Page 70 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

When they were getting out of the car, they heard Eli yell as he walked into Evan’s house. “Mom, Dad, Easton and Grace were making out in your backseat!”

Easton thought about apologizing for his brother, but then he remembered that Grace had Viv and he figured that she understood. The smile on her face told him she did.

When they came inside, he saw that Deanna and Lucky were there as well as some of the other guys from the fire station and their families. The group all said their hellos, and somehow Grace ended up migrating to the kitchen with Evan, jumping at the chance to help him with his stuffing. Easton was pretty sure her eagerness had less to do with wanting to be a sous-chef and more to do with her being the most comfortable around the one family member that talked the least. Well, besides his dad. But James Bishop was camped out in front of the television watching football, so using him as an excuse to escape wasn’t really an option.

Eli shook his head as he walked up to Easton. “I can’t believe Mom’s not mad.”

“How could she be mad at her favorite son?” Easton joked. Sort of. He had a feeling he was his mom’s favorite. But then again, he had a feeling all his brothers thought that they were his mom’s favorite.

“I don’t know, let’s ask her? Mom how could you be mad at me?” Eli shouted across the room as he lifted his arms in the air.

His mom, who was sitting on the couch with Shayne and Deanna, lifted her head. “What? I’m not mad at you.”

Eli looked back at Easton with a satisfied grin on his face. “I guess she can’t be mad at her favorite son, but that still doesn’t explain why she’s not mad at you.”

Easton just grinned and shook his head. This is what he’d missed. Talking shit with his brothers. Spending days surrounded by family.

His eyes did what they always did when Grace was in the vicinity, they drifted over to her. Seeing her in the kitchen with Evan as they cooked caused his chest to tighten, because he knew that in his heart his family included Grace now.

He wanted it all with her. All the things that his exes had wanted with him, he wanted with her. And she was the one who didn’t do relationships.

He’d always thought that he’d lived his life in a way that karma wouldn’t bite him in the ass. But now, when it mattered the most, he had to say that karma was a bitch.

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