Her eyes widen. “Impressive.”
“It is, but it’s all because of our daughter. Did you know she wants to go to Las Vegas for college?”
My wife laughs. “Yes, that’s why we toured the campus when we were there for New Year’s. I swear, Page. Sometimes your head . . .”
I cock my eyebrow at her, daring her to finish her sentence. She doesn’t and lifts her mug to her mouth and sips. Josie looks up as the door opens and stands. I turn and see Noah and Peyton walking in, pushing a triple stroller. I push our extra chair out of the way, slide the next table over, and tell Noah to park the babies next to their grandpa.
“Good morning,” I say to each of them. Jace is doing his thing and just staring. Junie gives me a toothy smile and Maverick’s blowing raspberry bubbles.
“They’re in rare form this morning,” Peyton says. “Is it okay if I grab us some breakfast.” She points to the back.
“Come on,” Josie says and the two disappear.
Noah sits down with a long sigh.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not a damn thing. I’m happy. Peyton’s happy. The babies are healthy.”
“You sighed.” Paige points out.
“There are happy sighs,” Noah tells her.
“I heard you went out to dinner last night?”
He nods. “Took her to the restaurant you took mom to the other night. She raved and Peyton mentioned it, so I made a reservation. It was really nice.”
I sit there, beaming. My son didn’t have to be told to take his wife out. He knew to do it as soon as his wife mentioned it. He makes me proud.
“We plan to go back soon,” I tell him.
“Have you been to the water tower lately?”
My insides go cold. How much talking is my wife doing with our daughter-in-law? “Yes, why?”
“There’s a ton of graffiti on the sides. Horrible stuff. I plan to go over today to see if I can get some of it off or covered up.”
“I didn’t notice.” I dig in my pocket for my wallet, open it and slide my credit card across the table. “Get whatever, bill me for your time.”
“I’m not billing you.”
“You should,” Paige says. “I do.”
“Dad’s paying you?”
She nods. “I would’ve done it for free, but we are pulling in massive advert contracts thanks to Ben.”
“You both need to be paid,” I tell them. “It’s no different from when you worked here.” They both look at me. “Speaking of, do you still want to work at Ralph’s?”
Paige shakes her head. “Not right now.”
“Wait, what?” Noah looks from his sister to me. “How come I don’t know about this?”
Paige shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I thought I wanted to wait tables there. Earn some of my own money, but then I met Bex and this gig started.”
“Well, that’s good because I don’t know how I feel about you working in the bar. It’s a rough crowd and I don’t want to do jail time.”
Paige rolls her eyes and stands abruptly. She comes over and kisses my cheek. “Bye, Daddy.”
