Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“I get it. She’s a great person, though, and I don’t know what I would have done without her. She gets me.” And she knew me, supported me, gave me a face when I needed a girlfriend.
Law sighed, then leaned down and nuzzled Bear before looking at me again. “I don’t know how to be friends with you. I don’t know if I can. Not after everything.”
I sucked in a painful breath, the hurt and ache twisting up my insides. “I understand.” I hated it, but I understood.
“But I’d like to try,” he added. “We can try.”
I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face. “Yeah…okay. Let’s try.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lawson
It had been two days since Remy left my house, and I hadn’t seen him since. We were on tentative ground, he and I. Honestly, I wasn’t sure where to go next or how to even try to be friends with him. There was too much history between us, all tangled up in passion, love, heartbreak, and pain, and I didn’t know how to untangle it all and start over. But damn, I wanted to. He’d always affected me more than anyone else.
Today was one of the Sundays I was expected for lunch at my parents’ house. We didn’t have a specific schedule for when we had them, but they were always on Sunday and always when Mom wanted them. The rest of my family would go straight there after church services, but since that wasn’t my thing, much to my parents’ dismay, I always met them at home. My family and I had a strange dynamic. We were close…but not. Mom and Dad had been married forever. Mom came with a family empire, Dad built one, so together they were unstoppable. They were like Havenwood royalty, had left to attend college but came back, were part of the church, donated time and money, had perfect kids, and the perfect home, and there was no doubt that all of us loved each other, that they loved us, but still, things were…awkward oftentimes.
As the oldest, I was supposed to set the example, but I never had. I’d been the only one to get into trouble—nothing major, typical kid shit when I was younger. I was supposed to follow in Dad’s footsteps and help run Grant’s. I wasn’t supposed to decide I wanted a small farm-to-table café, where we served breakfast and lunch, surrounded by grease and a laid-back atmosphere.
But when I did decide that was my dream, I was at least supposed to want to expand, grow—wouldn’t it be great if Sunrise Café started in Havenwood but grew throughout the South and East Coast like Grant’s? That had been Mom’s idea, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t need to be the king of the goddamned universe like that.
My brother, Phil, who was the middle child, was basically my father. Seriously, at times I thought they were the same person. One day he was going to be the face of Grant’s. He did all the traveling and took care of operations in other locations, the way I was supposed to. In some ways, it took the pressure off, but in others there was this weird competition between Phil and me. Like he thought he had to be extra fucking good at everything to prove that even though he wasn’t the oldest son, he was the better choice. I wasn’t even sure if he realized he did it.
Meredith was the baby. She and I were the closest. She was the peacekeeper, but spent more time defending me than she should have to. Where Phil fell into his role as a Grant naturally, and I shied away from it. Mere fit right in too, but more because she felt she had to than it being who she really was, which frustrated me for her. Why the fuck did it all matter so much?
It was a short drive to the large, colonial-style home my parents had lived in since before I was born. The lawn was perfectly manicured, nothing out of place, trimmed grass that spread out all around me, except for the circular driveway out front.
Given all the parked cars, everyone was already there, so I knocked on the door and pushed it open. “I’m here. We can start having fun now,” I teased as I stepped into the kitchen where they congregated. Dad and Phil were at the table, looking over paperwork—Grant’s stuff, no doubt. Phil’s wife, Alesha, who was four months pregnant, sat across from them, rubbing her belly.
“Hey, Lawson.” She gave me a sweet smile. Phil and Dad hadn’t pulled themselves out of their discussion to reply yet.
“Hi, honey!” Mom greeted me as she stirred something in a large bowl.
Meredith leaned against the counter and winked. “Please, like you’re any fun.”
Her boyfriend, Bruno, looked up from his phone from beside her. “Hey, man. What’s up?”