Page 38 of It Started with a Sunset
“Are you still good to go with me to my family get-together tomorrow?”
She pasted on her happy, peppy face and said, “Of course! I wouldn’t miss it!” Then she reached for his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “I better get focused on work.”
As soon as he walked out of her office, she closed the door behind him. After taking a few deep breaths, she headed over to her desk and buried herself in work.
Chapter Sixteen
Brock
“Are you ready for this?” Brock asked as he and Summer walked from his truck around to the back of his parents’ house. The weather had turned cooler the last few days, and he was definitely glad they had both worn jackets.
“Am I excited to meet the people who grew up with you and are probably willing to share all the best stories about you? You bet I am. Areyouready for this?”
“I think I’m even less ready now,” he joked. But a big part of him wasn’t joking. He was feeling a lot of the same restlessness and tightening in his chest that he had felt when he was a kid bringing a friend over to his house for the first time. Of course, his siblings had all grown up and weren’t nearly as chaotic now. They were all pretty cool, actually. But he hadn’t ever cared as much about a woman as he did about Summer, so it amped up everything he felt. He really wanted them to like her and her to like them.
Summer was carrying a big bowl of the pasta salad she’d made, even though he hadn’t said that they needed to bring anything and was impressed she’d thought of it. As soon as his mom saw them walk around the back, she came rushing forward from where she’d been setting food on a table, waving his dad to follow. Her dark hair was up in a bun, the gray at the front weaving through the mess of a bun like a ribbon. His dad’s hair was in need of a haircut, as usual, his dark gray and black hair at the back of his neck curling around.
“Mom, this is Summer. Summer, this is my mom, Robin, and my dad, Jeff.”
His mom grabbed the salad from Summer, handed it off to Brock’s brother, then wrapped her arms around Summer. “Oh, it’s so good to meet you! Brock told me he was bringing a woman that he’d been dating, but I had no idea you’d be so beautiful!”
Summer turned to Brock. “Just so you know, I love your mom.”
His mom laughed and said, “Aren’t you the sweetest. And thank you for bringing whatever’s in that bowl. Oh goodness, I’m still wearing my apron. How embarrassing. I probably got flour on your shirt, too—oh, look, I did.” She reached forward and attempted to brush it off.
“It’s fine, Robin. It just makes me look like I did more work than I did.”
His dad reached a hand out and shook Summer’s. “It’s been a long time since Brock’s brought a woman to a family dinner, even though we’ve all been begging him to for years. You’ll have to forgive us if we get a little too excited.”
Brock could feel his cheeks heating up already. Knowing his family, he should probably get used to the sensation. He gave his glasses a nudge back up.
“Well, I’m going to go get this apron off and grab the rolls. My hair is probably a fright—I should check that, too. You all get introduced and chatting and I’ll be back out in a bit.”
Brock turned to his siblings, who were all standing by their spouses near the tables, looking like they might introduce themselves any second if he didn’t introduce them first.
“Everyone, this is Summer Graham.” They all waved. He motioned to his sister and her husband, who had been in a wheelchair for as long as he’d known him. “Summer, this is my sister, Alyssa, and her husband, Spencer. That little guy on his lap is Zachary. He’s what? Six months old now?”
Alyssa nodded. “Yep! And that little blonde girl in the sandbox is our two-year-old, Gracie.”
Then he motioned to his other sister. “And this is April—she and Alyssa are twins. She and Max got married last fall, and they’re expecting a baby at Christmastime. And this is my youngest brother, Hudson, and his wife, Fiona. They’re both in grad school at LBSU. And this is my other brother, Rylan, and his wife, Lara. Lara is also pregnant, and she’s due right at the beginning of the year.”
Lara reached over and gave April a fist bump. Brock motioned at them. “They’re only a little excited that they’ll be having kids so close to the same age.”
He glanced at Summer, wondering what she thought of his constantly growing family. She was her usual charming, friendly self, and was already hugging all of them and saying how great it was to meet them and started chatting with them all and asking them questions about themselves.
As his dad manned the grill and Hudson and Fiona both went inside to help his mom bring the last of the dinner items outside, he took Summer on a little tour of his backyard, showing her the places he used to play as a kid.
When they were a bit away from his family, Summer asked, “How old are your siblings again?”
“My sisters are twenty-five, Rylan is twenty-four, and Hudson is twenty-three.”
“Wow. So we’re both older than all of them, and they’re all married.”
Brock nodded. “And three are already having kids. So, yeah, I’m the odd man out. I think that they’ve been worried that I’m so far behind and I’ll never find love. It’d definitely be easier to be at family dinners if I was married, too, but I love them and I love getting together with them.”
“They all live close?”
He nodded. “They all graduated from Lake Baldwin State, and they all live in the tri-town area.”
