Chapter 8
Lexi
I don’t understand. I’m not usually afflicted with sweaty hands when meeting people because I’m not prone to suffer from nervousness. I’ve traveled the country, performed in front of probably thousands of people over my adult life. I’ve done bungee jumping and sky-diving, and once swam with sharks.
Well, granted, I don’t know if my hands were sweating when I was swimming with the sharks, but I doubt it. I wasn’t nervous.
Not like I am now.
Which is exactly how I felt after meeting Brian that first time earlier this week. Racing pulse and sweaty palms.
Before I ring the doorbell to Gray and Ryker’s house, I tuck the bottle of wine under the arm that doesn’t have my purse slung over the shoulder and briskly rub the bottoms of my hands on my wool skirt. It’s one of the more sedate pieces of clothing I own: a dark brown and taupe plaid, which I paired with a brown turtleneck, because let’s face it, working in a coffee shop and tending bar doesn’t really require dressy outfits. Luckily I had a pair of camel-colored boots to pair with the outfit, and I think I look moderately respectable.
And I sure hope so, for tonight is the dinner that Gray had suggested we have at her house. It’s an important night and I’m also a little blown away that Gray and Brian decided to forgo flying out to Boston today to watch the Cold Fury play on Sunday. It’s why Roman and I couldn’t go out tonight. Instead, Gray is going to fly out Monday and catch up with the team in New York for their game there on Tuesday. But basically, they put aside their duties as CEO and general manager of the Cold Fury to have a private, get-to-know-you dinner tonight.
With my palms dry—for the time being—I ring the bell and suck in a few deep breaths until the door opens and Gray is standing there with a welcoming smile.
“Hey, Lexi,” she says softly as she takes a step back. “Come on in.”
“Thanks,” I murmur nervously as I enter the foyer, taking a brief look around. While their house is really big, it isn’t ostentatious, but rather looks to be warm and inviting. The large living room just beyond where we stand has plush brown couches scattered with scarlet pillows. There’s a fire going in the hearth and soft music is playing in the background.
“Ryker and Dad are in the kitchen, opening up some wine,” she says.
“The girls aren’t here?” I ask.
Gray shakes her head. “We thought it would be best not to tell them what was going on until we got the official results back.”
“Oh,” I say, slightly disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing the two girls who seemed to transform Gray in that photo I’d seen into a warm, open woman.
Gray turns fully to me, reaches an arm out, and touches me lightly on the shoulder. “Just on the off chance those results come back different from what we all expect, okay?”
I take heart in the fact that she said what we all expect, which means to me that she’s accepted I am who I say I am. That means that she’ll perhaps give me a real chance to be a part of her life.
“Oh, I brought this for you,” I say as I clumsily hand the bottle of wine I’d picked up on the way over here.
“That’s really sweet,” Gray says with a gracious smile as she takes the bottle and looks at the label.
“I’m not sure if it’s any good,” I blurt out. “I don’t know much about wine.”
“I’m sure it will be great,” she assures me. “Come on. I just took the beef tenderloin out of the oven and it needs to set for about twenty minutes. Let’s go open this puppy up and you guys can see what it tastes like.”
“Just as long as no one holds it against me if it’s awful,” I say teasingly, and Gray laughs.
Gray actually laughs at something I said, and it sounds warm and genuine. I have to wonder why she’s all of a sudden so accepting of me.
She leads me into the kitchen and I see Brian leaning with his elbows on the large island in the center of the kitchen. His eyes light up when he sees me, and within moments, his hands are on my shoulders and he’s leaning down to kiss my cheek. My eyes cut to Gray to see her reaction, but her back is to me as she hands the wine I brought to her husband, Ryker.
When my dad—Brian—no, my dad pulls away, I turn to Ryker. “You don’t need any introduction. I’m a huge fan of yours.”
He steps past Gray and holds his empty hand out to me with a warm smile. “It’s great to meet you, Lexi.”
Brian immediately moves to the bottle of wine that’s already open and pours a glass. As he hands it to me, Gray asks, “Dad said you’d just moved here about seven months ago. Were you always a Cold Fury fan?”
Her tone is inquisitive, but I also know she’s measuring me up as well.
“No,” I tell her honestly. “Wasn’t a fan of hockey at all. But I started reading about it when I learned Da—I mean, Brian, owned the Cold Fury. And I started watching it, and of course, I watched all the playoffs and you win the Stanley Cup. It was really exciting.”
“Have you been to any of the games this season?” Gray asks.
I shake my head. “I’m saving up some of my singing tips to get a ticket. Maybe around March.”
Gray’s face remains impassive, but Brian immediately says, “Well, that won’t do. You can have a ticket to any game you want to go to. In fact, you can sit up in the owner’s box with—”
“Dad,” Gray interjects bluntly. “Not until the test comes back.”
