“All right, all right.” Grace was fine listening to Joey’s little rant until he started putting Sal down. “I am aware that I can cook. I was just being melodramatic. And, for the record he went to school and got a master’s in business management. He’s incredibly smart and meticulously organized. It’s amazing the way he’s able to run not just one very busy restaurant but also help with the other one and be in charge of meeting with all these investors. Everybody at the restaurant seems to love him and although it’s a lot of work to run the place and deal with the meeting he handles it all brilliantly. He’s also planning on opening a lot more restaurants, so he didn’t just take over his father’s business.”

Joey smirked. “But it’s just his looks you’re attracted to, uh?”

Grace picked up Joey’s wrist, twisting it.

“Ow!”

She saw on his watch it was time to go and stood up. “We’re gonna be late.”

Joey shook his wrist making a face. “This—my love—is not over. We’ll have to get to the bottom of his odd behavior.”

Grace was done trying to figure it out. There was only one thing short of quitting her job, which was out of the question, that she needed to do—get over it. She knew it was much easier said than done, but at this point, she had no other option.

~*~

Sal had a few stops he had to make before going into the restaurant Monday morning. He’d finally had a chance to go over the proposal in its entirety. For the most part everything seemed okay. Except for a few minor details like the possibility of television commercials, in which, neither Sal nor any of the Morenos would have a say.

Another detail was Sal’s original vision was to keep all the restaurants relatively close by, preferably in San Diego county. The proposal stated they wanted to leave the possibility of branching out into other big cities, like Los Angeles, which wasn’t too far, but there was even a mention of Vegas and New York. It was already a pain having to go back and forth from the two restaurants and they were only a half hour away from each other.

Granted it was all dependent on how well the local restaurants did first, but leaving it out there as a possibility was a bit nerve-racking. His brothers would all have to be in agreement before he signed anything. Just because the restaurants were out of town, or state even, didn’t mean Sal would be okay with someone else making the decisions. As long as the Moreno name was on the line, he and his brothers would have final say on everything. That would mean a lot of traveling.

His mother had a huge breakfast waiting for him when he arrived at their house. “Ma, I told you, I was just gonna be in and out.”

“Oh, you can eat just a little,” she said, planting an overflowing plate of eggs, chilaquiles and the ever present beans and rice on the table. “Sit.”

His dad was already eating. He also motioned for him to have a seat. Sal sat and started going over the proposal with his dad. All the while, his mother kept adding things to the table, tortillas, red salsa, green salsa, fresh Mexican cheese. Sal knew better than to argue. He’d just smile back at his mother, who seemed so happy to be serving him. In a way, he felt guilty for not letting her indulge him more often, lately. It’s what the woman lived for.

Sal explained all the need-to-know stuff to his dad, about what the investors were asking. All his dad really cared about was the food and how things were run in general. Everything else wasn’t worth trying to explain. His dad was anti-technology, so any explanation of the marketing and Internet use for the catering part of the business would be a waste of time. It amazed Sal he’d gone the years he did without any type of computers until he and his brothers were old enough to insist he get with the times, but he did mention New York and Vegas. “What? You plan on never having a family?”

Sal stopped mid chew, raising his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother and I are too old to be going back and forth to New York or even Vegas. This is gonna be all you and your brothers. You see how Alex is now about leaving Valerie and he’s only fifteen minutes away.” He shook a tortilla at him. “You don’t think you’re going to have a pregnant wife someday?”

Sal frowned and kept chewing. He’d managed to keep Grace out of his mind all morning and now his dad went and mentioned a pregnant wife. As ridiculous as the thought was, the first thing that popped in his head was Grace. “That’s a big if, Pop.”

“What? You don’t want babies?” His mom stared at him horrified.

Sal turned to her. “No.”

“Why not?” Her shrill voice went up a few notches.

“Mom, I do, I meant Vegas and New York are a big if.”

“But you do want kids.”

“Yes, mom, I want kids.” Normally, Sal would’ve laughed at the turn the conversation had taken, but his parents had inadvertently shoved Grace back into the spotlight of his thoughts. Something he’d worked all morning to shut out.

After about another twenty minutes of going over things with his dad, and his mother casually slapping more food on his plate a few times, he finally got out of there. Between last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast Sal was really going to need to get in the gym more often this week.

With his mind on his parents, the proposal and working out, he was finally clear of any thoughts of her. Then he got a text from Oscar.

Hey Chief not sure who’s the boss today. Just letting you know I’ll be a little late. I’ll explain when I get there.