Chapter twelve Grady
Chapter twelve
Grady
“So, what do you guys think?” Dallas asks from the other side of the bar as Penn, Parker, and I all try the new burger he’s thinking about putting on the menu.
It’s a classic beef patty with a potato cake on top that’s a cross between a jalapeno popper and a hash brown.
The outside is fried in a flaky batter, and the inside has mashed potatoes mixed with diced jalapenos and gooey, cheddar cheese.
It’s making me wish I was alone so I could properly appreciate it without judgment.
The moan of approval I let out is borderline embarrassing. “Fucking delicious,” I say around a mouthful of food.
“You’ve got a winner here, brother.” Penn echoes my sentiment.
“I would give up sex if I could eat this every day,” Parker adds, drawing all our attention his way.
Penn wipes his mouth with his napkin. “Uh, I don’t know about that.”
Dallas stares at his youngest brother with confusion as well. “Yeah. There’s no food I would choose over sex with Willow.”
Parker glares at both of his brothers while I keep my mouth shut. I’m not having regular sex, that’s for sure. But if I had the opportunity to fuck Scottie anytime she wanted, I would give up all food for the rest of my life.
“Thanks for rubbing in the fact that you both are getting laid regularly.” Parker takes another bite, grumbling around his food.
“In a bit of a dry spell?” I ask, knowing how rough that can be. At one point, even your hand will start to think that you’re pathetic.
“You could say that.”
“You have that conference in New York coming up though, don’t you?” Penn interjects. “Maybe you’ll get lucky on your trip, turn that frown of yours upside down.” He pokes his brother in the cheek as Parker swats him away.
Dallas and I share a laugh before he clears his throat. “Uh, not to shift away from Parker’s lackluster love life, but I wanted to make sure you’re all going to be at Willow’s birthday party next Saturday. I’m trying to get a head count for the food.”
Penn and Parker nod in unison. “You know Astrid and I will be there,” Penn says. Astrid and Willow are best friends, so there’s no way they’d miss it.
“I’m leaving the office early that day so I can make it on time,” Parker adds.
Dallas turns his attention to me. “You coming?”
I take a sip of my Coke before replying. “Yup. I’ve had it on my calendar for months.”
“What about Scottie?” Dallas asks as he wipes down the bar. “Are you gonna bring her?”
“I mean, I hadn’t thought about it.”
Penn shoves my shoulder, grinning. “This is your opportunity to introduce her to everyone!” he teases.
“I don’t know if she can go, but I’ll ask her.” Hell, if I had it my way, she’d be going as my significant other, but I’m still working on changing our relationship status. One day at a time.
“How are things going with you two?” Dallas asks.
“They’re…going.” I blow out a sigh of frustration.
Penn winces. “That good, huh?”
I wipe my hands on my napkin and toss it onto my empty plate, the burger completely gone. “I don’t know, guys. If I had it my way, Scottie would have a ring on her finger and would already be moved into my house.”
Parker’s eyes bug out. “Fuck. Really? Marriage already?”
Penn gives his brother a pointed look. “Not everyone is against marriage, little brother.”
Dallas chuckles, but Parker glares back at Penn. “Well, get fucked over by your fiancée, and you’d be against it too.”
“Anyway,” I interject, steering the conversation back on track. “Like I said, I want that, but Scottie doesn’t.”
“That’s what she said?”
“More or less, but I know she has feelings for me too.”
Parker groans. “Oh god, are we gonna have to watch you two tiptoe around each other for years like Penn and Astrid did before they finally admitted their fucking feelings?”
Penn shoves his brother off his stool as Dallas shrugs. “Parker does have a point, Penn.”
“We fucking figured out our shit, okay? But our situation was much more complicated.” Penn turns to me now. “Did she give you a reason why she won’t give you a chance?”
“I mean, she doesn’t want to ruin our friendship, for one. But I feel like after we slept together, nothing was going to be the same again anyway.”
“Valid point,” Dallas says.
“But I have a feeling a lot of it has to do with her ex-husband.”
Dallas winces. “Ex-husband drama can be complicated.”
“Is he in the picture still?” Penn asks.
“I honestly don’t know. I know he was a shitty father who let his son down a lot.” But there’s something else that she’s not telling me, and I haven’t been able to figure it out yet.
“How are things going with the kid?” Dallas asks.
“The kid has a chip on his shoulder, that’s for damn sure,” I reply. “But I don’t blame him. When he’s on the baseball field, though, he and I get along just fine. He’s fucking talented as hell.” The corner of my mouth lifts. “Reminds me a lot of myself at that age.”