“And I don’t need you to give me a ticket,” I say firmly, my eyes cutting from Brian back to Gray. “I can buy my own.”
Gray flinches slightly and lowers her gaze.
“Listen,” Brian finally says, addressing the elephant in the room. “How about we all agree that we’ll just take the next few weeks until the test comes back to get to know each other. And, Lexi, if the test concludes what I expect it will, you will most certainly not be buying tickets to the game. It the test reveals otherwise, then worst-case scenario is that we’ve become friends.”
I hear Ryker snort, but I don’t dare look at him. In fact, I don’t dare look away from Brian, who seems to be pinning me in place with a “dad” look that I’ve never experienced before. It says there’s to be no argument.
“Okay,” I say softly.
“So, Lexi,” Ryker says, and my gaze slides to him. He’s looking at me with open interest. “Brian’s told us a little about you, but how about you fill Gray and me in on your life so far. Like where you were born, and where you lived. We understand you’ve lived in different places.”
I take a sip of my wine, and after swallowing I say, “Well…let’s see. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lived there until I was eighteen. When I graduated from high school, I didn’t have any interest in college right then so I thought I’d travel around. A friend and I went out to Portland, and that’s when I started working as a barista. Stayed there a few years, fell in love, or so I thought, and followed a guy out to Tucson. Fell out of love—namely because he was also loving someone else behind my back—and left Tucson for Little Rock. Over the next three years I lived in Little Rock, Nashville, and then Pittsburgh. I was working as a bartender in Pittsburgh when I found out my mom was sick, and I went back home to Hartford to take care of her until she passed away. Then I moved here.”
“I’m really sorry about your mom,” Gray says softly, and I see within the depths of her eyes an understanding of my pain. She lost her mom too, although far earlier than I did. Just like I didn’t have a father growing up, she didn’t have a mother. But I’m sure she can imagine how horrible it would be to lose her father, and that’s where I know she truly gets me.
“Thank you,” I murmur, looking down into my wine. “It wasn’t pretty at the end, and she didn’t go fast. Luckily they had her pretty drugged up, so I don’t think she was suffering. Still…I got to the point where I would just sit in her hospice room and talk to her, repeatedly just telling her that it was all right to let go. I was so grateful when she finally did.”
I look up and see a light sheen of tears formed in Gray’s eyes, but they’re not looking at me. Rather, they’re pinned on her father, and I know she is indeed imagining what that might be like if that happened to him. My gaze cuts to Brian, but he’s looking at me, his face awash with utter sympathy.
“I can’t even imagine being in that situation…just watching and waiting,” Gray says hoarsely, and I look back to her. She’s blinked the tears away, but I can tell she’s still ruminating about mortality. “It gives me a little more clarity as to why you came here. Why you want to get to know us.”
“Not to replace her,” I say quickly. “Never that.”
“Not to replace,” Brian says gently. “To add to your already full life.”
Gray smiles at me, then crosses the kitchen, brushing past me. But she hesitates…lays a hand on my arm and gives it a tiny squeeze of sympathy before she walks to the stove and pulls the tinfoil off the beef tenderloin that sits in a roasting pan on top.
“So what’s your current story, Lexi?” Ryker asks casually as he moves to the cabinet that holds water glasses and starts pulling some out. He then in turn puts each one under the ice dispenser and fills them up. “Brian says you’re a musician?”
I shoot a smirk at Brian and then look to Ryker. “I actually make and serve coffee at The Grind, but I do a little music on the side. It doesn’t really pay much, but the tips are nice.”
“I never knew a ukulele could be so versatile,” Brian adds proudly, and I can tell by the smile on Ryker’s face as he fills the water glasses that Brian has actually told both Gray and Ryker quite a bit about my singing.
“Mom wanted me to play an instrument when I was little, and I didn’t want to. We argued about it incessantly, but she insisted. We finally compromised, and she told me I could pick the instrument. I seriously considered the drums just to drive her nuts, but I was totally charmed by the ukulele after listening to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.”
“Who?” Ryker asks as he moves each ice-filled glass to the water dispenser in the fridge to fill them. Gray pulls a knife from a drawer beside the stove and starts to cut the beef tenderloin, and Brian merely sips on his wine and enjoys my story as I tell it.
“Israel Kamakawiwo’ole was a Hawaiian folksinger, and he did this amazing mash-up of ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ and ‘What a Wonderful World,’ and it really is what made me fall in love with music. After that, there was no choice. It was the ukulele for me.”
“I heard her sing ‘Over the Rainbow,’ ” Brian says proudly. “It was amazing.”
