Chapter Two
“We’re going to bunco.”
Mari looked up from her desk to see Rosa standing in the doorway. “We’re going to what?”
“Bunco.” Rosa pushed past the door and dropped her purse on the desk before folding into a chair.
“What’s a bunco?”
“It’s a game.”
“Like football?”
Rosa rolled her eyes. A new habit she’d picked up somewhere between filing for divorce and signing the final papers.
“No, not like football. It’s a game with dice.”
“I have zero interest in going to Vegas.” Mari returned her attention to the inventory order she was in the process of filling out.
“Bunco isn’t a game you play in Vegas. It’s played with twelve people, three tables, and three sets of dice. It’s easy.”
Mari stopped writing and glanced at her friend. “And why are we doing this?”
“It’s called fun, Mari. Remember fun?” Rosa asked.
Mari returned Rosa’s roll of her eyes and went back to the restaurant’s inventory list. “I have to work.”
“I haven’t even told you when it is yet.”
“Doesn’t matter, I have to work. Inventory orders don’t create themselves.”
Salena’s voice from the doorway had Mari and Rosa looking at her. “Actually, they do.”
Salena stepped into the office and placed a digital order form in front of Mari to review. “The new program we’re using is saving man-hours for more important things.”
“Like playing bunco!” Rosa announced.
“That sounds fun. When are you guys doing that?” Salena asked.
“Tonight. Seven o’clock.”
“Is it close by, or do you need a ride?”
Mari squeezed her brows together while Rosa and Salena discussed the evening’s activities as if it were a foregone conclusion that it was happening. “Why would we need a ride?” Mari asked.
Salena shrugged. “The nickname for bunco is drunko. I substituted twice for a group where I used to work. Halfway into the second round, they were pretty ripped.”
“I don’t get ripped,” Mari reminded her.
“There’s always a first time.”
Rosa stood, picked up her purse, and hiked it high on her shoulder. “I’ll be here at six thirty. We’ll grab an Uber.”
“I didn’t—”
Rosa patted Salena on the shoulder and said, “Make sure she’s not in her pajamas.”
“You got it.”
Mari loved Salena like her own daughter . . . but sometimes . . . “My evening just got hijacked.”
“You’ll have fun, trust me.”
Mari released a long-suffering breath and glanced down at her order sheet. The numbers on her handwritten form were identical to Salena’s new digital system that she and Luca had insisted on.
With the restaurant fully staffed and the kitchen manned by her son, apparently, she was going to learn a new game and possibly overdrink.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, James squeezed his eyes shut and listened to the fast-paced, overly loud voice of his daughter.
“I can’t find my cleats! I have to have them.”
Sitting behind his desk with his phone on speaker, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot he could do about helping Ellie with her current tragedy. “Have you looked in the garage?”
“They’re not there.”
“The laundry room?”
“Nope.”
“What about under the mound of crap on the side of your bed?”
“They’re not there, Dad,” she yelled. The sound of a door slamming through the phone suggested Ellie was franticly rummaging through the house, leaving chaos along her path.
James sighed. “Did you leave them at your mom’s?”
“I had them yesterday.”
And since it was his week, the missing cleats had to be in the house . . . somewhere.
“Maybe your sister knows?”
Ellie didn’t miss a breath before she yelled her sister’s name at the top of her lungs. “Maddie!”
James winced, let loose his nose, and stared at the monitor on his desk.
“Did you check the trunk of your car?”
His question landed on deaf ears.
Ellie’s out-of-breath voice lowered a smidge. “Have you seen my cleats?”
“No. And I haven’t smelled them either.”
James grinned, knowing full well the scent Madison spoke of.
Ellie made a noise between a growl and a moan. “I’m starting to freak. I’m going to be late for practice.” Softball was Ellie’s life. She’d taken the sport and made it her religion since she was old enough to catch a ball and hit it with a bat.
And she was good.
So much so that she was likely going to have her pick of DI colleges to choose from in only a few short months.
“Did you check the trunk of your car?” James asked again.
“Of course I did.”
“Check again.”
An exasperated sigh escaped his daughter’s lips.
He heard the screen on the side door of the house clap against its frame, indicating Ellie was walking out to the driveway. “I’m telling you, they’re not here.”
James held his tongue when he imagined the dumpster-fire mess in her car that matched her bedroom.
“Coach Gusmann is going to be . . .”
Ellie’s words trailed off.
James smiled.
“Found them.”
“You know if you kept things cleaner, you’d—”
“Gotta go. Thanks, Dad.”
