Page 52 of Flare Up
“Did you hear Grant’s taking me home to his parents for the weekend?”
She grinned. “I didn’t hear that. Are you excited about it?”
“I’m not sure excited is the word I’d use. I’m happy that he wants me to go with him. But I don’t know if his parents—especially his mom—will be quite so happy about it.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but you worry too much. They liked you before and they’ll still like you.” She held up her hand. “And yes, there was that one time you broke their son’s heart, but if he can forgive you, so can they. And, I mean, look at us. We’re practically his family, too, and we’re all glad to have you back. They will be, too.”
Wren wished she could be as sure of that as Cait sounded. “I’ll let you know how it goes. Possibly over a stronger drink than wine.”
“Oh, we are so getting together after. We should do this more often. Every week might be hard to manage because neither of us have super set schedules, but every other week is doable.”
“Definitely.” Wren grabbed the edge of the table so she could shift her chair, but the twinge in her elbow made her wince. The chair could stay where it was.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing.” It wasn’t a big deal, but Cait just gave her a hard look, eyebrow arched. “Wow, you take that whole EMT thing pretty seriously. I bet most people do what you tell them.”
“Actually, you’d be surprised how many patients refuse to listen or even let us look at them. But you’re easy. What happened to your arm?”
Lydia was on her way past with a basket of nachos, but she paused when she heard Cait’s question. “I want to hear this. Talk fast.”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Oh, then I definitely want to hear it. But hold on. Don’t tell until I get back.” Lydia delivered the appetizer and took the table’s lunch order in record time, and then she was back. “Okay, spill it.”
“You know you’re going to tell us,” Cait said. “The longer you resist, the more awkward it feels, so just spill the details.”
“Fine.” Wren frowned and rubbed the sore spot. “Last night, Grant picked me up at work because he wanted to talk to me about going to New Hampshire this weekend and—”
Lydia held up her hand. “Wait, you’re going home to the parents this weekend?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a pretty big deal.”
“I feel like the elbow story is a bigger deal,” Cait said.
“Lydia!” Tommy’s bellow echoed through the bar. People didn’t go to Kincaid’s looking for a quiet atmosphere.
“Just a second,” his daughter bellowed back. “Okay, fine. Skip the parents and get to the elbow.”
“He had to work this morning, so we were just going for a drive and—”
“Lydia, dammit!”
“Hold on!” She gave Wren a look.
“We had sex in his Jeep and my elbow is not only sore, but slightly Jeep-seat burned.”
Both women laughed, and Lydia was still laughing when her father yelled a third time and she walked away.
“How on earth did you have sex in a Wrangler in the winter, with the top on?” Cait took a sip of her wine. “You know, I can’t decide if that’s a rhetorical question or not. On the one hand, I really don’t need the finer details of Grant’s sex life in my head, but on the other, I really want to know how it’s physically possible.”
“I can tell you it is physically possible, but it’s a little uncomfortable and can lead to having to tell your friends how you got embarrassing injuries.”
“Oh, speaking of sex.” Cait pulled a paperback book out of the bag she’d slung over the back of the chair. “You need to read this one.”
“I don’t know anything about football.”
