Page 84 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

Eli typed into his phone and turned it around so Easton could see the screen. “Hashtag Graceton is trending.”

“Graceton?”

“Well, your name is Easton and her name is Grace, would you rather it be Easace?”

Easton took his brother’s phone and read some of the tweets. It seemed like people were enjoying the show and getting invested in it, so that was probably a good thing. Most of the comments were positive and supportive but there were a few that were not. A few were creative, though. His personal favorite was: I’d vote for #graceton if this was the Bachelor but there’s no way people that pretty know how to use tools.

There were also a few tweets telling them to die slow deaths and a lot of offers to suck people’s dicks. Easton shook his head. He didn’t understand why anyone would write those things. Part of the reason why he didn’t have social media was because of toxic shit like this.

He handed his brother his phone and they said their goodbyes. Eli was going to stay for another game, but Easton was too tired.

He was walking out to the parking lot when he heard his name.

“Easton!” He looked up and saw Blake and a tall kid that he thought he remembered stopping by during Thanksgiving and had been hanging out with her at the fire station walking toward him with several other teens.

“Can you do another TikTok? Real quick? With me and my friends? The last one has over a million views.”

A million views.“It does?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s because the show came out? Or because I put it side by side with the one, I did with your mom. But can we do another one? It will be really fast, I promise.”

Blake was a sweet girl, and he didn’t want to disappoint her but if Grace was going back over to the house after book club, he wanted to go there, too. He didn’t want her working there alone at night. Or alone at any time for that matter.

“Let me just check something real quick.”

He looked down at his phone and saw that Grace had responded to his text.

Grace: Exhausted. Already in bed.

He was happy that she was actually going to get some sleep. He put his phone in his pocket.

“Sure. I’ll do the dance.”

Unlike the dance at her house, this one only took a few minutes. And Easton and the tall kid who introduced himself as Noah barely had to do anything.

When they finished, Blake gave him a hug. “I’m really happy that you’re with Aunt Grace.”

So was he.

“You are, huh?”

“Yeah, remember when we were all having pumpkin pie and everyone got a slice before she could, and you gave her yours?’

“Yeah,” Easton nodded. He hadn’t thought about it since he’d done it, but he remembered.

“Well, that’s what she needs. Aunt Grace needs someone who makes sure she gets a piece of pumpkin pie.”

“Team Graceton!” the teens all shouted as they left.

Easton stood there, speechless. He had no idea if Blake knew how profound the statement she’d just made was, but it was so much deeper than he would ever think the teen would be.

That’s exactly what Grace needed. And until the day he died, he wanted to be the man who made sure Grace got a piece of pumpkin pie.

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