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“No way, Samuel,” Orval says, grabbing him by the arm with strength that completely catches everyone off guard – especially Samuel. Orval then proceeds to pull Samuel to the middle of the yard, where his embarrassment can probably be seen from space.
“Open it!” Emma claps as Free hands Samuel the balloons and gift.
He glares at Harper’s spitfire friend, but she seems to pay no attention to his irritation. Instead she takes the balloons from him and sets them on the nearest table. Then, she returns to watch Samuel open his gift in front of the entire family.
“He’s about to freak out,” Harper whispers.
“Yeah?”
“He hates anything that draws attention to him, and Free knows it. She loves to push his buttons, including calling him Sammy as much as possible. But that gift? He’s going to have a coronary right there in the middle of the family barbeque.”
My hand wraps around her hip as we watch her brother open his gift. The entire yard is quiet – even Sawyer and Max have stopped playing catch to watch. Samuel slowly pulls the paper off the small box, which looks like a tie box. He pulls open the lid, gazes down at the contents, and slams the lid back on the top.
“Samuel!” Mary Ann chastises her oldest. “Don’t be rude.”
“Oh, stop being a sissy,” Free says, grabbing the box from his hands and peeling it open. “Look!” she bellows, holding up a pair of men’s trouser socks.
“She got him socks?” I whisper, not really understanding why he’d hate a pair of trouser socks. I mean, the guy wears suits all day, every day – probably even to bed or the pool.
“Not just any socks,” Harper giggles, but doesn’t have to continue because Free takes care of the question on everyone’s mind.
“They’re alien sex socks!” Free announces.
“They have aliens and twenty different sex positions on them.” Harper finally loses her composure and bursts into laughter. I’ll admit it’s quite comical. Especially when you glance at the look of mortification on the eldest Grayson sibling’s face.
“Let me see those,” Emma says, grabbing the socks and proceeding to describe the positions to Free and Samuel.
“So, I was thinking, after the party, we can head back to your place,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on the people milling around the cookout.
“Alien sex does it for ya, huh?”
“Totally,” I reply with a smile. My eyes lock on hers, and my heart hammers in my chest. “I have something I want to discuss with you,” I tell her, not wanting to give too much away.
Her eyebrows arch. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply automatically, that single word thickening in my throat and making it hard to breathe.
“Okay,” she says with a slight grin, reaching down and taking my hand in hers. She opens her mouth to say something, but the ringing of her cell phone halts whatever words she was about to say. She glances down at the name on the screen. “It’s Mandy,” she adds absently, and brings her phone to her head.
My entire body runs cold.
Mandy is her realtor. What are the chances she’s calling her to tell her the same thing Pete just informed me?
Yeah, pretty fucking good.
I watch her face as she takes the call. Within seconds, her smile is wiped away, replaced with shock, and yes, a few tears. “Oh, yeah. And that’s it?” Pause. “Okay, thanks,” she says quietly, dropping her head. “Wait! Do you know who won the bid?” she asks, turning and glancing my way. She listens, but doesn’t take her eyes off mine. “Thanks for everything, Mandy. Bye.”
Her blue eyes hold my gaze as she slides her phone back into her pocket. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The hurt I just saw in her beautiful eyes is quickly swept aside and replaced with an edge, a hardness.
She knows.
