Chapter Fifteen
“I’m starving,” Tony complained as he handed Grant the second cardboard box of marquee letters, tossing the empty one on the ground.
“I will feed you after I finish this,” Grant promised for the third time since they’d started their bootleg errand.
Mr. Donaldson, who owned the theater, was too old and unsteady to change the marquee, so Grant did it for him every week.
In the summer, he did it after work was done and the day had cooled off, but in the winter…
“Your dad is going to kill us if he catches us,” Tony pointed out, glancing furtively up and down the street.
In the winter, the marquee had to be changed during daylight, which necessitated sneaking away from work for an hour under the guise of taking a lunch break.
“We are legally allowed a lunch break,” Grant reminded him, affixing another letter to the track.
“I don’t think the government is going to protect us from Big Tim.”
“I am, technically, also your boss.”
“You don’t sign my paycheck.”
“We’re not going to get caught.” Grant slid another letter into place. “I’m almost done.”
Tony’s head was on a swivel. “I don’t believe you. How did your dad always know what we were up to in high school?”
“My mom and her whisper network. Plus, we had a limited range of interests. Beer and—” He reconsidered the lore of their high school years in light of information he’d received in college.
“Sex, I guess.” Grant twisted himself to look down at Tony.
“How did you keep that a secret? I really thought you were into girls back then.”
“Compulsory heteronormativity.” Tony shrugged. “When I tried to talk to my dad about it, he said everyone experimented with their friends and teammates.” A small frown creased his forehead. “As I’m saying that, I’m realizing my dad is not as straight as he thinks he is.”
Grant slid the final letters in place and climbed down the ladder. “Who were you experimenting with on the baseball team?”
“Not who you think.”
He searched his memory for the biggest homophobe on the team. “Alex Rickens?”
Tony let out a barking laugh. “Okay, maybe exactly who you think.”
“Do you think his wife knows?”
“I don’t know, but I hope she’s into pegging because he was a catcher, if you know what I mean.” Tony wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“I didn’t need to know that,” Grant said, packing up the marquee supplies.
“You’re the one who kept asking questions.”
“And I regret them all. Where do you want to get lunch?”
“Jerry’s?” Tony suggested.
Jerry’s Diner was, and this was putting it kindly, vintage.
The vinyl on the booths hadn’t been replaced in decades, and the menu covers had been the same since he was a kid. But Jerry’s served the best burger and fries in town, probably because the oil in the fryer also hadn’t been changed since he was a kid.
Grant looked around the diner for somewhere to sit.
The late-lunch crowd seemed entrenched in their booths, and he knew the men on stools at the counter couldn’t be moved with dynamite.
For them, Jerry’s was a membership card away from being a social club.
They showed up first thing in the morning and stayed until almost dinner, when they declared their wives would be mad if they were late for supper.
Curly hair the same color as warm chocolate in the afternoon sun caught his eye. From across the diner, Grant watched as Ivy licked whipped cream off her milkshake straw and then sucked ice cream from the end. All the blood in his body rushed south, effectively wiping his functional brain clean.
Ivy’s eyes met his across the diner and she gave him a small, almost shy wave. He stared.
Tony grabbed Grant’s elbow as he headed for Ivy’s booth, dragging him along.
“Popcorn Girl!” Tony greeted her enthusiastically when they reached the table. “What are you doing? Oh, I’m sorry, are we interrupting?”
It wasn’t until they’d arrived that Grant, and apparently Tony, noticed that Ivy was sitting with someone. A lanky man lounged on the opposite side of the booth, his back resting in the corner, one long leg on the bench seat.
Ivy shook her head. “Not at all. This is my best friend, Brad. Brad, this is Grant and Tony.”
Brad sat up straight, wiping off the seat where his foot had been, and because Tony had no loyalty and thought almost exclusively with his dick, he sat down in the newly free spot, all charming smiles.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Tony said, shaking Brad’s hand longer than necessary. “Where are you from?”
