Page 66 of His Build
“Sam!” Casey called, and her son leapt off of Graydon to run to his mom’s side. Casey had the boy hold the plate of sausages while she began lining them on the barbecue. Normally Graydon cooked all the food at his end-of-job barbecues himself, but this time Casey had insisted on doing the sausages herself, and ordering the rest from Aubrey’s. “You guys deserve a break,” she’d said, refusing to entertain arguments.
“Now will you help me?” Graydon called to Lucy.
Lucy rolled her eyes in mock annoyance, but came over to Graydon and helped pull him upright. Then she strung his arm around her shoulders and settled into him on the couch, her heart so full she barely felt the weight of the silent phone in her pocket.
It was then she noticed Sadie and Chris had finished their job of hauling all the chairs outside.
“I didn’t say that,” Sadie said, her arms crossed against her chest.
“Are you kidding me?” Chris leaned in to Sadie. “You said Thuringia.”
Sadie growled.
Lucy bit her lip to keep from snorting with laughter. Sadie and Chris had not seen eye to eye on a single thing in two straight weeks since Sadie had come up here.
Sadie had been inspired enough by her sister’s transformation that she’d shocked Lucy by joining her in Barkley Falls.
“I need a reset,” she’d said. She’d even agreed to let Lucy coach her at the little apartment they’d rented in town until both of them figured out their next steps.
Sadie had stayed at the condo long enough to help settle Toby and his roommate into Lucy’s condo. When Lucy had gone back to stay at the motel while she and Sadie looked for a place to live, the motel clerk had confessed he’d been wanting to move to the city for months. One thing had led to another and soon Lucy had the perfect sub-letter for her place until she decided what she wanted to do with it.
“I said Coburg. Didn’t I, Lucy?” Sadie said now, looking pointedly at Lucy.
“I think so?” Lucy said. She turned to Graydon and whispered, “I have no idea what she said.”
“Me neither,” he whispered back.
Chris was looking at Sadie with an expression of exasperation, but Lucy could see there was something running under that. Chris was always kind and smart and quick to respond to a problem. But he was also very matter-of-fact. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so… frazzled. And so alive.
Lucy leaned back into Graydon’s arm and took a sip of her wine. “I don’t think I’m going to make it past eight,” she yawned.
Then she felt a buzzing in her pocket. It took her a second to realize it was her phone, and another second to think of who it might be.
Lucy pulled it out.
Mom, said the screen, the button flashing for her to pick it up.
“You better get that,” Graydon said.
Lucy looked up at him with her throat swelling. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, then stood up and walked over to Casey and Sam at the barbecue.
Lucy tapped the answer button as she slipped into the kitchen.
“Hi Mom,” she said. “How are you?”
* * *
Half an hour later,Lucy came out the doors to the last of the sun painting the sky pink, and the first of the sub-contractors starting to trickle in. Lucy recognized Fred from the concrete place—without that twerp she’d told off, thank god—and the finishing carpenter Logan, a quiet man with a gorgeous smile who stepped onto the deck with his arm around a sparkly eyed brunette who introduced herself as Ophelia.
Music pumped from the outdoor speakers.
“Who wants some bratwurst?” Casey called from the barbecue, eliciting cheers from everyone but Sadie and Chris, who were huffing, but sitting far too close than people who couldn’t stand each other ought to.
Graydon appeared at her side, holding two plates under his arm. “Can I get you some sausage?” he asked, wiggling a brow at her.
Lucy laughed, throwing her head back. It felt like a pressure valve releasing.
When she brought her face back to his he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
