Page 74 of With Wine Comes War

“Nope, not right now.” This was good for my first morning back.

“Shay, make a date for us to spend the entire day together please. I’m going to bring you on these reconnaissance missions with me. You can have half of all the sales. I just think it’s a lot more work than I can handle on my own....”

“What about answering the phone for you?”

“We can just have the calls transferred to your cell.”

“Hell yeah! That’s going to be so much fun.” She was bouncing in her seat.

“Don’t get too excited, the fun I’ve had doing this so far hasn’t exactly been anyone’s idea of fun.”

She looked solemn, then serious. “Am I going to have to carry a gun?”

I can’t even imagine Shay with a gun. “No, not ever. Why would you say that? You’ll be in good hands, I promise.”

She let out a deeply held sigh, “Ok, good, because guns scare the shit out of me. I heard it’s a bad neighborhood and was told I should carry a gun.”

Good lord, who would tell this young woman to carry a gun?

“You know what? Let’s not worry about planning for you to start going with me. You can start today, and this is what we’ll do until it’s done. Does that work?” I smiled but didn’t wait for a response since I had the answer already as Shay bounced out of her seat. “If you have other clients you want to work with, that will be fine also. I’ll help you do whatever you want,” she squealed, as I made my way down the hall and into my office to put my stuff down.

As I passed her again on my way to Grant’s office I mentioned, “We’re leaving in an hour.” She was smiling and clapping like a little girl and all I could think was this girl has no idea where we’re about to go. I don’t think she’s ever been out of the suburbs.

I knocked lightly on Grant’s door as he was finishing up a call. He got up and came around the desk. It’s always nice to get a welcome hug from Grant. “Thank God you came to your senses,” he said and kissed my forehead.

“Yes, well at least there were senses left to come back to.” I shook my head to forget all I’d been through.

“Grant, I’m so sorry for everything I put you and everyone else through. I just couldn’t handle life after what happened.”

“Ali girl, you have nothing to apologize for. I know you so well. I knew you would figure it out. When I first met you, you were married to that guy and all I could think was, ‘she’ll figure this out.’I knew Luke wasn’t the guy for you. You looked defeated with him. I saw a fire in you that was being snuffed out.”

We’d never had a conversation about this before. It was so strange to hear him talk so intimately about me.

“How about now? How do you feel about the guy now?” Everyone seemed to be on team Roman.

“Roman? I’m happy for you. He’s a good guy. You should consider a commitment.”

I laughed and said, “How committed do you think moving in together is?” His eyes widened.

“Did you move in with him?”

I nodded. “We’re going to pick up some more things from my apartment on Saturday, maybe. I’m still a little nervous about it. What do you think?”

“I think you’ll be fine, like I always do.” After that conversation we called Matt.

“Hey Grant, hey Alex.”

“Hi Matt.”

“Good to have you back on the project, Alex. Looking forward to dropping the kids off to you and Roman on Friday, too. So is Jack.”

Grant interrupted, “Ok, first, I want to ask about something I heard from this weekend. Did Roman really take down Luke at the club Saturday night?” Oh no, not this shit again. Except the fact that three of the people that were there work here, but damn, keep your mouths shut.

“There was probably a slight lack of common sense due to alcohol involvement. I don’t think he hurt him too bad though.” Matt said as he tried to make less out of it.

Grant turned to me and said, “I knew if I asked you, you wouldn’t give me the whole story.”

“I think Luke got lucky it was broken up by the bouncers.” I wondered if this is just a guy thing that Grant wanted to hear about something like this.

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