Baxter got up, paced to the table for another slice, and took a thoughtful bite, nodding while he chewed. “She’s right. Lots of country stars own bars and restaurants. It’s probably a great tax shield, not to mention a backup in case things go wrong in the singing career.”
“Or never go right,” Ethan said.
“See that, right there?” Lily pointed at him. “That attitude, that belief that you’ve failed? That’s what’s keeping your career from taking off again.”
Everyone gasped, and she bit her lip. Ethan could see how uncomfortable she was that she’d blurted what she had. It hadn’t seemed intentional.
“That’s what my mom would’ve said, anyway,” she finished softly, then rolled her eyes.
“That’s exactly what she would’ve said.” Her brother Harrison got up. “She’d say to spend some time doing something you could feel great about. Get your focus off what’s not going right. Give it…” he paused, and then he and Lily finished the sentence together. “…room to breathe.”
“You’re smothering it with your doubt,” Lily went on, grinning as she quoted her mother again. Maybe she could fill in for her a little bit, here and there.
“Yeah,” her brother added, throwing in another old chestnut. “Stop arguing for your limitations.” Then he leaned over to high-five her and said, “That was good.”
“Like she was right here,” Lily agreed.
Trevor leaned forward, reaching for a fresh beer as his chair was near the cooler. “Might be somethin’ to be said for lettin’ the fans miss you for a little while. Folks want somethin’ more when they can’t have it.”
Orrin nodded his agreement.
Ethan went to his chair, right next to Lilly’s, and sat down. “I didn’t think about doin’ both. Hirin’ someone to run it seems like it could work.”
“And findin’ somebody who can make tacos like Manny’s,” Maria Michele said. “You have to save the tacos, Ethan.”
“My dad’s on that,” Lily said. “He’s been getting hands-on lessons from Rosa. He even sweet-talked her out of her secret seasoning blend.”
Ethan looked over at her and wondered where the hell she’d come from. It was like Harrison Hyde, the man who’d come to Texas to sweep his cousin off her feet, had brought an angel along with him. He’d dropped her right into the middle of their lives, and she’d been glowing and gleaming there ever since.
Everybody felt better when Lily was around.
He tapped his beer bottle to hers. There was a satisfied look in her eyes. Then he said, “I really want to hear your ideas, Lily. The ones that kept you up all night.”
“Shoot, she could run the place for you, if you wanted,” Harrison said. “By the time Dad retired, she was managing the diner more than he was.”
Lily raised her chin a little at Harrison’s praise and said, “I was managing it entirely. Dad was just cooking. But then he retired, and I went to nursing school.”
But her brother’s words burrowed into her heart, and into her mind, too. And they settled in there, like they were planning to stay a while. They felt good. And then they felt like a spark, and the spark said, I really could run it for him.
She looked at Ethan. He was looking back at her, but she couldn’t read his expression. “I do have some ideas,” she said. “About making the place into a proper honky-tonk.”
“Knockin’ out a wall to expand, puttin’ in a dance floor,” Ethan said. He’d been turning her suggestions over in his mind ever since she’d expressed them.
“And maybe put the parking lot in back. It could be way bigger if you did, and the front could be repurposed for?—”
“More outdoor tables?” Ethan said. Then he snapped his fingers. “We could host private parties, wedding receptions.”
He said we. Okay, okay, stay cool.
“I have some sketches.” She opened her phone’s photo app and handed it to him.
He expanded the images of her drawings. She’d made several versions of a decorative, sound-buffering barrier between the road and the area in front of Manny’s. She’d also drawn ideas for providing shade, from colorful shade sails to transplanting 20-year-old live trees native to the area. Her ideas for an outdoor serving station, placed in various locations, were there too. She watched him looking, nodding, and then he looked up from the phone and met her eyes, smiling,
“These are great. No wonder you didn’t sleep last night.”
“I got inspired.”
Their eyes held until Drew cleared her throat. They both looked up, and Lily realized they’d kind of forgotten anyone else was there. Everyone was looking at them, expressions ranging from speculation to full-on amusement.
