Page 94 of Accepting Fate
“Mom! What the hell? She’s twenty-six!” Grayson says, throwing his hands up in the air then bringing them back down to resume their previous position.
Shelly attempts to hide her laughter by looking like she has no idea what she did wrong but loses it a few seconds later and bursts out laughing.
“Sorry, Logan. He’s so easy to rile up, I like to mess with him. Anyways, what can I get you?”
“Umm. I better stick to water in case Grayson gets a headache and I need to drive.”
Grayson squeezes my shoulders and Shelly’s hands go to her chest. “Aww. Grayson, don’t let her go or I will gut you.” Behind her, Conrad chuckles.
I can tell he’s more of the silent type like Wesley. But I love watching him watch Shelly with a big grin on his face. I haven’t even been here more than ten minutes and I can tell that man is still madly in love with his wife after all this time.
“Don’t plan on it Mom,” Grayson promises.
He taps my shoulders and gets me to look up at him. “You can drink if you want. It’s a short drive to my place. If my head hurts, I can survive driving five minutes.”
“Do you have a headache now?”
“Nope. Go for it if you want to, Angel.”
Looking back at Shelly, I see her waving a wine glass. “Yeah. I can’t have more than one though, I have to work tomorrow.”
She raises the wine glasses above her head. “Yay! We can leave the boys in here to finish up dinner while we go relax on the porch.”
Alone with Shelly already?
Calm down, Logan. She just wants to get to know you,I tell myself.
“Mom. We talked about this. You can’t just take her and pester her.”
Shelly pours red wine into our glasses and hands me mine. “Hush. I’m not going to do anything to her. Let’s go, sweetie.”
She rises up on her toes to kiss Conrad and he whispers something in her ear, causing her to flash him a big smile then heads towards the door that leads out to the back porch.
Hopping off my stool, Noah winks at me and Grayson kisses my forehead.
I walk out onto the back porch and see a similar setup to my house, except their chairs are sage green. Shelly is already situated in one of the chairs and I sit down next to her.
“Please don’t be nervous, Logan. I promise I didn’t bring you out here to grill you. If my boy brought you here, that means he’s serious about you. I taught my boys to lead with their heart and trust their instincts. He did and now we have our first girl of the family.”
Wow. I can see where Grayson got his way with words. In a few sentences, she abolished all my insecurities about coming here.
“Wow. That means a lot,” I say, still shocked.
“Of course. So, can I be a little nosy? Grayson told me not to pry and I won’t go too deep, but I want to get to know you since you are a part of the family now.”
These Hayes sure do love planning for the future. But I can’t say it scares me as much as it did at the beginning.
“Well. I’m sure you know a lot already from Grayson or Noah.”
Shelly takes a long sip and nods. “Yeah. No kidding. Noah is a talker. I love that boy to death, but I think I encouraged him to be too forthcoming and honest when he was little. Grayson, on the other hand, isn’t as much of a blabbermouth like Noah. But he likes to take care of me in any way he can, so I sometimes get him to divulge a little here and there.”
I smile at her. “I’ve come to the conclusion that even if Grayson and I never met, Noah would have claimed me as his friend.” Taking a deep breath, I let go of a little bit of fear and continue, “I don’t have the best past. I moved here over three years ago and until Noah came along, I only had a few friends. I like to think when I met Gray, I got a two-for-one special because I gained a friendship and relationship with Gray and a friendship with Noah.”
Shelly looks at me with a look of understanding. “I don’t know why your past caused you to stumble upon this place, but it looks like it was a bit of fate. You seem to be a very strong girl, my dear. Landon mentioned what you did for Isabella and Grayson the other day. He said you took a crapshoot of a night and turned it into a smooth ride by just being there for them.”
Wow. I didn’t expect Grayson’s parents to know whatever it is the brothers do.
“I was only doing what I was trained to do. I did rip Grayson a new one the next day when he was feeling better for not going to the hospital. That boy is a pain in the ass sometimes. I don’t know how you did it with four?”