“Oh, sweetie, that is a long story,” Brad replied in a thick Southern accent.
“I’ve got all day,” Tony replied.
“Um, Grant?” Ivy’s voice startled him out of the curious reverie he’d entered, trying to understand what Tony was trying to do with Brad thirteen seconds after meeting him. She looked up at him with a hint of a smile. “Did you want to sit, too?”
He slid into the booth next to her, not needing to be told twice.
Grant was barely settled when there was a hand on his thigh.
His pulse jumped so fast he became lightheaded.
Had he missed a signal after he rescued her from the tree?
Because he thought maybe after their date they’d be at a point where she might possibly touch him in the ways he wanted to touch her, but—
Ivy tapped his thigh and Grant looked down. She was holding her phone on top of his leg with a message written for him in her notes app.
Is Tony into this because Brad deep fried his accent
Grant took her phone and tapped out his reply under the table, then slid the phone into her lap.
Yes. Tony is very into this.
A giddy grin spread across Ivy’s face as she read his message, and then she turned that million-watt smile on him, tilting her head so her curls created a curtain between her and the other side of the table.
Do we leave? she mouthed.
Grant looked to the left, then to the right, then slid down in the booth like he was going to crawl away. Ivy burst out laughing.
It was the best sound he’d ever heard.
When they’d worked together, he made her laugh a lot.
There wasn’t any goofy thing he wouldn’t do to get a chuckle from her.
Anything to see her smile. But her laugh now was more rewarding, because she had more life under her feet, more experiences that had brought her joy, and she still found him funny.
It was one thing to make a girl from a small Midwest town giggle while using Mike and Ikes as vampire teeth, but it was another thing to make a woman who’d seen the world smile, let alone laugh.
“What are you doing?” Tony asked.
Grant shot back up in his seat, his cheeks burning. “Thought I dropped my phone,” he mumbled while Ivy struggled to hold in her mirth next to him, her entire body shaking.
Worth it.
“So,” Brad began, interlacing his long fingers in front of him, “Ivy mentioned you’re going to see The Muppet Christmas Carol?” He looked at Tony. “I wish I could go. I love that movie.”
Grant wouldn’t get any sleep that night because of what he said next. “There are still tickets available. You could come.”
The disappointment in Brad’s eyes rocked him to his core. What had he done wrong?
“Tony, did you want to go, too?” Grant asked, because Tony was staring at him like he was missing something important.
“We should all go,” Ivy chimed in. “Fun little friend date.”
Fun little friend… Dear lord, what had he done?
There was no walking it back now. No amount of backpedaling could snatch the words from the record and shove them back into his big mouth. In one fell swoop, he’d turned his sweet, nostalgic date into a group hang.
“Yeah,” Grant agreed weakly. “Fun little friend date.”
Tony waited until they were back in Grant’s truck before he said, “You are the biggest dumbass I have ever met.”
Grant let his head fall onto the cold steering wheel. “I know. I panicked.”
“How did you fumble that?”
“What was I supposed to do? Her best friend is in from out of town; he said he wants to see the movie. She’s not going to leave him at home with her parents!”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t leave me on the side of the highway if you only had one seat and Ivy was hitchhiking.”
“That’s an extreme example,” Grant said but didn’t deny it. “How do I fix this?”
Tony put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Never fear, for I have decided to take one for the team. I will distract Brad so you can have your date.”
“Such a sacrifice. I saw you were flirting your ass off in there.”
Tony groaned. “He’s so cute. And that accent…”
“Ivy said he was laying it on a little thick.”
“I don’t care. I want him to call me darlin’ while he—”
Grant started the truck, letting the rumble of the engine cut off Tony’s next words.
“I’m just saying I would be more than willing to let him fall on my sword,” Tony said.
“How does this help me at the movie? I don’t even know how to arrange the seating so Ivy pays attention to me instead of Brad.”
