Chapter 27 Grey
GREY
With Sonny on the counter, we add ingredients to the waffle mix. Mostly, he eats blueberries. I hear the soft patter of Everly descending the stairs. I smooth my beard and then set the plates of waffles with fresh berries and real maple syrup on the table.
My gaze repeatedly drifts to the ring around my finger.
During the impromptu ceremony with Everly, we’d exchanged rings to make it official—presumably, in case the insurance company started sniffing around.
I stashed the band in my wallet and after the kiss last night, I felt a tug from deep inside to slip it on.
When my eyes land on Everly at the foot of the stairs, three words spring to mind. Beautiful. Radiant. Gorgeous.
She wears denim shorts and a neon knit tank top—I’m guessing she’s mixing and matching her old clothes and new ones. I make a mental note to make sure she gets whatever new clothing she wants.
“Good morning,” she says, bright-eyed.
“Morning, Buttercup.”
“God morgen,” Sonny says.
“I didn’t realize I was going to be staying at a bed-and-breakfast.”
“You’re the first guest since I finished the place. Never really any before that either.” The cabin, if it could now be called that anymore, was a special place for my family. It’s where my memories live and I look forward to making new ones with Sonny and Everly.
“I’m honored to be the first houseguest.” She looks at the table. “And look at this. You’re spoiling me.” Everly’s eyes widen at the sight of the Belgian waffles. “What can I do to help?”
Sonny splays his fingers. “Look! I have purple fingers.” Only, he says purple like poo-rple, then starts giggling.
Everly tickles him. Then, as if this is one of many mornings we’ve spent as a family, she helps him wash his hands and get ready for breakfast. The two of them laugh about something. The sound is addictive, contagious.
Once we sit down and say a blessing, I say, “Tell me if I added too much cinnamon.”
I help Sonny slice his waffles into rectangular soldiers all in a line.
Everly wipes her hands and says, “My work here is done.”
My expression drops like an elevator. “What do you mean?”
“I’m supposed to be teaching you etiquette and you’re my best student yet. My only student. Well, at Blancbourg anyway.”
“Did you work elsewhere before?”
She nods and takes a bite of a waffle. Like with the dinner the night before, she closes her eyes as though in reverie.
Around a mouthful, she says, “Little did you know, little did I know, the way to my heart is through my stomach.”
More questions volley through my mind. What kinds of berries does she like?
Is she a breakfast person? Brunch? What are her hobbies besides sketching, smiling, and ice skating?
There is so little I know about her. My wife.
The woman I want to spend my life with. The thought causes me to inhale a piece of waffle and cough.
“You okay?” she asks, her attention darting to me with alarm.
Sonny carefully gets down from his seat and then pats me on the lower back.
I boost him onto my lap and he proceeds to eat all of my poo-rple blueberries. “I’m alright, little buddy.”
But I’m not entirely sure that’s true. The choking fit passes, but feelings swirl around inside before landing like a gameboard spinner on the kiss we shared last night. It was then that I knew she is the woman for me.
Everly continues, oblivious to the awakening of my heart. It expanded and made room for Sonny and grows again, welcoming her in, what she’d been doing for me all along.
If the guys could read my mind right now, I’d get a whooping on the field, but feeling something, anything, is better than the cold, isolating void of nothing for the last several months.
Without realizing it, she’s given me so much: trust, grace, and patience. That’s not something I’m going to ignore or deny because I want to seem like tough, gruff Grey.
My eyes land on a family photo framed on the wall. My father, with his beard, stands in the back. His hand rests on my mother, Ingrid’s, shoulder. Young versions of Bran and me sit in front of them.
“Is that Bran?” Everly asks.
I nod, emotion pouring through me like syrup. “I was five and he was seven.”
“Bwan, Bwan, Bwan,” Sonny sings.
Everly wears a sad smile as though aware that this is a tough situation.
For the first time since I hung it there, the pain of loss doesn’t bite with sharp teeth. Instead, I feel blessed.
“You asked me where I worked before. Sorry, sidetracked by this amazing meal,” Everly says.
“Yes, I did image consulting—kind of like what I do now for individuals at Blancbourg, but for companies. Officially, I worked for Lefevre Holdings. That’s where I got my start, but I set up a small side business doing private sessions with,” Everly’s eyes widen and her voice lowers to almost a whisper, “the competition. I’ve never told anyone but Heidi this.
I mean, they weren’t the direct competition.
I included a life coaching component for the company members, which helped everyone identify strengths and weaknesses so we could best leverage those.
I also started to think about my own and began to question my father’s business practices.
