to get rid of the feed crumbs. “Well, that was fun,” she told the girls, but Liv caught a hitch in her voice. Great. Way to go, Liv. Make things even more awkward at the NOT-meeting-the-parents thing.
“I bet dinner is ready,” Liv said. “Should we head back?”
“I’m starving,” Mack said, adopting that cheesy grin that now seemed lonely somehow. Liv shook her head at the thought. What was wrong with her? She knew what was wrong with her. We gonna talk about that kiss? She’d thought all night about that simple text.
Mack let the girls drag him by the hands back into the house.
“He’s so good with kids,” Erin said, walking next to Liv.
“Ava and Amelia love him.”
“He’s going to be a great father someday.”
Liv stumbled. Erin smiled.
Rosie had the table ready when they walked in. A platter of fried chicken sat in the center, flanked by large bowls of mashed potatoes and a hearty salad.
“This smells amazing,” Erin sighed, taking a seat next to Mack.
“Livvie made a peach cobbler for dessert,” Rosie said.
Mack lifted an eyebrow. “No cupcakes?”
Liv hid her smile behind a glass of lemonade.
Rosie helped Liv fill the girls’ plates and got them settled at their own small table off to the side. When Liv returned to her seat, she found her plate ready and waiting for her. Mack winked.
Conservation was stilted at first. The kind of distant, meaningless chatter people do when they don’t really know one another. But by the time the cobbler was served and more than one glass of wine consumed, tongues were looser.
Erin cradled her chardonnay. “Mack tells me you served in Vietnam,” she said to Hop.
Hop glanced up at Rosie and then nodded. “Two years. Sixty-eight and sixty-nine.”
“My brother was there in 1970.”
“Infantry?” Hop asked.
Erin nodded. “He saw some things that . . . well, he never really talked about.”
Hop took a drink of beer. “None of us do.”
“It took us a while to become close again after he got back.” Erin’s face reflected a long-ago regret. “I protested the war.”
“So did I,” Rosie said.
“I was young, still in high school. I didn’t really understand things the way I thought I did.”
“Time and age have a way of making things make sense,” Hop said.
“I haven’t changed my mind about it, the war,” Erin said. “But, looking back, I wish I had been more sensitive to the difference between the war itself and the soldiers who had to fight it.”
Hop stared at Rosie. “Looking back, I wish I’d done more to understand why some people were so opposed.”
Rosie’s mouth dropped open, her wineglass paused middrink.
Hop shrugged with one shoulder, and he looked at his plate. “Nothing is as simple as we like to think.”
Liv looked across the table at Mack, who was grinning at Hop like the man had just admitted to staying up all night reading Nora Roberts.
A half hour later, Liv walked Erin and Mack out to the car. Erin surprised her with a tight hug. “It was so nice to meet you.”
Liv returned the embrace, averting her eyes to avoid the intense way Mack watched them. Erin then got in the front seat, leaving Liv and Mack alone behind the car.
“Thanks for dinner,” Mack said. “This was fun.”
“Yeah.” Liv hugged her torso.
Mack shuffled an inch closer. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
“So,” Liv breathed.
Mack traced his finger down the side of her arm. She shivered and met his eyes.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” he said huskily.
“For what?”
“To talk about it.”
She didn’t exhale until his taillights disappeared.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mack went for a run early the next morning before his mom woke up. When he returned an hour later, the smell of bacon and eggs lured him to the kitchen. His mom looked over her shoulder from the stove. She was dressed and ready to go. Her single suitcase sat by the back door.
Mack swiped his arm across his forehead. “In a hurry?”
“You know I like to get there early.” She turned off the burner beneath the eggs and then nodded toward one of the chairs lining the island. “Sit down. I’ll fix your plate.”
“I should probably take a shower first.”
She made a psh noise. “I used to feed you fresh from football practice, remember?”
Yeah, he did. Until he gave up football so he could get a job instead to help with the bills when his mom had to move to part-time at the library after the . . . the incident.