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“Oh Jakey what?”
“You know, this whole time I’ve been on your side on this boys-versu
s-girls charade on your website. I’ve been so sure that my boy knew women. You have four sisters and a million ex-girlfriends. How could you not be an expert?”
“Not a million, Ma,” he muttered, taking a big gulp of beer.
“But I’m beginning to think you’re as clueless as the rest of them. Is the voting on the website still up? Because yesterday there was that poll asking once and for all whether Grace knew you better than you knew her …”
“I dunno, I quit paying attention to that stupid site.”
“So you won’t mind then if I change my vote? Side with the women?”
He set the beer glass down too hard on the beat-up wooden bar. “Why would you do that?”
“Because, my favorite son, you don’t know the first thing about women. Or at least you don’t know the first thing about Grace. You’ve got this whole situation all wrong.”
“What does that mean?” he growled. “What are you trying to say in your crafty maternal way?”
Silence.
“Mom! What does that mean?”
Jake pulled his phone away and stared at it in baffled silence.
His mother had just hung up on him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You sure you want to do this, Gracie?”
Grace accepted the beer that Julie held out. “No. But what choice do I have?”
She kept her voice low because there were people everywhere. The Yankees were playing Boston, which apparently was a big deal in baseball land, because the stadium was completely packed. Except only half the people in the Ravenna group seemed to care about the game. The rest were focused on her.
Well, her and Cory Garrison and Colby Blanche. Camille and Alex Cassidy’s new HeSaidSheSaid couple couldn’t be any cuter. Even their names went well together, and the readers who’d won the baseball tickets were eating it up.
As far as Grace knew, this was Cory and Colby’s first date, and every glance and smile were being eagerly observed.
Poor kids.
Mitchell sat down on the other side of Julie, handing Grace a hot dog before giving one to his fiancée.
“No relish,” he said with a wink at Julie.
Inexplicably, Julie grabbed the back of his head, pulling him down for a very baseball-inappropriate kiss.
“Wow, that’s a lot of tongue just because the guy managed to get your condiments right,” Grace said, taking a bite of her with-the-works hot dog.
“Inside joke,” Julie said, pulling back and wiping her pink lip gloss off Mitchell’s mouth.
Grace felt a little pang. She missed that. Missed the stolen kisses and the inside jokes. Her hot dog turned dry in her mouth as she realized she wasn’t thinking of Greg.
She was thinking of Jake.
Thinking of the way he’d laughingly hold her eyes after making some outrageous comment that invariably got posted on the damn website. Thinking about the way he’d have brought her Parisian chocolate just because he knew she liked it, or the way he’d have sent wildly inappropriate text messages and then loudly demand that she read them aloud.
“Lose the sad-face,” Julie said. “Single-girl power, remember?”