“Nice,” Penn says.
“But at the garage, it’s a different story. He doesn’t want to listen and is clearly pissed about being there. I get it, but I was thinking maybe if I get him to help me fix up the car, he might not see it as a complete waste of time, and it could give us a chance to get to know each other better.”
Penn nods. “That’s a good idea, Grady. Especially because you’re still going to be in his life once your kid is born.”
“Exactly.”
“I remember trying to bond with Bentley after Brandon died. Granted, Bentley was a lot younger than Chase and already knew me, but it was still tough. One day when I corrected something he did, he got mad and told me that I wasn’t his dad.
” Penn shakes his head. “It fucking killed me because I know how badly he wishes Brandon were still here, but since he isn’t, all I could do was explain that it’s okay to have other role models in your life. ”
Penn’s words force me to swallow down the lump in my throat because I know that feeling well.
Mr. Rogers was the man I looked up to in so many ways, and he taught me everything I know about cars.
If it weren’t for him, I probably would have gotten in a lot more trouble as a kid and I wouldn’t have had something to keep me sane after losing baseball.
“So, you think the car thing could help?”
Penn nods firmly. “Yes. He’s going to push back, of course, but for every push he gives, you just push back harder. He’ll come around.”
Dallas chimes in. “We see it a lot with the boys we coach, Grady.” Dallas and Penn coach a soccer team each year in the fall.
Most of the boys on the team have fathers in the service, so they aren’t around for large stretches of time.
I can’t imagine having a dad who comes in and out of your life like that.
It makes me grateful that at least mine left and never returned because suffering that whiplash could be even harder to fucking deal with.
“Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”
Parker, who’d been silent during this discussion, clears his throat dramatically.
“Well, now that you three have a plan for how you’re going to save the world, one broken boy at a time, I gotta get back to work.
” He starts to stand from his chair, but Penn grabs his shirt by the collar and yanks him to his chest. “What the—”
Seething, Penn grates out, “Just because you’ve written off having a family doesn’t mean you get to mock ours.”
Dallas and I stand, ready to break them up if need be.
Parker glares up at his brother. “Jesus, calm down.”
Penn shakes Parker slightly. “No, you need to watch your fucking mouth, Parker. Raising another man’s kid is fucking hard.
Putting their needs before your own is a noble fucking thing.
And maybe you should consider that you’re also one of those broken boys inside, too scared to let anyone in because you were hurt once. ”
Parker clenches his jaw. “Fuck you, Penn.”
“Right back at you, brother.”
“Okay.” Dallas rounds the bar and steps between the two of them, pulling Penn’s hands from Parker’s shirt. “That’s enough.”
Penn steps back, but his anger remains palpable. “He needs to watch his fucking mouth. Just because he’s unhappy with his life, doesn’t mean he gets to talk down to us about ours.”
After a few tension-filled moments, Parker pulls his wallet from his pocket, tosses down some cash, and glares at all three of us. “I don’t need this shit,” he says, turning and walking out of the restaurant.
“You know he isn’t going to be able to move past his shit until he’s ready to,” Dallas says to his brother.
“I don’t care. I said what I needed to say to him.” Penn throws a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and then drains the rest of his drink. “I need to get back to work.” Penn exits the restaurant just as quickly as his younger brother did.
“Well, that turned sour quickly.”
Dallas looks at me. “Parker has been in a fucking mood for months. Penn and I think it has a lot to do with how we’ve changed our lives for the women we love. He had that once, and…”
“Yeah, I know.”
Dallas runs a hand through his short, black hair. “I hate seeing him so jaded. He wasn’t like this before Sasha fucking betrayed him.”
“Something like that would change any person, Dallas.”
He looks me dead in the eye. “I know, and I’m afraid it will prevent him from ever trusting another woman.”
His words strike me right in the chest. “Fuck, that’s it.”
“What?”
I reach for my wallet, throw a few bills on the counter, and shove it back in my pocket. “Nothing. You just made me realize something I wasn’t seeing before.”
“Okay…”
“I’ve got to go,” I say as my mind starts spinning.
“Glad everyone was in a hurry to leave today,” he murmurs behind me as I exit the restaurant and head back to the garage, realizing that what Scottie needs is a reason to trust me, proof that she can count on me, and so does Chase.
At least now I have a better idea of how to make them both see that I’m not here to hurt them.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite.