out of their coats and scooted into the booth.
“I didn’t think these places existed anymore,” Dameon confessed once the hostess left.
“They do. I know a few around here for different types of food. You can get fancy closer to where I live, but the quality for the price can’t be beat here.” Not that The Backwoods was cheap, but it wasn’t anything compared to downtown LA where Dameon lived.
She couldn’t help but wonder if this felt hick to him.
If it did, she’d rather know now.
Carrie walked up to the table with a huge grin. She leaned over to hug Grace. “I haven’t seen you for at least a month. How are you?”
“Busy, like always. How’s Cody?”
“Turns five next month. Hard to believe.” Carrie glanced at Dameon.
“Dameon, this is Carrie. We met in tenth grade.”
Carrie smiled with a nod. “Lovely to meet you,” she said.
“Likewise,” Dameon said.
“Oh, that voice. Are you in the movies or do radio?”
He laughed. “Afraid not.”
“Well, you should. Don’t you think, Grace?”
“I’m sure he’d have a long career doing voice-overs,” Grace said.
Dameon actually looked a little embarrassed by the praise.
“What are you two drinking?” Carrie lifted a notepad and poised her pen to write.
“Is Adam behind the bar?” Grace asked.
“Yup.”
“Tell him it’s me and I want an old-fashioned.”
“Make it two,” Dameon said.
“Coming right up,” Carrie said with a wink.
She walked off and Dameon leaned closer. “She seems nice.”
“Carrie’s good people. Her little boy is adorable.”
“How is it growing up in a place where everyone knows you?”
“There’s well over two hundred thousand people in this valley. Not everybody knows me.”
“Why do I doubt that?”
“It helps that my dad was a cop in this town. That’s a close-knit group all by itself.”
“Does it get you out of tickets?” he asked.
She shook her head, then nodded. “When we were new drivers, my dad would tell his friends to pull us over if we sneezed wrong.”
Dameon laughed.
“We were so paranoid about getting a ticket that our friends never wanted us to drive anywhere. The funny thing was my dad’s friends weren’t nearly as bad as my mom’s. The PTA moms in this town knew who just got their driver’s license and were constantly reporting if they saw something they didn’t like. It’s easy to spot a police car. But everyone and their brother drives an SUV in this town.” The busboy dropped off a basket of garlic bread, and Grace dug in. “We didn’t get away with anything.”
“Kept you safe, I bet.”
“It did. I look back and realize I’ll do the same thing if I have kids.” Although she’d started to lose faith that kids would be a part of her world if her relationship status didn’t change. “What about you? Did your parents helicopter you growing up?”
“Nothing like yours. My dad was a contractor, worked with his own team doing remodels and the occasional small complex. His reach wasn’t nearly as big as your family’s. Mom helped with his bookkeeping and back office work. She was involved in some of the school stuff we were in, but I don’t remember the PTA being a thing.”
Carrie arrived with their drinks, murmured something about getting an order out, and disappeared.
Grace swirled her drink with the cocktail straw. “So that’s how you got into investing? Your dad?”
“My dad taught me construction. But I thought he worked too hard. He said he kept his business small because he didn’t need the stress that went along with the money of making it big. But apparently his stress level was up there anyway.”
“Oh, why?”
Dameon picked up his drink. “We lost him five years ago. Heart attack.”
Grace looked him in the eye. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t imagine losing her dad.
“Thanks. It was hard. None of us saw it coming. Hit my mom the most.”
Grace sipped her drink. “I bet it did.”
“I wanted to build more, be more, than my dad. My parents encouraged me, helped out in the beginning.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
He nodded and tilted his drink back. “I do. I like the fact that I employ people and build things. Or my company does, anyway. With that comes responsibility for the people who work for me, and I never lose sight of that.”
“That’s good. Keeps you humble. I would think a lot of men in your situation forget where they started and make bad choices when they do.”
Carrie stopped by the table again. Neither of them had opened a menu, not that Grace needed to. She ordered prime rib with her desired sides,