Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Alexis pushed the vacuum cleaner across the living room rug, moving as quickly as she could. She felt beads of perspiration on her brow, and she wiped at her forehead, not wanting to become sweaty enough to damage her makeup job.
Isn’t this just the way it goes? she thought with a wry chuckle. Here we were planning on going out with Lewis tonight, but our little man had other ideas.
Although she’d tried to get Cash to take a nap that afternoon, he had simply refused to fall asleep.
Alexis had taken him for a drive in the car, which usually did the trick, but even that had failed.
Left with a baby that was much too crabby to be taken out to dinner anywhere, she and Grayson had asked Lewis if he would be willing to come to their home for dinner.
He’d agreed immediately, which was good—but it meant that Alexis and Grayson had to scramble to get ready for company.
They hadn’t had anyone besides family over since Cash had been born, and their home was hardly ready for a visitor.
They’d worked together as a team, something that they did well, and Alexis had tidied up the house like a whirlwind while Grayson stopped at the store after work to pick up ingredients for chicken parmesan and a salad, along with a bottle of wine.
Thankfully, Cash had just fallen asleep at last, which made cleaning up easier for Alexis. She and Grayson had prepared the chicken together, and now she was hurrying to clean up as much of their home as she could while Grayson chopped up cucumbers and tomatoes for the salad.
Alexis turned off the vacuum, surveying the living room. Somehow, despite the fact that the floor was clean and the coffee table was uncluttered, it still felt messy. She noticed with a sigh that there was a bottle of hand lotion on the mantelpiece and a baby sock hiding behind the armchair.
She grabbed the offending items and hurried to put the vacuum away.
Lewis was going to be there soon, so she didn’t have time to do everything in the house that she would have liked to do.
She’d done a hurried job of cleaning the bathroom, stuffing objects into the medicine cabinet and into the bathtub before pulling the shower curtain closed.
Their bedroom and the nursery were both still a mess, but she could hope that Lewis wouldn’t ask for a house tour.
She hurried into the kitchen, where Grayson was putting the salad together.
“That chicken is smelling wonderful,” he said, grinning at her.
She was glad to see he was so eager to see his friend again.
She herself was feeling a bit frazzled but also looking forward to hosting again.
It had been a long time since they’d had a friend over for a meal.
Ordinarily, she would have wanted to put something a little more elaborate together.
A basic salad and a quick meal were not her idea of fancy, but it was going to have to do.
“It does smell wonderful,” she agreed with him.
She looked around the kitchen, wondering how much she could clean up in a few minutes.
There were globs of baby food plastered to the kitchen table—she’d forgotten to wipe them up that morning when Cash had decided that playing sports was more exciting than eating his breakfast. There was also still an array of dishes in the sink, most of them baby dishes and tiny spoons.
Cash usually went through several plastic bowls and spoons when eating because he liked to throw his food.
“The house looks fine,” Grayson said, grinning at her as if he could read her mind.
Alexis laughed. “You’re right. There’s no disguising the fact that a baby lives here.”
Grayson pretended to snap his fingers regretfully. “I guess we’re just going to have to let Lewis in on our secret. We have a tiny child to take care of, and it’s a lot of work.”
She laughed, appreciating his humor, and kissed his cheek. “It sure is. I couldn’t do it without you. Do you want to check on the chicken while I set the table?”
They parted ways to take care of their respective tasks.
Alexis set the table in a hurry, not able to put the finishing touches on the display that she normally liked to.
She liked to artfully fold the napkins and set candles on the table when they had company over.
Tonight, however, she only had a few minutes before Lewis was due to arrive, and she wanted to make sure the table was set by the time he got there.
She’d just finished setting out the silverware when the front doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Grayson called out eagerly and Alexis smiled. She liked seeing her husband so happy, and she was looking forward to seeing Lewis as well.
She went back into the kitchen to quickly toss together the salad and then made her way to the front door. Grayson and Lewis were standing there chatting, their body language that of two old friends who were very comfortable with each other.
“Hi, Lewis,” she said, giving him a polite hug. “Welcome to our home.”
“Thanks for hosting.” Lewis flashed his charismatic smile. “Your home is very quaint.”