Ellie hung up.
“You’d keep my hair from falling out,” James said to the disconnected line.
He glanced from the screen of his phone that faded to black to the picture of his daughters standing beside each other, their heads close together as they stared into the camera.
They were not identical twins, but they did look a whole lot alike. Dusty blonde hair that Ellie wore shorter than Madison. Same blue eyes and determined jaws.
Madison’s face was rounded like her mother’s, while Ellie’s took on more of James’s.
Ellie had a tiny scar on the side of her eye from a slide into third base in her freshman year of high school.
Personality-wise, Ellie and Madison couldn’t be more different.
Ellie lived her life on fire. Frantically spinning like a stockbroker in a bear market.
Madison had moments of that enthusiasm, but she was more of a flame from a match and not a wildfire. Madison was all books and AP classes.
Instead of a DI college, she had her eyes set on Caltech.
While James was equally proud of his daughters and their drive and determination to follow their passions, he knew that Madison would leave college with the skills to obtain a job.
Ellie seemed to think that she was destined to play professional softball, and the liberal arts degree she had down as her desired major was her means to get there.
Even though James suffered an aching head on many of the days his daughters were with him, he did his best to relish them. His nest would be empty a mere seven months from now.
James’s secretary, AJ, stuck his head around the door. “Mr. Colton is here.”
James stood and buttoned his jacket before sliding around his desk.
Now that Ellie’s cleat dilemma was behind him, it was time to do the job that would afford his daughters a college education.
They were on threes during their first round of bunco, and Mari and Rosa had been there for well over an hour.
Apparently, eating and drinking were the more favored parts of the game.
Which was a practice Mari knew very well.
Ten new faces of women ranging in age from thirty-five to sixty-one welcomed her like they’d known her for years.
Rosa had met Summer, a name Mari remembered only because of its uniqueness, at a singles meet-and-greet event the previous week. An event Mari had managed to dodge, unlike bunco night.
Despite going in with a not all that interested attitude, Mari found herself utterly amused.
Their hostess, Leandra . . . or Leanda, Mari didn’t quite catch the right name, had kicked her husband and son out of the house to entertain for the evening.
Mari had asked, “Your husband is okay with that?”
Leandra/Leanda replied, “I only do this once a year, he better be.”
Hosting bunco rotated every month, spreading the “entertaining burden” around.
A term Mari couldn’t identify with.
Especially how this group of women worked.
Everyone brought a dish, or in her and Rosa’s case, wine.
Guilt scratched at Mari’s spine when she realized bunco was a potluck. She never missed an opportunity to feed people.
Not that she needed to worry herself about anyone going hungry.
Aside from dinner, there were dishes of candy on each table.
Mari rolled the dice, didn’t come up with any threes, and passed the dice to the player on her left.
“Do you have kids?” Summer, her current partner, asked from across the table.
“Three. And two grandbabies, with two more on the way.”
The woman on her left rolled one three, picked up the dice, and rolled again. “How old are your kids?”
Mari rattled off their ages and was met with surprise.
“You don’t look old enough to have a son in his thirties.”
“I was a young bride,” Mari said.
Summer rolled the dice, got two threes, which Mari tallied on her sheet. “I would imagine grandkids keep you and your husband busy.”
Mari shook her head. “No, I’m a . . . widow.”
Summer hesitated with the dice in the palm of her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s been nearly ten years.”
“You’re kidding,” the woman on her right said.
“Cancer,” Mari replied matter-of-factly.
“That’s awful.”
“How did you survive that?” Summer asked.
“One day at a time.”
The dice shifted to the left and were tossed onto the table.
“Ten years is a long time. Are you dating?”
Mari glanced down at the paper the woman on her right was using as a score sheet to try and see her name.
Susan.
“No . . . no. I don’t. No.”
“Never?” Susan asked.
Mari shrugged and picked up the dice to roll. “I loved my husband.”
“But—”
“And was raising my children.”
“But ten years?”
No threes were thrown, and Susan picked up the dice.
“Bunco!” one of the women yelled out from another table, halting that round.
Susan and her partner had the higher score, which meant Summer and Mari needed to move to another table.
Mari was once again partnered with Rosa.
“Mari just told us she hasn’t dated for ten years,” Summer announced before Mari could sip from her wine.
“I lost my husband, we didn’t divorce. Dating hasn’t entered my mind.”
“Not even once?” the woman Mari had yet to talk to asked.
“I’ve encouraged her,” Rosa said.
“I wouldn’t even know how.”