Page 3 of Love Deep

“It isn’t?” I ask, not wanting to doubt her. “Well, it’s in my special Mom dictionary.”

“Along with huggles?” she asks.

“Exactly. Because moms are the only people who can give a hug and a cuddle at the same time.”

“So, who wants chicken?” Mom asks as we walk into the living room, and Riley groans.

“Just me, Mom. But we might wait an hour. Let Riley recover a while. You can get home to Dad if you want. Now that I’m not going out.”

“Are you sure you won’t go?” she asks. “I thought you were looking forward to tonight. Isn’t there a party at Grizzly’s? You never know who you might meet.”

My mom is always trying to find me a husband. It’snot something I’m looking for, but I don’t bother to tell her. Riley comes first, second, and third in my life. There isn’t really room for anyone else. They’d have to be really special to get a seat at the table in my house.

“Mom, I would have seenEvathere. She’s only working half a shift. We might have met people I’ve known for thirty years. No one new comes into Grizzly’s.”

The exception is Byron’s friends, but I don’t say that to Mom. She doesn’t need more reasons to try to convince me to go out tonight. I want to stay in with Riley.

“You know they’re having that big opening at the Colorado Club tonight. I heard Justin Timberlake is playing. You never know, he might swing by Grizzly’s for the locals’ after-party.”

We both start to laugh, and then Riley asks, “Who’s Justin Timberlake?” Our laughs deepen, and I officially feel as old as the sky.

“But seriously,” Mom says, “isn’t Byron throwing a party at Grizzly’s? That’s what Donna said when I saw her earlier.”

“Yeah, but it’s Grizzly’s. That place will be here when the three of us are dead and buried. I can go to Grizzly’s next week.”

Next week, when the Colorado Club is open to the world and no doubt Fisher will have returned to New York.

Sometimes, life works out the way it’s meant to. Just me at home with my sweet girl. Tonight, I can dream of handsome Englishmen with messy hair and broad smiles that make me shudder. Fisher can stay my fantasy. That’s all he was ever going to be anyway.

TWO

Eight Weeks Later

Fisher

I spent the first eight years of my life in England, just outside London. Then I moved to Pennsylvania with my mom and dad and have been in the US ever since. I don’t know if it’s my British accent, but I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider. Somehow, eating chicken wings in a bar in Colorado feels more like being at home than it should.

“They really are incredible. I’ve never had food so good,” I say, taking another bite.

Byron chuckles. “You eat out every night in New York at some of the best restaurants in the world.”

“Right,” I say. “And this chicken is better than all that shit.”

“If you say so.”

“You completely underestimate it because you’ve had ityour entire life.” I take a swig of my beer, and somehow the chicken makes the beer taste better, and vice versa.

“Wrong,” Byron says. “I left Star Falls way before it was legal for me to eat wings at Grizzly’s.”

“Then your taste buds have shriveled up and died,” I say.

“That must be it. You think we should bring Vivian here? You think your world-famous pop star of a client would enjoy the chicken wings?” he asks.

“It’s a guy thing,” Rosey, Byron’s fiancée, says, sliding into the booth next to Byron.

“What’s a guy thing?” I ask.

“Loving the wings. Loving chicken. It’s like genetic. Or chromosomal or something. Is that the same thing? Anyway, Vivian might enjoy the wings, but she’s not going to worship them in the same way you guys do. Her husband might. He’s with her, right?”