I'm quite excited to be meeting with the girls tonight. This is the first thing I've really done to get involved in this community since we moved here. I need to make some more friends, and Misty keeps telling me the only way to do it is to be involved. Of course, that led me to recruit her help as well, so she has agreed to let us use the diner for our meeting even though she’s closed. Grabbing my sweatshirt and purse, I stop by the door. “You two boys behave yourselves, now you hear.”
"Yes, ma'am," both Mason and DJ call out. I don't like leaving DJ home alone, especially at night, but I don't mind him being here with Mason, so Misty and I made a deal that Mason would spend the night at our house and I would get the two boys off to school tomorrow morning. We don't typically allow sleepovers on school nights, but given the situation we agreed that tonight could be an exception, and both boys know they need to be in bed at by eight thirty.
Locking the door, I jog down to my car and take the short ride to the diner in town. Misty and I are meeting there ahead of the other girls. We're baking some cookies to put out with coffee and tea while we meet. When I pull up to the diner, the lights are on and Misty is already hard at it in the kitchen. She’s making coffee and, from the smell of things, is already baking cookies. "Hey, girl." I walk in and hug my friend. "Thanks for letting us use the diner to meet."
"Are you kidding, I'm thrilled. It gives me a night out of the house with friends, and we're doing something positive. I love it, and Briggs does too." It gave him a game night with my youngest two."
"Cool, what can I do to help?"
"I picked up some stuff to make sweet tea. Why don't you get it together in that pitcher?"
"You got it." I mix the sweet tea while she goes to the kitchen to pull the fresh baked cookies from the oven and places them on a cooling rack. "Damn, girl, those smell so good." She has three racks of cookies cooling.
"Thanks, I made oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, and peanut butter cookies." She smiles with pride. I'm so glad I met her. She is really a kind soul.
We're just finishing setting stuff up when a woman comes walking through the door. She introduces herself as Lori, Josh's mom. "I'm Stella, DJ's mom."
"He looks like such a sweet boy. It's nice to meet you."
"Thank you. Help yourself to some cookies, and there's tea or coffee. As soon as Stacey gets here we'll start."
"These smell delicious. Thank you so much."
Misty comes out from the back and says hi to her. Of course Misty knows practically everyone in this town, being that she's been running this dinner for a good couple of years now. "Hey, Lori, those are my special homemade cookies of course."
"Well, I can't say no to that now can I?" She chuckles and grabs a cookie as another woman comes walking in.
"Hey, Misty." The girls hug.
"Stacey, this is Stella. I'm sure you girls have seen her around the diner, but I don’t think you have ever formally met."
"Yes, you're DJ's mom. Our kids are in the same class."
"Oh, nice. It's great to meet you.” I hold my hand out, but she pulls me into a hug.
"You have a very nice boy. I've done some classroom volunteering, and he is always so polite."
I smile. "Thank you so much. That's good to hear."
"Well, ladies, shall we get started?" Misty calls out, and we all take a seat at a table she has set up with coffee and such.
"Okay, so Coach Trystan says we need to come up with fundraisers. He had the ideas of a car wash and sitting outside a store for money. Are there any other ideas you ladies can come up with that we can use to raise money?"
"I have a membership at the wholesale store in the next town over. I could get some candy bars for the boys to sell, and anything above the cost of the bars goes to the boys," Lori announces.
"That's not a bad idea, but what if we did a bake sale during the car wash. The parents could run the bake sale with a few of the boys while the others are washing cars, and to keep it fun we could switch the boys out so everyone gets the fun of car washing," Stacey suggests. "We can ask the team parents to make donations to the bake sale."
"I love it!" I announce, making notes. "I think we should probably set up one weekend of the boys sitting at a few stores as well. Maybe half the team rotates through a store here in town and the other half goes to Dartmouth to rotate through there."
"I agree," Misty says. "We can do the events on two different weekends.
"Great, I'll contact the grocery store manager tomorrow to see if we can set up there. What weekend do we want to do the car wash, and where should we have it?" I ask and then we all stop to think for a minute, pulling out our phones to look at our calendars. We end up realizing with short notice and the season starting in a few weeks it may be hard to get it all in before the start of the season.
“I’ll talk to Briggs about doing the car wash at his store. The lot is plenty big enough, and I know he has at least one water spigot outside the store. You talk to the grocery stores to see if you can set up there a week from Saturday. That will give us some time to set up with the parents too,” Misty offers.
“Sounds good to me,” Lori agrees.
“Me too, and if there’s anything else we can do to help just let us know.”
We're just about done when we hear the diner door open up, and in walks Trystan. An instant smile spreads across my face. The man is incredibly attractive which is why every single girl in town wants him, and from what I hear he gets around. That bothers me, and yet the smile is still plastered on my face. "Hey, ladies. Stella told me you were meeting here tonight, and I wanted to stop by and see how the planning was going. I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all. Help yourself to a cookie and join us," Misty says, sliding over and leaving the spot next to me free.
He grabs some coffee, two cookies, and then slides in next to me. He nods. "Stella." I can’t help but realize he didn’t call me sugar, and it actually disappoints me.
"How are you, Coach?" He chuckles.
"Ladies, please call me Trystan when we're not with the kids. I'm still adjusting to them calling me coach."