I wanted to raise awareness about metal recycling and alternatives, so I aligned with some smaller companies doing amazing work to keep places like this pristine and not strip them of their natural beauty due to mining or factories. ”
“Admirable. Did your father find out?”
“Thankfully, no. That was during the year before I got involved with you-know-who. I had to scale back a little bit and then needed to come up with an exit strategy. The great recommendations I received from past clients got me the job at Blancbourg. Speaking of that, let’s see, I get to check off all the boxes on your evaluation.
So far, you’re passing with flying colors.
” She smiles. “Don’t tell anyone, but the secret to winning me over is food.
Waffles, cookies, chocolate cake...” She laughs. “Just saying.”
“I noticed.”
“Mamma, are you going to eat your blueberries?” Sonny asks.
Everly’s smile grows. “How about we share?”
She helps him count all the berries and then they divide them up evenly.
After seeing her with the two children outside the ice cream shop in Concordia and now with Sonny, Everly is a natural, balancing the responsibility of being a parent—and knowing eating all the berries is going to cause Sonny problems in the bathroom later—educating him with the counting, and making it fun by tucking the berries into the waffle squares and seeing how many they can fill.
The little guy is delighted. So is the big guy. But guilt rises to the surface of my mind. “I’m passing the program, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Everly says, not at all suspecting what’s coming.
“The guys and I had an agreement. Well, it came down from the coach. If any of us, you know, fooled around, then we’re all off the team.” I waggle my eyebrows so she knows I’m using code for fooling around.
Everly goes still. “Is fooling around something you do often?”
“No. Never. The other guys do, though. But for the thirty days in the program, we made a pact. Called it the playbook. No kissing, dating...” I leave off the rest because of Sonny, and I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable.
“I think we broke the rules,” Everly says, suppressing a smile.
I can’t help but have the same response to the recent memory of the kiss we shared. “Maybe it’s time we make up new rules.”
In Norwegian, Sonny says, “I have rules. Stay with my grown-up, say please and thank you, and no potty talk.”
I tip my head back with laughter, then translate for Everly. “Sounds like Elsie made quite the impression during the short time he spent with her. Sonny, those are very good rules. I have one more. Remember that I always love you.”
“I love you too, Pappa. And you too, Mamma.”
Everly hops to her feet. “I love you, and I’d like to add a rule. We do family hugs.” She picks him up and we wrap our arms around each other.
“I like this and you smell good, Mamma. Like a cookie. Do you like cookies?”
“She sure does. I do too,” I whisper.
“Yes. I love cookies and cookie dough. Do you?”
Sonny nods.
“Me too.”
“Can we make some?” he asks.
“Of course. But first, I think Pappa has some fun things planned for us today.”
Sonny plays in the living room while we clean up.
I pick up my thoughts about the playbook where I’d left off. “The coach wanted us to settle down, and if I’m honest, I’d be the only one accused of being married to football. The rule was more for the others.”
Her eyes flash.
“I invested everything in the game. But I don’t mind the idea of a second chance at settling down.”
“What about breaking the playbook rules?”
“I suppose we’re already married, so maybe the rules don’t apply.” I can’t see myself, but I am sure that the lopsided grin that matches my brother’s spreads wide. “A loophole of sorts.”
Everly beams a smile as though that’s what she hoped I’d say.
“Except for #BruiserButt and a few other misdeeds over the years, football saved me.”
“I wish I’d let skating save me.”
“It’s not too late. Have you been lately? There’s a rink in town. Well, across the lake.”
“I’m just not sure what I want for the future.” The words are like a lead fishing sinker.
I rinse the last of the dishes. “Where does that leave us?”
She takes the plate out of my hand and grips my jaw, gazing into my eyes as though belatedly understanding what the conversation sounded like.
“Where does that leave us? Here. Right here. I just meant that I’m not sure what to do with my life.
I’m probably not going to have a job after this, at least at Blancbourg.
I guess I’m getting ahead of myself by thinking about what’s next. ”
“As you said, we have right now. Also, sometimes in life, we need to do something physically to change or improve a situation, but when it comes to things beyond our control, when worry or uncertainty takes hold, when there’s nothing more that we can do and it’s out of our hands, my mother always said, We fold them together and pray,” I say, reaching for her hands.
Funny, I forgot about that until now.
They’re so soft and small and perfect inside mine. Like they belong to me, and I feel like mine belong to her.
My eyes skate to the framed family photo. Fear pricks me just then because, in the past, everyone I love except my mother has been taken away. What if I lose Everly, too?
“Seems like something to pray about. Good thing we’re going to church,” she says, pulling me from my desperate thoughts.