stuff. “There’s a problem with Irene now? We talked about her. You said she’s terrific.”
“Of course she’s terrific,” Annette grumbled. “She’s also younger than I am and so…relaxed and easy to talk to.”
“And that is somehow a bad thing?”
“I never said it’s bad. Miles seems to think she’s great, that’s for certain. Every time he comes in I find them chatting together like long-lost friends.” Annette’s lower lip was quivering now.
“Hey…” Riley got up and sat on the love seat next to Annette. “Come here.” She wrapped an arm around Annette and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You really are upset about this, aren’t you?”
“Oh, Riley,” Annette moaned. “I think he just might ask her out—and that’s perfectly fine, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t he ask her out? They’re both single and the right age for each other.”
Riley rubbed Annette’s shoulder and suggested softly, “Miles really likes you. You know that.”
“Well. He seems to like Irene just fine, too, and I…” Her words trickled away into silence.
“What? Say it. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking there is no reason at all that Miles and Irene shouldn’t go out together. They would make a lovely couple. They might even…” Again she seemed to lack the will to go on.
Riley gave her a nudge. “They might even, what, Annette? Tell me.”
“Oh, never mind.” Annette rested her head on Riley’s shoulder. “I don’t know what is wrong with me. I honestlydon’t. But I find that it’s suddenly crystal clear to me that Miles will someday find someone who will say yes when he asks her to dinner at Arlington’s.”
“And that bothers you?”
Annette surprised her with an honest answer. “Yes. It does bother me. Lately, I find I have all thesefeelings, and I hardly know what to do with them.”
Riley thought of Josh then. “I get that. I do.” Boy, did she ever. Lately, she thought about Josh constantly—and not just in their agreed-on friends-only, co-parenting way. Not even in their former just-for-now-lovers way.
Now, she thought of him with longing for something she was never going to have with him.
But all that would pass, she constantly reminded herself. Over time, all these unwelcome feelings for Josh would fade. Their friendship, though. That would last. And that was what mattered.
Losing TJ had broken her. She simply could not go there again. But Annette was a whole different story. Annette had somehow gotten stuck in some murky past era when a respectable widow would never dare to step out with a new man.
“Annette?”
“Hmm?”
“I have a suggestion. Ask Miles if the invitation to dinner is still open.”
With a gasp, Annette lifted her head from Riley’s shoulder and flashed her a look of complete disbelief. “I could never do that.”
“Sure, you could.”
“Riley, I already said no.”
“So? Now say yes.”
“I just… Well, I…”
“Well, you,what?”
“I haven’t been out with a man since Trevor Senior passed.”
“I realize that. But you do like Miles. And he likes you. It’s about time you gave yourself permission to have a little fun. You have every right to enjoy the company of a man you really like, a man you’re attracted to.”
