Page 94 of Untethered Heart
“Hell yes, Grams, making the first move.” Beth punches a fist in the air, making us all laugh.
“Weren’t you worried it would blow up in your face? Mixing your business life with your personal one? What if you cost you, your family, everything?” Gage asks.
She laughs. “No, my boy. I was more worried that I’d never feel the way your grandfather made me feel with anyone else. It just made me want to hold on tighter. Besides”—she pauses to take a sip from her glass, and it feels as though we’re all waiting with bated breath for her next words—“what harm could it really do to my business?” She shrugs. “Certainly nothing a queen like me couldn’t fix.”
Beth claps her hands. “You are a queen, Grams.”
Grams rests a palm against Beth’s cheek. “So are you, my dear. And don’t you let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”
The table is silent while everyone takes in Grams’s words. My parents smile at each other with practised love, and Grandpa continues to look at my grandmother like she hung the moon and answered all his prayers while she was at it.
Lex looks up at me, breaking the silence. “I need to tell my brother about us.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Siren,” I say, placing a kiss against her forehead.
She pulls her phone out of her back pocket.
“Oh shit, you mean right now?”
“I just want to hold on tighter,” she says, repeating Grams’s words from before.
I wrap an arm around her stomach and lean my chin on her shoulder as she brings up her brother’s contact info and starts up a video chat. She angles the camera so I’m slightly out of the way at first.
“Hey, Guppy.” Dylan smiles, but he’s not looking directly at the screen. It looks like he’s in his office at the tavern. I recognise it from our first meeting all those months ago.
“Hey, Dyl. Have you got a sec?”
That makes his eyes snap to the phone. He picks it up, bringing it closer to his face.
“What’s wrong? You good?”
“Yes, I’m good. Great, really.” Lex chews on her lip and takes a breath. “I just wanted to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about the guy I told you I was talking to.”
Dylan’s eyes darken. “Do I need to hurt someone?”
“What? No.” Lex laughs, and I see his shoulders relax, his body slumping a little further into his seat.
“Good. So, what do you need to tell me?”
Lex says nothing, just shifts the phone so I come into view, still resting my chin over her shoulder.
“Oh. Um. Hi, Dylan.” I have conducted business meetings where billions of dollars were on the line, but this is the conversation that makes me nervous.
“Caleb Heart. A bit late at night for you to be meeting with my sister, isn’t it?”
I literally have nothing. Thankfully, Lex takes over.
“We’ve been spending more time together. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about it interfering with Legacy Malt. Not until I was sure of my feelings for Caleb. Of his feelings for me.”
I squeeze my arm tighter against her, and she burrows into me.
“And what are your feelings for him?” Dylan asks hesitantly.
“Very real ones.”
