Page 77 of Grin and Bear It

“Ellie has been nothing but helpful,” I said. “Beyond helpful.” Shit, that sounded bad. “In a very professional way. The boys have started talking to us again. They’re getting their assignments done, even Knox, the little…” I glanced up then. “That wouldn’t have happened without Ellie’s help. Trouble is I…” I looked over my shoulder, “…we worked out that we’ve all got a bit of a crush on her.”

“All?” June asked pointedly.

“All of us guys,” I confirmed.

“Adult guys.” Lin shot me a meaningful look.

“Shit, yeah, the boys’ uncles, we worked out we were all interested in Ellie and decided to see if she might be interested in pursuing something with us either individually or…” The office ladies’ focus seemed to intensify. “Or as a group.”

Everyone stared at June except for Ellie, who seemed to be imagining my slow and painful death as she looked fixedly at me.

“Right, well, that’s very… illuminating. It’s been lovely to see you, Mr Walker. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

June jerked her head in Ellie’s direction and my mate sighed, following her out of the office.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” the receptionist told us. “That grumpy old cow is just jealous. The path to true love is never a simple one.”

But I didn’t want that. I wanted to make everything simpler, easier for my mate, not more complicated. We’d already brought a metric fuck ton of drama into her life and now this?

“If you could see that Ellie gets these, I’d appreciate it,” I said, shoving the flowers across the desk. “There’s a card… Never mind.”

I hurried out then,Lin at my back.

“Nash… Nash!”

“How am I fucking this up already?” I asked him. “I just wanted to give her something nice and ask her on a date, like people do every fucking day but—”

“Nash—”

“Like, she’s in there right now with that sour-faced bitch, no doubt getting her butt handed to her because why?”

“Nash—”

“Because I thought it was a good idea to make some grand gesture without talking to her. Fuck. Fuck!”

“Nash, Cole got Ellie off with a paintbrush the other day.”

Lin just blurted that out so fast, all I could do was stare at him, trying to comprehend that information.

“What the fuck?” I shook my head. “Why are you telling me that?”

Lin shrugged. “Because it happened after she came home to find him painting her house, and when she told him off, he said he’d do it anyway, and that she had no say in it.”

“He what?” I dug around in my pocket and then grabbed out my phone. “That little prick…” But Lin wrapped his fingers around the device and stopped me from putting a call through.

“I’m telling you that because we’re a bunch of fuck-ups. We’re gonna fuck up more than once, you know that, but… Apart from making me feel really fucking horny when he told me, the story gave me some hope.” He smiled slightly as I just stared. “If she can accept a dickhead like Cole for long enough to let him get her off with the tools of his trade, well, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us.”

I glanced back at the office building, but the reflections on the windows preventing me from seeing in as I searched for a sign, any sign that Ellie was OK. Sighing, I took my phone from Lin and tapped out a simple message to Ellie.Sorry.Let me make it up to you.Lin was right. This was all par for the course. Every story we’d been told of bears finding their mates was about each one of them overcoming some kind of adversity. I stared at the school. I just didn’t think the kids’ head mistress was the dragon I’d have to slay. I shoved my phone in my pocket and then nodded.

“You’re right. We’ve just gotta hope…”

There were many ways to end that sentence, but they all amounted to the same thing. Despite all the evidence, we had to believe this was possible, that we could become a family. Right as I walked over to the ute, my phone buzzed. I didn’t open it, not until Lin and I were in the car, ready to go. My heart felt like it seized in my chest when I saw who it was from, and all I could do was stare at the screen for a sec before I tapped on the message to read it.

Yes, that’s all she’d written, but somehow that was the finest poetry and the soppiest of love songs, all in one.Yes.I shook my head, grinning, even as Lin looked at me in confusion. I could work with yes.

Chapter39

“So…” I’d never seen June lost for words before and it was almost worth the raging embarrassment I was suffering to see it. She blinked, sat down behind her desk and then her fingers formed a steeple. “So…”

---