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Last Light was our love child. Then Tyler came along, followed by Lila, filling my heart with such happiness that it’s sometimes difficult to believe this life is mine.
Felipe, our bartender, shows up twenty minutes early for his shift and slides in behind the counter. “Hey.”
I give him a chin lift. “Did you get your bike fixed?”
“Yeah. A stupid screw came loose, but it’s all good now.”
As he takes over, I pat him on the back before heading to the kitchen, where Paloma is hard at work filling out orders.
“Are you winning, Paloma?” I ask.
She gives me a sideways glance. “Of course.” Tipping her head in the direction of the door, she asks, “Is that my son’s voice I heard?”
“Yes, he just got here.”
“Hmf.”
Just then, Felipe rushes into the kitchen, presses a kiss to his mother’s temple, and jogs back out to the counter.
A soft smile curves her lips as she continues to work.
The bar was open for two years when Paloma’s husband drowned just off the coast during a fishing trip. Felipe was only ten, and she was a single mother with no way of bringing in money, so Ana decided we should hire her.
Felipe grew up spending his days in this very kitchen, and once he graduated from school, I started training him at the bar.
They’re practically part of the family.
“Daddy?” Lila calls out.
“In the kitchen, my little light.”
She comes in with her book and points at the page. “What’s this word?”
I crouch down and look. “Promise.”
As she begins to turn around, repeating the word, I scoop her up into the air and drape her over my shoulder. While she laughs, I tell Paloma, “I’ll be back at eight.”
Paloma smiles at us as I walk out. Not seeing Ana anywhere, I pull Lila forward so she’s sitting on my arm, and ask, “Where’s your mother?”
She shakes her head, a happy grin on her face. “I don’t know, Daddy. I was upside down like a big bag of sunshine.”
“My big bag of sunshine.” I clench my jaw and squash her against my chest. “Why do you have to be so cute like your mother?”
She holds her hands out, palms up, and shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
Where Tyler takes after me, Lila is the spitting image of Ana. Except for having brown hair and only seventeen freckles on her nose, her big green eyes turn my heart to mush, just like her mother’s.
When I walk around the side of the bar toward the parking area, I see Ana kicking ball with Tyler.
“Are you guys ready?”
“Wait,” Tyler shouts. “I just need to score one goal, then I beat Mom.”
“You wish,” she teases our son, working up a sweat as she darts from side to side to stop his kicks.
Tyler puts his all into it, and when his foot hits the ball, it soars in our direction. I quickly turn to the side, so Lila is out of the way, and smack the ball away. It falls behind Ana, which has Tyler jumping up and down, whooping and hollering.
“That’s cheating,” Ana playfully complains.
