“Then who gives a shit?”

He asked that and didn’t allow me to respond. He went in for the lip brush, hand on my hip giving me a squeeze.

When he pulled away, I wanted to grab him on either side of his head and yank him back. When I’d accomplished that, I wanted to kiss him hard.

In absence of that, I wanted to smile at him huge to tell him how much his reaction to this scenario meant to me.

And last, I wanted to tell him I loved him.

I didn’t do any of these things.

Instead, I gave him a look that I hoped shared all of that, a small smile curving my mouth, lifting my hand to trail my fingers along his at my hip.

He caught them, twisted them in his for a beat before he gave them an affectionate tug and let them go.

I looked to Max and Nina. “Be back.”

“We’ll be here,” Nina replied brightly.

My smile to her was grateful, I turned it on Max and then I moved on my high-heeled boots through the restaurant to the table.

The women were nearly bouncing in their chairs.

Both men were standing by the time I made it to their table.

I spoke with them. I signed two cocktail napkins, personalizing them. And I stood and scrunched together for four pictures, one taken by a waitress.

Other patrons watched, none gawked (fortunately) and no others approached or cast certain kinds of glances that would mean I’d be taking a tour of the restaurant that would last an hour before I went back to my dinner with Deke and our friends.

We were undisturbed through steaks, more beverages (for Nina and me) and desserts.

But when it came time to pay the bill, it was the manager who showed, looking at me and saying, “It’s our pleasure you joined us, Ms. Lonesome. So much so, The Rooster is covering your meal.” He slightly bowed to me, Deke and then to Max and Nina before he looked again to me. “Please come again.”

He then glided away.

“Um…” I mumbled to the table at large. “Weirdly, that comes with the territory, the people most likely to be able to afford steak dinners in nice restaurants get them for free.”

“Free food at The Rooster. Never wanted to be famous, suddenly I want to be famous,” Nina remarked, again smiling at me. “Do you get designers sending you free clothes?”

Her manner made it easy not to be embarrassed by an embarrassment of riches.

“When I was touring, yeah.”

“Okay, now I definitely want to be famous,” Nina decreed.

I smiled back.

“This means I get nothin’ but the tip which means we didn’t take you two out for dinner at all which means,” Max was speaking to Deke and me but he turned to Nina and said his last, “your fish pie at our place and you and Jus can dress up all you want to sit at our table with our kids. But I’m not puttin’ on boots.”

“No. Next time our turn,” I butted in, thrilled by the possibility that I could actually take that turn. “At my soon-to-be-done house, that being soon thanks to Deke and Max.”

“We accept,” Nina said instantly.

“Can she cook?” Max asked Deke.

“Yup,” Deke answered Max, again curling his arm that was behind me on the booth around my shoulders and pulling me in close.

“Then we accept,” Max confirmed to me.

“Awesome,” I replied.

And it was awesome.

An embarrassment of riches.

But this time, the important kind.

* * * * *

“Grace.”

We were halfway home from the restaurant, this journey made in silence.

Content after a nice night with good food in our bellies, the silence was about that.

But it was more.

It was just the way of Deke and me.

“Sorry?” I asked, turning to look at his profile lit by the dashboard lights.

“Your dad see that?” he asked the road.

“See what?” I asked back.

He didn’t glance at me when he explained, “Way you were tonight with those folks. That grace you got in you.”

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

Deke’s obviously didn’t because he kept talking.

“For them, a nice night out turned into a memory they won’t forget. They’ll be tellin’ that shit to their grandkids. You made it that way, walkin’ up to them, givin’ ’em your time, givin’ ’em all the good you got in you. Watched you do it, Jussy. You just bein’ you lit up their worlds for as long as you were at their table.”

As I tried to regulate my breathing which had gone erratic at Deke’s compliment, Deke reached out, found my hand, curled his around it and pulled both to his thigh.

And his voice was lower, filled with sheer beauty when he continued.

“Don’t think I’ve ever been prouder in my life than watchin’ you handle those people. No way to describe it. ’Cept pure grace.”

I squeezed his hand and my voice was different too, lower, but husky when I replied, “Thank you, baby.”

“Your dad see that?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and looked to the dark road. “Kind of. Usually it was him giving that to people.”

Sweet memories filled my head of watching him do just that for as long as I could remember.

Memories that I noted were just sweet, without any of the sting that memories of Dad had been causing since he’d passed.

And that sweet was something else Deke had given me—keeping me together even as I fell apart, letting me get things out it was unhealthy to hold in, paving the way for me to move on, release the bitter, keep the sweet.