Though everybody was on duty that evening, it didn’t really feel like work as Drew wandered on foot through the crowd gathered to watch the fireworks. Whitford put on a good show and he’d fought the budget committee to keep them from cutting the funds. The better the official town display, the fewer people who got hurt blasting them out of their own backyards.
There were various fundraisers going on, and Drew spread his money around the different bake sales and lemonade stands until he couldn’t take any more sugar. Everybody said hello to him and he felt a sense of deep satisfaction. This community was almost like a family to him and he took pretty good care of them.
Excitement hummed through the crowd when the first test shot went up, but Drew estimated it would be another ten to fifteen minutes before it was dark enough for the real show to begin. Off in the distance, a baby cried and a dog barked, but overall the crowd was a happy one this year.
He spotted his dad waving to him and waved back, making his way toward him. The Kowalski crowd had carved out a space in the park’s grass, marked with several old quilts. Besides his old man and Rose, Josh and Katie were there, along with Ryan and Lauren. Drew had already run into Lauren’s teenage son, Nick, who was watching the fireworks with his dad, stepmom and little brother and sister. Mitch and Paige were on the far side of the quilts and, of course, next to Rose was Liz. Drew waved his hand in the general direction of all of them to say hello.
“Come to watch the show with us, son?”
He’d actually just been wandering aimlessly, but why not? “Crowd seems peaceful. No reason I can’t hang around for a little while.”
Rose opened the cooler sitting at the foot of her quilt and pulled out a bottle of water. He wasn’t really thirsty, having had his fill of lemonade already, but he took it from her anyway. There was a lot of chatter around him, but he only half paid attention while keeping part of his focus on the crowd. Now that the test shot had been fired, the kids were starting to get antsy.
Finally, another round went up and Paige clapped her hands. “Everybody lay down! You should lay down to watch fireworks.”
Paige hadn’t had much in the way of family before marrying into the Kowalskis, and she seemed to take a lot of joy in things the rest of them took for granted, so everybody stretched out on the blankets.
Rose looked up at Drew and then pointed. “Hurry up, Drew. There’s room there next to Liz.”
There wasn’t much he could do short of standing over them like an idiot or walking away, so he kicked off his shoes, set the bottle of water in the grass and stepped onto the quilt. There was some maneuvering to make room for him, but there still wasn’t a lot of space between Liz and Josh. He scooted down into the opening and lay on his back, feeling as relaxed as a slab of concrete.
“Sorry about this,” Drew said quietly, his head turned toward Liz. “It’s a little tight.”
“Trust me, she knew exactly what she was doing.”
It took a few seconds for her words to sink in and, once they did, he had no idea what to say. It sounded like she was implying Rose had wedged him up against Liz deliberately, which didn’t make a lot of sense, unless she’d picked up on some kind of vibe between them. Or she already knew.
Josh was talking to Katie and the others were all in their own conversations, so he felt safe talking in a low voice. “Did you tell her?”
“The morning after the wedding.”
Rose had known the entire time. It was a tough thing to wrap his mind around, and he stared up at the sky. On the one hand, she hadn’t told Mitch, which meant she must agree it was best he not know. But on the other, Liz had implied Rose put Drew next to her on purpose. If she was matchmaking, she must believe it would be okay when Mitch inevitably found out.
And if Rose knew, had she told his dad? They were a couple, so it was possible. But since Rose was like a second mother to Liz, maybe keeping her secret trumped telling the man she lived with. He was pretty sure his dad would have said something to him by now, so Rose was the only person who knew Drew and Liz had snuck away from the reception. It was interesting, but nothing he could talk to Liz about while lying on a quilt, surrounded by her family.
When the first big rounds exploded high overhead, ripples of ooh and ahh went through the crowd. There were some whistles and woo-hoos, while another baby joined the first in wailing and more dogs barked. He barely paid attention, focused instead on the proximity of Liz’s body to his own.
By ten minutes in, everybody was starting to squirm. Rosie had nice thick quilts and the grass under them was lush, but the ground was still the ground and none of them were kids anymore. He shifted, trying to work the various attachments on his belt—especially the flashlight—out from under his body. His thigh pressed against Liz’s, only for a moment, but he heard the quickening of her breath.