“Okay then, let’s go walk your dog, River,” Charlie says loudly, and Bethany and Logan stop bickering and look over. Charlie’s expression turns hard, and his eyes laser in on Bethany. “Beth, Logan , I’m going to walk Chewbacca with River, teach him how to do it. He just told me he loves Chewie with his whole heart, so we should teach him how to care for him, right? Unless…”
Bethany glares at Charlie but then River pipes up again. “I promise to learn. I promise to take care of him. I promise! I cross my heart and everything.”
Bethany’s shoulders drop two inches. “I’ll be back to pick you up after work, Riv. Be good and careful. That’s a big puppy.”
River nods vigorously. Bethany blows him an air kiss, glares at Logan, and gets in her car and drives off. Logan jogs back over. “Let’s walk him down on the beach and see how he does with waves.”
Charlie peels out of his rubber pants and hands them to Lucy along with his gloves and walks down to toward the water with Logan and River. Once they’re all out of ear shot, Lucy Hawkins swears. I think it’s only the second time in my life I’ve heard that. “That woman is the fucking devil.”
She storms into the restaurant and we all follow. Lucy disappears into the kitchen while I sit at the bar with Finn, and Terra starts handing out the coffee mugs. Nova grabs the little packs of Half-n-Half, which are put on the counter in bowls for the customers during business hours, and slides it toward me and Finn. “Was she really going to try and make Logan get rid of Chewie?”
Declan and Lucy come back into the restaurant. Declan slides past Terra and grabs what’s left in the coffee carafe to refill his mug.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Nova says and frowns. “Lucy isn’t far off in her description. Bethany lives to make Logan’s life hell.”
“To be fair, co-parenting means telling each other about big decisions before you make them,” Declan interjects and Finn rolls his eyes. “What? Now River is going to beg to come over to Logan’s all the time so he can be with the damn dog. It’s emotional blackmail.”
“Excuse me?” Nova says, and her offended tone gets all of our attention. “She’s the one using emotional blackmail by thinking up every excuse in the book to keep River’s time with Logan to a bare minimum.”
“Yeah well, Logan supplied the evidence when it comes to blackmail,” Declan mutters.
“Declan do not go there. I swear to—” Terra gets cut off by Lucy who slams her mug down so hard it echoes and coffee slops over the side leaving a big brown blob on the pristine white counter. Everyone falls silent.
She turns and looks up at her eldest. “Declan don’t you have some marketing thing to do?”
He looks annoyed and turns to his wife for support, but Nova immediately looks away. She’s had it with him too. Declan has always been the black sheep, and I really can’t feel bad for him because he goes out of his way to own that title sometimes. At least now I finally understand why everyone gets so tense over the subject of Logan.
Declan slinks off into the kitchen. Terra lets out a heavy sigh. As soon as the door swings behind Declan, Lucy turns back to us, reaching for a wet cloth from under the counter to wipe up her mess. “I was thinking that you two need to recover at our place.”
“What?” we say in unison.
“Jake’s apartment is on the fourth floor. Terra’s is on the third. It’s a lot of stairs if you want to come and go,” Lucy explains. “And what if you need help at night? Or if you don’t feel well?”
“We can call you, Mom. Or call the doctor,” Terra says. “And if we don’t feel like climbing the stairs and want fresh air, we both have balconies.”
“What if there’s a fire at either of your buildings? You two won’t be able to evacuate easily at all,” she counters, and I smile.
“You’ve got about a hundred more excuses don’t you?” I ask, and she nods. “Lucy, I’ll be fine at home.”
“That place you’re in isn’t your home. You’ve been in it for, what? A few weeks? Have you even hung up a picture yet?” she cocks an eyebrow and then smiles triumphantly when I turn sheepish. I still have boxes to unpack and not a thing on the walls. “You know my house like the back of your hand. You practically lived there yourself. You can stay in Finn and Logan’s old room and Terra can stay in her old room and I would just feel better about it.”
“I don’t know…” Terra says and I can almost see her brain spinning trying to find a valid excuse not to humor her mom.
“Look, you know Mom is going to be checking on both of you every day,” Nova adds and I can tell they’ve pre-planned this ambush. “If you don’t want to do it for yourselves, do it for Ma. So she doesn’t have to keep driving back and forth across town carrying food up and down all the stairs to your apartments because you know she’s going to want to feed you.”
“I’m just going to go ahead and accept on both their behalves,” Finn says standing up. “Because let’s face it guys, fighting is futile.”
“Ugh. You’re right,” Terra drops her head onto her arms on the countertop. “Fine. We’ll do it.”
“We will?” I appreciate the sentiment, but I am failing to see how Terra and I can have some alone time in Charlie and Lucy’s house. And that’s what I know I’ll want after this. I want it now, for crying out loud. I was hoping we could both just stay at my place, just Terra and I. But Finn is right; resistance is futile. I sigh. “Okay, cool.”
Lucy claps her hands and smiles. “Oh good. I promise to be the best nurse you’ve ever had.”
Finn slaps my shoulder as he walks by to head behind the counter. “Milk it, buddy. You’re her new favorite son, so get her to make you buttermilk blueberry pancakes every day and lobster bombs and double batter fried chicken.”
“Yeah, I have to fit into a firetruck after all this,” I remind him and he laughs.
The Hawkins family moves all around me now, getting the Lobster Shack ready to open. Terra disappears into the back, announcing she has to finish the scheduling. She’s planning it out for eight weeks and pre-paid certain vendors so no one has to carry too much of her workload. I sit at the counter a while and have a second cup of coffee then I announce I’ll bring my cup to the dishwasher and slip into the back. Javi smiles and nods as he chops claw meat. I wave, hand my cup to Manny the dishwasher, and slip into Terra’s office.
