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“First, I’m cutting back my hours at PattyCakes. I’m working like I’m still in my twenties when I should be thinking about retirement. It’s my hope that Bryce might take it over completely in a few years. But if she isn’t interested, or able to do that, I’ll cast my net out for someone else.”
Ryker blinked. Bryce had mentioned that his mom was teaching her things about the business side of the café, but she’d never said she was taking over PattyCakes. He hadn’t even known his mom was getting tired of being a small-business owner, as she seemed as gung-ho about PattyCakes as when she’d started the business soon after his dad’s death. What else had he missed, being mired in his own feels?
The cell phone in his pocket buzzed again, but he ignored it.
Figuring it was his turn to be a real boy in the conversation, he ventured the only question circulating through his brain. “What will you do instead?”
“I’m starting a new chapter in my life.” But her stiff demeanor said that wasn’t the whole story.
“That’s great news, Mom.” Drake’s voice was relieved, and Ryker wondered how his brother’s writerly mind couldn’t sense there was more to the tale. “I mean, we’ll miss PattyCakes, but if you’re not working there, you’ll have much more time to…”
Drake paused, as if stumped by what activities Mom might want to do, but Zander picked up the thread, not missing a beat.
“Do whatever you want.” His baby brother nodded with approval. “Find your Zen. Chase your dream. I dig it, Mom, and I support you on this journey.”
Mom’s face got that pursed-lip expression she used when fed up and annoyed but trying not to show it.
“I’m not going on any journeys, Zander. I know who I am, and, more importantly, I know what I want. I’m going to sell my house, buy a condo in Florida, and be a snowbird, with—with…” Mom trailed off, her face going brick red.
“With our blessing!” Zander’s grin gleamed as flashy as the front grille of a Cadillac. He stood, his arms open to give Mom a hug. “Aw, congrats, Mom! I’m putting in my vote for a beach condo, preferably on the Atlantic, so when we visit, there’ll be some surf lessons—”
“Sit down.” She batted away the hug. “I’m not finished. What I’m saying is—”
Suddenly, Drake’s doorbell rang, and Sasha—who’d just fallen asleep on Ryker’s lap—went berserk. The dog rolled off and was on her feet, galloping to the door in mere nanoseconds after the noise. Her tiny nails pawed at the front door as she barked in her most strident shih tzu voice.
“Hold on.” Drake took his whiskey with him as he strode to the door, scooping up the frantic dog. “I thought the front gate was locked. I don’t know who that is. C’mere, Sasha.”
“Wait, Drake, don’t!” His mom’s voice strained to carry over the dog’s barking. “I’m trying to tell you…I’m getting married!”
It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room and they’d been thrust into the noiseless vacuum of space.
Even Sasha, tucked in Drake’s arms, stopped barking and wriggled silently as she stared toward the frosted window of the front door. The motion-sensor porch light flickered to life, illuminating the shadow of a figure in a fedora-style hat.
“You’re getting married?” Zander asked, still standing there, holding his whiskey after his rebuffed hug attempt. “To who?”
“Whom,” Drake automatically corrected, juggling his whiskey to unlock the door, but it was clear he didn’t know the answer, either.
Then the front door swung open and the answer was there, standing inside Drake’s doorway.
“Mr. Penny?” Drake asked in greeting, at the same time his mother blurted, “To Frank Penny.”
“Good evening,” said Mr. Penny—whose first name was apparently Frank, a fact Ryker had never known of the curmudgeonly neighbor. The older man beamed, his eyes taking in the tumblers of alcohol in everyone’s hand. “Are we having a toast, then? To Patty! The woman of my dreams who said yes, making me the luckiest man alive. Cheers!”
With that, Frank Penny snatched the tumbler of whiskey from Drake’s hand and downed it in one gulp.
***
The next hour and a half went by in a blur of loud talking, food, and, thankfully, very little standing. The muscles around Ryker’s shinbone ached. His flesh was as swollen and fluid filled as if he’d eaten the sodium equivalent of ten double cheeseburgers and fries. Ryker yearned to remove the prosthesis, slide down the liner, and put his leg up to relieve the constant pain, but there was a virtual stranger in the room. Frank Penny kept giving him the side-eye as it was—definitely not a time to get comfortable.
“I had no idea you were seeing…my neighbor,” Drake said, offering the man his seat on the couch before leaning against the fireplace. “As a writer, I need the backstory around how you two…got together.”
His mom plopped down next to Frank on the sofa, which left only Ryker sitting next to the new couple. He scooted down to the farthest end of the leather couch, the black carbon blade on the end of his left leg still propped in what he hoped was a nonchalant way on the coffee table as his mom began to explain.
“We first started talking after that whole debacle with the town council, when they turned down Kate’s permit request to allow the haunted maze and the mechanical spider for Drake’s book launch forHalloween Hacker,” his mom said. “Frank came into the café and I confronted him, mad as a hatter because it was his vote that influenced the other members to decline the permit. I felt he was responsible for ruining Kate’s plans for Drake’s big day, and—”
“And I explained I’d done it to protect your mother from embarrassment.” Frank took over the story in the way couples did when they’d spent years finishing each other’s sentences. Ryker resisted the urge to narrow his eyes at the man and saw that his brothers were doing the same. “After I spotted Drake and his party planner cavorting on his lawn, I was worried the whole book launch would be a debacle. I didn’t want some redheaded harlot coming in and coordinating a ridiculous fiasco that would end up besmirching Patty’s good name in town.”
At the words “cavorting” and “redheaded harlot,” Drake fixed Frank Penny with his fiercest scowl.