Alexis’s eyebrows lifted. Their gorgeous red brick Colonial house with a modern interior wasn’t her idea of quaint, although she could agree that it was cute and cozy.
There had been something about Lewis’s tone that implied he meant the word in a slightly condescending way, although she was sure he didn’t mean to be rude.
“Would you like a tour?” Grayson asked, sounding proud. If Alexis had been standing closer to him, she would have swatted his arm.
Oh no, she thought with an internal groan. Not a tour! All of the upstairs rooms are a total mess.
She tried to remind herself that mess was a part of life, especially when there was a new baby in the household, and that Lewis was a good friend of theirs.
Still, she couldn’t help cringing at the thought of him seeing how dirty the rest of their house was.
If she was ordinarily a somewhat messy, more free-spirited person, she probably would have felt differently about it.
But she loved to have a clean, organized home, and she hated for Lewis to have a negative impression of their new life.
He might think to himself that she and Grayson had really changed a great deal.
She realized a second later that they had, of course.
They lived simpler lives now and their priorities were vastly different from what they’d been when they were living in L.A.
She reminded herself that she and Grayson had changed for the better, and she didn’t need Lewis’s approval to know that her new life was so much better than her old one had been.
“I’d love a tour,” Lewis said, although his tone sounded less than enthusiastic. “Lead on.”
Grayson started to lead them on a tour of the house, beginning with the living room. Alexis was glad that she’d repainted and redecorated the room before Cash had been born —and she was even more glad that she’d gotten a chance to tidy it up before Lewis’s arrival.
Next, they viewed Grayson’s home office, which he always kept neat, and the kitchen and dining room. Lewis was looking slightly bored, and Alexis was squirming at the thought of the tour heading upstairs.
“Let’s go outside and look at the garden,” she suggested. Their backyard had been well-tended all summer and it was still quite presentable, especially since Grayson had found the time to rake the first fallen leaves over the weekend.
“Sure.” Lewis shrugged. “Do you have a lot of crickets out there? Do they sing to you at night?”
Alexis and Grayson exchanged a glance, both wondering if he was making fun of them a little bit.
“Yeah, let’s look at the garden,” Grayson said.
They stepped outside into the backyard. The sun had already set, but the traces of the sunset were lingering in the west, and the air smelled fresh and slightly spicy with distant woodsmoke.
The wind rustled in the branches of the trees overhead and in the distance, an owl hooted.
Alexis felt a rush of pride as she surveyed the tiny kingdom of their backyard.
It was beautiful and peaceful. Surely Lewis would see the merits of their new life when he saw how wonderful it was for them to be so close to nature.
“Well, this is private.” Lewis laughed as he looked around the backyard. “It must feel nice and secluded, all the way out here. You don’t have the kind of view you had back in L.A.—no high-rise view out here, but at least nobody can see you either, huh?”
Grayson cleared his throat as he and Alexis exchanged another glance. “We really love our backyard. It’s nice to sit here in the evenings. The stillness is very relaxing.”
“I’ll bet.” Lewis smiled.
“Well, let’s get on back inside,” Alexis said briskly. She was beginning to feel a little chilly, both because of the weather and because of Lewis’s slightly condescending attitude. “We should get started on dinner. It’s ready, and we don’t want it to overcook or get cold.”
“What, no tour of the upstairs?” Lewis joked as they started back inside.
“I don’t think so,” Alexis said hurriedly before Grayson could say anything. “Cash is sleeping up there, and after the afternoon we had with him, I really don’t want to wake him.”
Grayson and Lewis went into the dining room to sit down and open a bottle of wine, and Alexis hurried to get the chicken parmesan into a serving dish.
She found herself feeling that the meal left much to be desired.
She wished she’d had some ready-to-bake dinner rolls in the freezer so they could have added a little something more to the meal.
Stop worrying about impressing him, Alexis, she told herself with a sigh. Besides, it doesn’t seem like it’s possible. He’s determined to think that our old life in L.A. was better than the one we have here.
She brought the salad bowl into the dining room, and Grayson got up to get the serving dish for the chicken parmesan.