Page 58 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

18

Grace staredat the clothes hanging in her closet and realized that the shirt she’d wanted to put on was not going to happen. She’d have to wear something that she didn’t have to pull over her head since she could barely lift her arms.

Her shoulders were sore from spending last week on her hands and knees removing tile from the bathrooms and linoleum from the kitchen. Actually, her entire body was sore, but her shoulders and lower back were the worst. She’d tried a hot shower, which had felt amazing in the moment when the spray was hitting her muscles, but the relief was short lived. Once she’d stepped out of the shower she’d been in agony once again.

The only reason she could move at all was because a few days ago she’d complained to Easton and he’d given her a homeopathic remedy called Arnica montana. They were tiny little tablets that looked like sugar balls that you dissolve under your tongue. She’d been skeptical at first. Thankfully, her desperation to move overrode her skepticism and she popped some in her mouth and had been repeating the dosage every four hours.

She was reaching for a button-up shirt when her phone that was sitting on top of the dresser buzzed. She turned her head, slowly since her neck was stiff and saw that it was her sister Viv.

Viv: Where are you? You live ten feet from the bar! How did I beat you here?!

The proximity to JT’s Roadhouse was not the issue. If she could show up in her bra and panties she would have been there thirty minutes ago. But since that would most likely be frowned upon, she was still standing in her room staring at her clothes.

Grace was regretting even agreeing to go to the bar tonight. The only reason that she’d done it was because she’d overheard Eli asking Easton to go and he told him he couldn’t. He hadn’t given his brother a reason, but Grace knew it was because she was going to be working on the house and he would never leave her there to work on it alone.

Viv had been bugging her to go tonight anyway, because tomorrow was Thanksgiving and apparently the night before the holiday was a big night at JT’s. Her sister’s big selling point had been that the whole town was going to be there. But since the whole town showed up to a lot of things and Grace only had four more weeks to finish the house, she’d told her she was going to pass.

But once she heard Easton’s brother asking him to go and Easton declining, she knew what she had to do. She casually mentioned that she planned on meeting her sisters there tonight and he said that he was going to JT’s, too. The fact that he’d turned down his brother for her, and then when he found out she was going said he was going to be there had made her heart pitter patter. It had been doing a lot of that over the past two weeks. Actually, it had been doing a lot of that since she rolled down the window and saw him for the first time.

Now all she had to do was get herself dressed and walk the ten feet to the bar. She knew that Viv would have a Crown and Coke, her drink of choice, waiting for her. She was hoping the alcohol might dull the bone deep ache that was permeating her entire body.

There was a knock at the door and Grace’s heart went straight past pitter patter and skipped all the beats. She’d told Easton not to wait for her and to head over to the bar, but he must have stayed.

If she said come in, he’d see her in her bra and panties, which weren’t even matching. That would normally horrify her, but she couldn’t care less right now. Easton had respected her wishes to keep things purely professional. Which, in their case, meant a lot of PDA and no hanky panky behind closed doors.

It was driving her crazy. Knowing that the public displays of affection wouldn’t lead anywhere once they were alone was its own special form of torture.

During their confessionals he always put his hand on her knee, which she loved. When they were on the job site, he acted like a loving boyfriend. He would place his hand on her lower back, give her hugs, and her favorite, kiss her on the forehead.

She’d never understood the appeal of the forehead kiss before he’d given her one. The gesture had always struck her as condescending for some reason. But the first time Easton bent down and pressed his lips to the center of her forehead, she got it. It made her feel protected, special, and loved.

These past two weeks had just felt like one long foreplay session, and she was ready to get to the main event.

“Come in,” she managed to get out breathlessly.

When the door opened, it was her baby sister who walked through it and not Easton. Grace did her best to hide the disappointment she felt.

“Hey, Aud.” she smiled. “Did Viv send you over here to check on me?”

Audrey nodded. “Yeah, and Easton let me in.”

“He’s still here?” Grace’s heart once again felt like it was playing double Dutch.

Audrey nodded.

He’d waited for her. She knew that was such a small thing, but she was finding out being with Easton, even though she wasn’t really with Easton, that it was the small things that really meant something to her.

Guys had bought her expensive dinners, jewelry, and clothes. They’d taken her on lavish vacations. But the fact that he’d waited for her even though his brothers were expecting him was worth more than all of those things.

Her sister closed the door and crossed the room. “Oh, your hair looks so pretty. You never wear it like that.”

“Thanks.” Grace hadn’t had any choice but to let her natural curls flow tonight. For the past two weeks she’d worn it in braids or a bun. Anything to keep it off of her face. She’d wanted to style it tonight, but she hadn’t been able to bend over to dry it and since she couldn’t lift her arms above shoulder level, straightening it would have been an impossible task.

“Do you need some help?” Audrey asked, looking between her sister and the closet.

“Yeah, I’m a little sore.”

Grace told her which shirt she wanted and then the jeans that were in her drawer.

---