“Hey, Samantha,” I said.
“How was your first day?” she asked.
“It was really great. I like the people I work with a lot, and the customers were super welcoming.”
“That’s awesome. I told you it would be good,” she said.
“How about you? How’s the family?”
“Well, Owen is walking on his own now.”
“Already?” I asked, surprised. “He just turned one! I can’t believe he’s growing up so fast.”
I was thrilled to hear about the little boy, the youngest of Samantha’s two children, hitting his milestones. I loved children and missed being around them.
“You’re telling me,” Samantha said. “So, tell me more. How is it going out there in Oregon? I still for the life of me can’t figure out why you would decide to move all the way out there.”
I laughed. “Because it’s all the way out here. It’s going really well. It’s beautiful out here, and I am really going to like working at The Hollow. I even have a boss that is not bad to look at.”
That was the understatement of the century, but I didn’t want to gush too much.
“Oh, really?” Samantha said, latching on to even the vague description. “What’s he like?”
I told her about Jordan and how he’d shown me around when I first got to the bar. “And I caught him staring at me just about all night.”
She let out a little bit of a squeal. At nearly thirty years old, she could still manage a schoolgirl squeal with the best of them. It always made me laugh.
“You should go for it!” she said.
“Go for what?” I asked, picking up my brush to start painting again.
“For him. You should just jump into it with him. Rip the bandage off.”
I scoffed. “That is not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“I am definitely not ready for that, Samantha. Especially not with someone I work with, or I should say work for,” I said.
“You should think about it. You can’t wait around forever,” she said, sounding a little disappointed.
Samantha loved her husband, a successful New York City banker, and she adored being a mother to their two children. But there were times when it seemed like she was missing the carefree days of youth and singlehood and wanted to live vicariously through me.
Only that meant she was also trying to turn my life into a Choose Your Own Adventure, with her at the helm of all the choices. It was all with my best interests in mind, but I wasn’t ready to throw myself in quite the way she wanted me to.
After getting off the phone, I spent a while longer at the beach working on the painting. As it got later in the morning, more people started to arrive, and soon the sense of quiet and peace wasn’t quite the same. Even then, it was good to see the families coming out to enjoy picnics and the little children running around on the sand.
I liked seeing them happy. It gave me a boost of optimism that one day I might be able to find that for myself.
I packed everything up and headed back to the little house I’d picked out almost as soon as I arrived in Astoria. It wasn’t big or luxurious, but it was comfortable, and it was mine. And at that point, that meant more to me than I could put into words.
There was enough time for me to take a short nap and have lunch before I needed to get ready for work. I didn’t actually have to be at the bar until later, but I was still getting the hang of the place, and I wanted to make a good impression.
It wasn’t one of the theme nights, so it was already open for late lunch and early dinner by the time I got there. It wasn’t busy, with only a handful of people scattered around at the various tables positioned throughout the space. I was amazed to see that there were no visible signs of the event the night before still there. It was like it had all magically disappeared in between the time I had left and the time I showed back up.
Ava was behind the bar when I walked in, and she waved me over.
“Hey,” she said. “How are you doing today?”
“Doing great,” I said. “Should I go check on any of these tables?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Don’t worry about them. They’re regulars. They pretty much take care of themselves. When they need something, one of the guys will take care of them. I wanted you to meet my best friend, Stephanie.”
Ava gestured across the bar at a woman sitting on one of the stools with a beer between her hands. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Hannah. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I gave a slightly questioning look to Ava. “You have?”
Ava laughed. “All good things, I promise. Stephanie has been listening to all my complaints about this place since I showed back up in town and went to work for the guys. She hears all the dirt about this place. Not that you’re dirt.”
I laughed. “I’ve been called worse. Trust me. You said you showed back up in town? You haven’t always lived here?”
I sat down on the stool beside Stephanie and listened to Ava tell me about how she had grown up in Astoria and been with Mason through most of her teenage years. When they broke up, she left and went to college, then settled in a different state. It wasn’t until her father was seriously injured and needed her help that she came back. That was when she started working at The Hollow, leading to her reuniting with Mason.
I enjoyed sitting there talking with the women. I like how laid-back they were, and it felt like they didn’t have any ulterior motives like most
