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“Yup,” I say, drying a glass from behind the counter.
Carter hoots. “You didn’t just get cock-blocked. You got sacked in the end zone.”
“Yes, and I lost the game too,” I say dryly to the too-amused football player. “It’s called Nothing Works Out. Story of my life.”
“Hey now.” Monroe fixes me with a look that says you’re a pessimist and always have been. “Things can work out if you work on them.”
“Like muscles,” I say. “Relationships, though? Different story.” I lift my index finger. “Exhibit one. My marriage to Hailey.” Another finger. “Exhibit two. My major league career.” One more finger. “Exhibit three. My relationship with Kylie.”
She was my first and only serious girlfriend after Hailey’s death. A few years ago, I fell for the software designer, she fell for me, and Eliza fell for her too. Kylie came to Eliza’s softball games, made dinner with me, and stayed over and watched movies since Eliza’s obsessed with movies, like many kids her age. We air-popped popcorn and watched animated flicks on the couch. I was finally feeling like romance as a single dad was possible. But when Kylie was offered a job in New York and she moved two weeks later, that was that. A little more than a year after it started, the relationship was over with barely a second thought. Eliza asked why Kylie didn’t love her enough to stay. It broke my heart all over again.
“But on the other hand,” Carter begins, “you have Sticks and Stones. And your daughter. Those worked out just fine.”
“All true,” I concede.
Monroe lifts his glass. “Be a glass-half-full guy.”
“I’m a moving on guy,” I say with a full-speed-ahead attitude. Monroe’s right in that I shouldn’t dwell on the past and the things that didn’t happen. Sour grapes and all. “We had one great date. She was incredible. Captivating. Gorgeous. Kept me on my toes like no one ever had. The chemistry was out of this world. And then…it was cut short. Our business thing isn’t going to happen. That’s two strikes. Which is more than enough.”
Carter sets down his glass with a thunk. “I think you’re getting your sports metaphors wrong. Sounds like it’s time to take a third swing and fucking mean it when you do.”
I love baseball analogies, but I’m not following his. “What pitch do you want me to swing at?”
Carter stabs the counter with his finger, adorned with one of his Big Game rings, bright and gleaming, a shining sign of the ultimate triumph on the gridiron. “You’ve got this goal of opening this other bar. Literally the only thing standing between you and this other bar is an engagement ring.”
“But it’s a ring that got us in this messed-up situation in the first place. She wears this gigantic cocktail ring, and that’s why he thought we were engaged.”
“Maybe that’s kismet,” Carter says. “Maybe she ought to wear yours for a few months.”
“You’re saying I should do this?”
“Take a swing. Take a big swing, man.”
“It can’t be that easy,” I point out.
“Or maybe it can’t be that hard,” Monroe puts in.
I check the clock on the wall. I don’t have time to hash this out right now. I set down the cloth. “And on that note, I need to go take this meeting with Celeste.”
I say goodbye, leaving the bar in Zoe’s capable hands, then head to the most coveted block in the Marina to see Celeste. Her building is right next to the location I want for my upscale Sticks and Stones and I stare longingly at the brick facade, the bright green door, the windows that invite passersby to come on in, put up their feet, let the day go.
I snap my focus to the office building, then head inside. Celeste’s waiting for me. She wears a black pantsuit and a slicked-back bun and barely offers a hello. “I appreciate you coming down here, and I like the ideas you laid out for the location, but I’d still need to know how you’re going to market it. I need to know you have a name and a brand and some buzz. I need to see that and I don’t right now, Mr. Archer.”
Talk about a punch in the gut. But I don’t show an ounce of emotion. Just resolve as I say, “I understand.”
Three strikes and you’re out.
Deflated, I head to my home in Russian Hill, trying but failing to shake off my funk as I bound up the steps of the sky-blue building. My grandma helps out both with the bar and with Eliza, so she picked her up from school today.
Time to focus on them, and only them.
“Hey, my favorite ladies,” I say as I kick off my boots, then set my phone on the table in the foyer.
“It’s mac and cheese and cauliflower night, and I’m not mad about that,” Eliza calls out from the kitchen.
“Me neither. Grams makes the best mac and cheese.”
“Grams makes the best everything,” Eliza says, and when I reach the kitchen I give her a hug.
