Something’s run out on him. I sit with that, and I don’t like where it leads.
“So what do I do,” I say. It comes out smaller than I’d like.
“Nothing.” She kisses the top of my head like I’m eight years old. “Today you drink your coffee with me, and you let it be. It’s taken him thirty years to reach out. He can sit on your timing for once in his life. Don’t dwell, Liam. You don’t owe him anything. No one does.”
My mom cleans her mug. “I’m off to spend the morning with my grandbabies.”
She leaves me in the kitchen with all of this weighing on my shoulders. Bex is doing her part, she’s screening callers, but she doesn’t know Sterling from the next guy. And maybe it’s not Sterling. Maybe I’m grasping because I’m at this crossroads where I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.
The house is quiet, too quiet. It gives my mind a clear space to think about what I don’t want to think about. I miss Harrisonand JD. I miss our jam sessions, even if they turn into gripes about aches and pains.
Out the front window its an ordinary day, a recycling truck picks up at our curb, our neighbor is backing out of their driveway, another neighbor running by and waving even though I doubt they can see me. My community—a place that I love being—going on about their business while I reel from what could be the most unsettling realization that Sterling may have tried to reach out.
Over the air is cowardly. Saying those things so listeners can feel sorry for him is cheap. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness or pity from people on the other end, people with their own issues.
I don’t know what I can do to keep him off air. It’s something I’ll have to talk to Bex about. Sterling could lie—he would lie—to get what he wants. He always has. He doesn’t let something stand in his way, if it’s something he wants.
THIRTEEN
Ihaven’t planned a date in so long I fumble the reservation on my own phone, three tries before it takes, and then I refuse to tell Josie where we’re going just to watch her work me for it all afternoon. She tries everything. Sweet, sly, bribery, a threat involving the good knives. I hold the line. It’s the most fun I’ve had keeping a secret in years.
She comes down the stairs in a dress I’ve never seen, deep, dark purple, her hair up off her neck, and I forget what I was about to say. All these years and she can leave me speechless.
“Well,” she says, turning once at the bottom of the stairs. “Worth the wait?”
“Get in the truck before I change the plan to staying home.”
She laughs and grabs her coat, and Paige hollers from the couch that we look like we’re going to prom and to have her home by eleven.
I take her to a place a few towns over, on purpose. Not the flashy spot downtown where everyone knows us and will want to talk about town politics, the show, or the new menu items introduced at the café this week. I take her to a quieter place, with velvet cushioning in the booths, where the only light comes from the dim lamp on our table, and where there’s a guy on anupright, playing the strings like, he’s making love to them. This is the type of place where no one will ask for a selfie, or post online that Liam Page is out on the town.
Mira, my longtime manager, told me about this place, and spoke very highly about their no cell phone policy in the restaurant. That was most of the reason I picked it. I wanted to be able to take my wife on a date and not have it broadcasted to a million people. Especially JD because he’d hit up my phone about wearing a condom and reminding me to treat my “date” to a nice dinner before I bang the fuck out of her.
The other reason is the look on Josie’s face when she walks in and sees it for what it is, a place nobody’s going to bug us. She squeezes my arm and doesn’t say anything.
We order too much. We always do. She steals off my plate even though hers isn’t empty. She’s done this as far back to when we were teens. What she doesn’t know is I’d starve before I told her no. Josie’s the only one though. No one else can touch my food.
We talk about nothing, which is the whole point. Not the kids. Not the babies, not the shop, not the show. Her. Me. The trip to the coast we keep saying we need to take since Harrison and Katelyn haven’t been out in a while. I know it’s killing them, not being with Peyton and the babies, even though Elle and Ben travel between here and California. They also love the beach, and I know it’s hard to give up. Harrison surfs every morning and has been teaching Oliver. I imagine he has Jett and Sonny in the water already. The only water Beaumont has to offer is a lake. It’s a nice lake. It’s just not the same.
“We should do this more,” she says, around a bite of my steak. I know this isn’t a jab at me not being home. Even when I’m on tour, and she’s with me, our nights are on a tour bus, in cramped quarters. We’re with our friends though, makingmemories and those have been just as important in our lives. Now that I’m home, there’s no reason we aren’t doing this.
“That’s the idea. I’m told it’s a ritual now.”
“Says who.”
“Says me. I’m establishing it. Tonight. Us, a table, no one allowed to bother us on date night. I really like this place, no phones. Paige and Noah know where we are in case of emergency, that’s enough.” I top off her wine. “I’ll make a standing reservation.”
“And if they’re booked?”
Why is she always testing me?
“I’ll have to make friends with the owner.” I shrug and top off my glass.
“Or buy the restaurant.” Her eyebrow rises, another test.
“Don’t tempt me.” I set the bottle down. “I think we have enough projects going on right now.”
She nods and takes a sip of her wine. “Thankfully, we have a good project manager to oversee everything. You just write the check.”
