“Good timing. A storm’s moving in later. Wanna catch some lunch next door?”
“Let’s do it.”
The bistro’s lake view attracted tourists like flies in the summer. But since it wasn’t high season, they had no trouble scoring a table on the deck.
“How are things with you and Allison?” Jonah asked after they’d placed their orders. She was a radiologist at the local hospital. The two of them worked a lot of hours, and she was also caring for her ailing grandmother.
“She’s good. We don’t see each other as much as I’d like, but things at the base will settle down now that the season’s winding down.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“I love her like crazy. I miss her. And I know this is wearing her down too.”
“Hang in there, man.” Allison was a strong woman. The four of them had gone out a few times over the summer. The reminder that Lauren wasn’t his girlfriend anymore weighted his stomach. “It’s just a difficult season. You guys are gonna get through this.”
“Thanks.”
Sensing his friend’s need for a change of subject, Jonah asked, “How’s work going?” Javier was buying out the owner of Air Tours, who was in his midsixties and looking toward retirement.
“Work’s great. Summer was busy and profitable. The buyout is obviously gonna take a while, but Fred’s good with that.”
“That’s exciting. Someday it’ll be all yours.”
They talked more about Javier’s plans for the business. He seemed to understand that Jonah was avoiding the depressing topic of Lauren. But he only let Jonah skirt it for so long.
“How are things going with you and Lauren?” he asked when they’d exhausted the subject of Air Tours. “Any progress?”
“She hasn’t remembered anything and doesn’t seem open to the idea of getting to know me again.” His eyes stung at the words, so blunt, so true. He glanced down at the table where his fingers shredded a napkin.
“I hate that this happened. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.”
“She’s around all the time, of course, but she avoids me at every turn. Not only does she not love me anymore—she doesn’twantto love me again.”
Javier sat back in the booth, seemingly taking a moment to let that sink in. His eyes softened. “That’s awful. I don’t even know what to say.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I’m thinking back to when you got together before. You were showing her the ropes at the resort and she came around. I recall you didn’t like her much to begin with either.”
“We both know why that is.” They’d had more than one conversation about how Lauren reminded Jonah of Monica at first. It had taken a while to sort out his feelings.
“But you got to know the real Lauren, and she got to know you when you opened up to her. Maybe you can go through that process again.”
“I’d love to try. But she turns down every offer to spend time together, no matter how trivial. And she already knows how to do her job, so I can’t really fabricate reasons to be together. She’d see it coming from a mile away and push even harder.”
“There’s still the chance she’ll get her memory back though, right? It’s been, what, a couple weeks?”
“Two weeks and two days. I literally dream about her memory returning. But then I wake up and everything’s the same. I can’t just sit around hoping and waiting. There has to be something I can do.”
“I’ll be thinking about that. Something that’ll put the two of you together long enough to bring her guard down.”
The food was served and Jonah was glad the topic turned to benign subjects for the remainder of the meal. He barely tasted the fish and chips. Maybe this was a lost cause.
“How’s she feeling otherwise, her concussion and all?”
“Most of her symptoms are gone. She’s back to her full work schedule.”
Another thought emerged—one that had been popping up the past few days. Now that her health was stable, it was probably time he told her she’d given up her job at Glitter. She’d be crushed. She’d leave Pinehaven—what reason would she have to stick around then?