“Ryker,” Gray slips into the conversation. “Can you hand me a plate?”
Ryker reaches back into another cabinet, grabs a plate, and hands it to me. I turn to hand it to Gray, and she smiles at me as she says, “Maybe one night Ryker and I can get over to The Grind and listen to you.”
“Really?” I ask, my smile cracking wide open. “That would be awesome.”
“Absolutely,” Ryker answers for his wife, and I turn back to him with the same smile. “Sounds like a lot of fun. I rarely get to take Gray out on a date anymore between our work and raising the girls.”
“Definitely sounds fun,” Gray adds, and the earlier awkwardness seems to have dissipated completely.
“So are you dating anyone?” Ryker asks me pleasantly, another question to learn more about me. Gray stops her transfer of the sliced tenderloin to the plate I had just handed her and looks at me with interest.
“Not really,” I say, which is the truth. “But I have a first date next week and I’m looking forward to that.”
And at this point, I hope that I don’t get any follow-up questions because I absolutely do not want to tell them that said date is with a Cold Fury player. Despite the fact that Gray has seemingly come to some acceptance of my presence, there is still some level of skepticism on her part. That was evident by her questions to me tonight and by the way she intervened to prevent her dad from offering me anything until the final DNA results were in.
Yes, there’s no sense in even bringing Roman into the conversation when we may go out Wednesday and totally not even click with each other. I seriously doubt that, as there is some obvious and intense chemistry between us, but no sense in upsetting the apple cart tonight.
Just to ensure that the conversations stays away from my love life, I decide to throw my dad, Brian, whatever, under the bus.
In the most loving way, of course.
“Speaking of dating,” I say as I turn to Brian and give him a sly smile. His eyebrows shoot upward over the suggestive tone in my voice and his body goes still. “You made quite an impression on Georgia night before last.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Brian mutters, and I’m astonished to see his face turn red before he puts his wineglass to his mouth and takes a healthy slug.
My eyes dart to Gray briefly, who is watching her dad with a smirk, and this eggs me on.
“Georgia can’t stop talking about you,” I say knowingly. “I think she has a crush.”
“Honestly, Lexi,” Brian huffs. “A crush? Is she twelve years old?”
“Forty-seven,” I provide.
His eyebrows shoot up higher. “Really? I thought she was younger than that.”
I knew it. He’s interested.
“Nope. And she’s totally single, and I bet she’d go out with you in a heartbeat if you asked her.”
Brian makes sort of a harrumph noise and waves his hand at me in dismissal. “I’m too old to date.”
“Seriously?” Gray jumps into the conversation. “Too old? You are not going there.”
“I’m sixty-one—” he starts to say, but she rolls right over him.
“You cycle over a hundred miles a week, you do strength training that’s on a par with some of the very athletes that you employ, and you still sport a damn six-pack, Dad. You should be dating because you are in your prime.”
“I’ve got gray hair,” Brian grumbles.
“Only at the temples,” I provide helpfully. “Which clearly labels you as a silver fox, not an old man.”
For the first time in the brief time I’ve known Brian Brannon, he actually glares at me, but I’m not taken aback. I’m actually happy I’m comfortable enough to rib him and he’s comfortable enough to be pissed about it.
Also bonus points that Gray and I are firmly united in this.
“So who is this Georgia?” Ryker asks with a smirk on his face, and I know to keep the conversation going, as he’s actually enjoying Brian’s discomfort.
Grounded in the knowledge that the spotlight is firmly off of me and my potential love life, I give them the brief rundown. “She’s really super cool. Like I said, forty-seven years old and totally gorgeous. Brian can attest to that,” I say with a wink his way, then barrel forward so he can’t deny it. “She’s originally from Georgia—which is why I guess her parents named her that. She opened up The Grind almost ten years ago. Has one son who’s twenty-five and lives on the West Coast, she’s never been married, and she’s completely crazy. In a fun sort of way, I mean.”
“Really?” Brian says dryly. “I found her to be a little rude.”
“She’s blunt,” I say, looking at him briefly before turning back to Ryker. “But she has the biggest heart in the world. And she likes to get under people’s skin, which is what I’m sure she was trying to do with you, Brian,” I say as I shoot a glance back at him. “I think that only means she really likes you.”
“Funny way of showing it,” he mutters, then adds petulantly, “She had me convinced Tink was a murderer.”
I burst out laughing, as do Gray and Ryker, and Brian shoots glares at all of us. Then he wipes away our amusement when he says, “That’s enough of this conversation. I won’t say I’m old, but I’m too set in my ways to date, and even if I did want to date, Georgia Mack would be the last person I’d ask out.”
Hmmmmm…he doth protest too much, methinks.
He’s so going to ask her out.