“Easy.” Tony helped himself to a piece of gum from the center console. “We arrive late so there aren’t four seats together and we have to sit in separate parts of the theater.”
“She’s going to want to sit with her best friend. That’s the polite thing to do.”
“Ivy is a girl’s girl. She’ll let me sit with Brad.” Tony blew a small bubble and popped it with a solid crack. “Speaking of Ivy, how was your talk with Austin? Was he cool?”
“Totally cool,” Grant lied, pulling into what qualified as traffic in Coeur-de-Lac. “They went on one date. Not a big deal.”
“Once again, I’d like to remind you of—”
“I know how I acted!” Grant paused at a stop sign. “Let’s just move on.”
“I got his number. If you were curious.”
“I’m shocked you don’t have his social security number and mother’s maiden name.” A little of the tension in his body loosened as he recalled lunch.
Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket. “How soon is too soon to text Brad about our future dogs?”
“Six months?” Grant guessed.
“Too late.” Tony tucked his phone away. Then, at Grant’s stunned expression, “Relax! I just asked how he felt about dogs.”
“What if he’s a cat person? Is that a deal breaker?”
Tony stared blankly out the windshield. “I’d never considered that…”
Grant turned onto the street where their job site was and cursed. Parked by the mailbox was his dad’s big white truck, Underwood & Son printed on the side and tailgate.
“He’s going to kill us,” Tony said, hunching down in the passenger seat like that would save him.
“He’s not going to kill us,” Grant reassured him, though his faith in that fact was shaky. He parked his truck behind his dad’s and got out casually, like he’d done nothing wrong.
The sound of a nail gun and Neil Diamond filled the house. Grant took careful steps across the protective paper on the floor. A tear would give his dad an excuse to yell.
Tim was on his hands and knees, installing baseboards. The man didn’t know how to sit still.
“Where have you been?” Tim asked, punching another nail into the baseboard.
“Lunch,” Grant answered simply.
“Must be nice to take a long lunch in the middle of a workday. When I was your age, I was eating a cold sandwich in my truck. Only took fifteen minutes. Wanted to get the job done.”
Grant looked around the house, trying to find a problem. There wasn’t one. “We’re ahead of schedule.”
“Could have been done if you didn’t waste half the day at Jerry’s. Anthony, where are you going?”
Tony froze, one foot in the air. “Um…nowhere, sir.”
“We are allowed to take a lunch break,” Grant reiterated. “Why are you checking up on me? I already told you we were finishing the job today.”
“I’m doing site visits. After the Muellers’ shower, I don’t want any more fuckups. Imagine my shock when I got here and you were nowhere to be found.”
Grant clenched his jaw, grinding all the things he wanted to say to his dad into dust. “Were there any fuckups here?”
Tim didn’t answer, because the only reply he could give was “no,” and Grant could tell when his dad was searching for a reason to find fault.
For the vast majority of his life, he’d thought his dad was pushing him to be better by never being satisfied, but the disapproving act had worn tissue-paper thin.
Grant was so tired of it, he could scream.
“Can Tony and I get back to work or did you want to do the rest yourself?” Ice-cold adrenaline slid through his veins as the words escaped before his brain could filter them.
Nearby, Tony squeaked. But despite his inner sixteen-year-old shaking like a leaf, Grant put his hands on his hips and waited to see if his dad would try and ground him for being a smart-mouth.
With a grunt, Tim pushed himself off the floor. “I’ll let you hurt your knees and spare mine.” He stretched his back, the crack of his spine echoing in the tense silence. On his way out the door, he added, “Your mom wants you for dinner.”
Grace was extremely capable of letting her plans be known and she hadn’t said anything to Grant about wanting him at the house for dinner. Tim just wanted to know what time they finished.
Well, he’d just have to wonder. Grant had more pressing concerns tonight than his dad’s control issues.
He had a date with Ivy Weaver—and it couldn’t start soon enough.