"Fair enough, Trystan." I nod, and he rewards me with an amazing smile that makes me want to run my fingers through his freshly trimmed beard. It’s funny—I was never really attracted to facial hair but on him it works, and I’m itching to see how soft it is.
Misty clears her throat, breaking our trance. "So far we have the boys going to the grocery store here in town next weekend."
"We're going to divide the team up and try hitting the store in Dartmouth the same weekend," Stacey adds.
"We’re also working on setting up the car wash and a bake sale, but we’ll need some help from you," I add.
"Sure, what do you need?"
"We need you to email all of the team parents and ask them to email me with what they can bring to the bake sale. We need things to be pre-packaged so it's easy to sell the goods."
He looks at me with his brows raised. "Um, can you email that to me? I wasn't thinking, and I have no pen and paper."
I laugh. Pulling paper from my notebook, I jot down what we need from him. "You have my number, call me if you have questions." I'm trying to be all business, but when I make mention of my phone number a huge smile spreads across his face, and his hazel eyes light up.
"I may just do that,” he says with promise.
"Well, you two seem to have things under control, and I need to get going. Let me know what you need from me," Stacey offers before she slips out of the booth to leave.
"Thanks for coming, Stacey. Have a good night!" We all wave as she leaves the diner.
"I'm going to call the store about the candy bars and see if they'll donate some for us to sell. We can add them to the bake sale or do something different with them if need be," Lori offers.
"That would be great," Misty says.
"Cool. I'm going to get out of here as well, unless you need something else from me."
I look at Misty who shakes her head. "I think we're good. I'll let you know about the grocery store, and you can get back to us about the candy."
"Sounds good. Have a good night." Lori takes off leaving Misty, Trystan, and me at the diner.
"Why don't I help you ladies clean this up then I'll walk you to your cars."
"You don't have to do that." Misty gets up from the table, grabbing what’s left of the cookies and bringing them to the back. I grab the coffee and sweet tea, and Trystan grabs the tray of cups.
"Sorry, but I can't allow two women to go walking into a parking lot after dark. My mama raised me better than that." Again I can't help the smile that spreads across my face. His hazel eyes and the bad boy tattoos going down his arm just does something to me. I don't know if it’s his confidence or the fact that I haven't been with a man since Dylan passed away, but he's got me blushing fifty shades of red. I dump the coffee and put the tea in a small fridge we have under the snack bar, and when I turn around he's right there. He's so close I have to tilt my head to look into his eyes. The want in them instantly makes me wet.
"Can I take you to dinner?"
“Finally asking, huh?” I tease him.
A slight blush colors his cheeks. He chuckles and says, “Yeah.”
"How do you know I'm single?" I'm not sure what made that come out of my mouth, but he smiles and looks away for a second before bringing his eyes right back to mine. He picks up my left hand and presses a kiss to my empty ring finger.
The gesture causes a shiver to run down my spine. "Does that mean you're assuming?"
"That and scuttlebutt."
"I thought you were Army?" I cross my arms at my chest and lean back onto the counter to gain an inch of space.
"I was." He looks at me confused.
"Isn't scuttlebutt the Navy term for rumors."
He laughs and shrugs. "It is.” He shrugs. “The Army doesn’t have a term of their own, so I stole the Navy’s. Now is that a yes?"
"I thought you didn't believe in scuttlebutt?"
He leans in a bit closer. "Are you going to keep ignoring my question?" His woodsy scent invading my senses is so dang distracting. I can’t even think straight.
Misty comes walking out from the back. "I'm all set." He pulls away and just like that the spell is over, and I've gotten away with not answering the question.
"Well, let's get you to your car then." He licks his lips and then walks away, holding the door open for us. Once Misty has locked up, I hug my friend goodbye and we walk her to her car. I make note that he's parked beside me, and I'm willing to bet he's done it on purpose. Maybe I haven't gotten away as easy as I thought.
As soon as Misty pulls out of the lot he walks me to my car. "Let's try this again. Dinner?"
I let out a deep breath. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. I haven't seen anyone since..." My words trail off, and my eyes divert to the ground because I'm not sure how much I should tell him.
"Since?" He lifts my chin forcing me to look into his eyes.
I exhale a deep breath. "My husband died."
He closes his eyes. "Sugar, I'm so sorry."
I shake my head. "Don't. It's just hard. Part of me wants to move on. It's been almost three years now, but I'm not sure how DJ will react to me dating and part of me feels guilty for moving on. It’s hard enough knowing I left him buried in New York. I can’t just forget I was married."
"I understand, and we can take it slow. We have a connection, and I think you feel it just as much as I do. We’ve been flirting for the last few months."
I chuckle. "You may be right, but I still feel the need to speak with DJ about this first. I can't disrupt his life any more than I already have."
"I understand. I don’t want him to think I’m trying to intrude on your life, but I also don’t want to ignore my attraction to you. Talk to him tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up for dinner Saturday night."
I nod. "Dinner and we take it slow. Let me see if he can spend the night at Misty's." I pull open my car door. "You have my number." I climb into my car, and he stands there watching as I drive away.
"Holy shit," I whisper to myself. I wanted to tell him no, that the timing isn’t right, but I just can't. I'm so drawn to him. When he shook my hand on Tuesday night it sent a shiver through my body, and suddenly my stomach was doing flips. He smiles at me, and my panties dampen. I can’t just ignore that. I would like to believe Dylan would have wanted me to move on at some point, but is it too soon?