His father huffed a humorless laugh. “That explains the chocolate festival—”
“When you go to church, you light a candle for that,” Hank interrupted harshly. “For the bar to stay open.”
His dad studied him before shaking his head. “I light a candle for you and your mother every time I go to Mass. I’m sorry if I was too hard on you. But it chaps my hide that you’d work with an outsider over your own father. And on something as frou-frou as this. It was bad enough when you added all those fancy beers to the menu. In my day, a good Guinness or Murphy’s—”
“Dad, the bar is mine to handle. I’m not going to come to you for help. You have your retirement to live on, which you worked hard for. I’ll figure this out.” He had to figure it out, because he loved the bar, baggage and all, and didn’t want to lose it. Right now, he was clawing his way through each day, hoping for a miracle.
Like Alice Bailey. Seeing her again had ignited his imagination, and not just physically. He’d written down bullets on a napkin about some beers he thought would go well with chocolate last night after the pub closed, and at the end, he’d felt a sense of pride in himself. And of hope. Like when he’d changed the entire beer menu to mostly microbrews, which his father hated.
“You’re stubborn.” His dad rubbed the back of his thick neck. “Like your mother.”
Hank’s laugh shot through the air like a cannon. “Mom, huh? I hope she smacks you from heaven for that comment. She was an angel.”
“Tough and sweet as they come,” his dad said, his face falling. “God rest her soul. I still miss her, Hank. These last five years without her have been as bad as my tour in ’Nam. I wish God had taken me instead.”
He felt a familiar ache in his heart. Life hadn’t always been easy for his mom, working at the pub with Paddy and Marty, but she’d done her best to cushion Hank. She’d loved him in a way his father never had—without reservation, without expectation—and she’d loved his dad that way too. Suddenly he felt like he could smell her Charlie perfume. “We all miss her, Dad.”
He set it aside like always. She wouldn’t want him to get stuck in the past, like she’d always told him. Plus, he was conscious of the time. Alice would arrive in about an hour. He’d left the bar early to get ready. “You good now? Dad, I need to get going.”
His dad gave him a pointed look. “Where are you going? I thought it was strange when I heard you’d left the bar early on a Saturday night.”
Any number of people could have tattled on him. Like Jimmy Flannigan, who owned the hardware store on Main Street and was his dad’s poker buddy, or the usual perpetrator, Marty. Hank was a grown man, and it annoyed the hell out of him. “Your spies are unnecessary. You want to ask me straight out?”
His dad squared off with him, reminding him of a bull. “You going out with that chocolate woman tonight?”
“Yes, and her name is Alice.”
“She rolled into a pretty cozy setup, inheriting Sarah’s house and all. Boy, don’t go falling for her. She’s batshit crazy for opening a business right now. Even if she’s flush with cash, it’s a lose-lose proposition. Who could make a profit on chocolate?”
He ground his teeth. “Godiva?”
“That’s a monster company. Not comparable. Of course, I’ve heard she has a business partner older than me, some stuffy English guy. These are surely the end times, Hank. This neighborhood used to be Irish and Italian, and we might have fought like dogs, but we respected each other. Now we have—”
“On that note,” Hank interrupted. “Goodbye, Dad.”
“How I raised a liberal son I’ll never know. You needed a war to make you a man. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with your generation.”
Hank had about a dozen things he could say to that, but he held them back, choking on them, and watched as his father left the backyard. He fished out his phone and texted Vinnie before heading inside to shower.
If I land in jail for punching my father, will you bail me out? How’s the crowd tonight?
Vinnie’s return text came in when Hank was putting on aftershave.
Always up for bailing you out. Forget your dad. He’s an angry man. We’ve thinned out to eight people, three tables. Everything is fine. Marty even snorted at one of my jokes. Have fun tonight.
It seemed wrong to even think about having fun. He’d settle for normal. The old normal. They’d keep it simple and have a great night, like they’d had before. With Covid, the whole kissing thing was probably out, but just the thought of sitting and talking and seeing her smile made him feel good. The rest, they’d figure out.
As he put a little more cologne on, he stared at himself in the mirror. He could see the new age lines around his eyes and mouth from the stress of the past few months, and a few gray hairs lined his skull at the temples. The last few months had changed him, just like they had everyone else.
Alice was still pretty as a picture, but he’d seen the strain on her face. Hank knew the signs of grief. Vinnie sported them some days. God, he wanted to show her a good time, he wanted…he wanted a lot of things he couldn’t have.
Keep it simple, he reminded himself. Take things as they come.
But his heart had a mind of its own. It thumped almost painfully in his chest when she knocked on the door, then lodged in his throat when he opened it. For a moment he just soaked her in—her big, expressive brown eyes above her navy mask, the bright pink jacket and cream scarf she wore with jeans and boots, and the elegant robin’s egg blue bag she held, bearing her chocolate shop’s name in gold script.
She looked vulnerable and beautiful, and he wanted more than anything to take her into his arms. To kiss her on the cheek. Anything.
Instead, he settled for “Hi,” feeling hamstrung and awkward.
“Hi,” she said brightly with an edge of nerves. “I brought dessert, of course! I tested four brownies and brought the kinds I thought you might like best. Then I brought some truffles because I figured you might like those too, and I—”
She broke off so suddenly, he narrowed his eyes.
“I’m nervous, if you can’t tell.” She made a show of jazz hands, rattling the bag, and he couldn’t help but smile. “I get to talking and can’t stop. Should I go around back?”
“Yeah, I have the firepit going.” Again, he fought the urge to touch her, to lead her back there with a hand on the small of her back. “I’m a little nervous too, Alice. Now that we’ve called it out, maybe we can set it aside. Okay? We’re just going to have a nice night. We’ve done it before.”
She nodded her head slowly. “We have. Good point. I’ll see you out back.”
Watching her stride around the side of the house was way weird, but he went inside and put on his fall jacket, grabbing the tray he’d brought home from the bar. He’d already prepared drinks for them, and Vinnie had thrust a plate of food in his hands before he left the bar, noting Hank had no idea how to prepare a good antipasti course. True that.
She’d taken off her mask and was bouncing in her chair with her hands stretched out over the fire when he emerged from the back door and sat down across from her, placing the tray on the table between them.