“Noah wanted me to talk to you.” She looked away, a sudden rush of nerves hitting her.
Saying they were going to forgive each other and trying to make amends was one thing, doing it gave her a bout of nerves she couldn’t suppress.
“Sure.” He dropped his tool bag and put his hands on his hips. “Fire away.”
“Um, are you busy Sunday night?” She covered her nerves by pointing past the ballroom now blocked off from traffic toward the kitchen and dining room. “It’s just that he wanted to know if you’d like to try dinner in the restaurant instead of only coming in when you work. We eat down there on Sundays. Kind of like his treat for the week if he does his homework.”
Ethan grinned and her heart raced. Why, oh why did he still affect her like this? It felt like she was a hormonal teenager, not a seasoned businesswoman who’d been married and born a child. She gave herself a mental slap. It didn’t help. If anything it made her more alert to his presence.
“Sure. Sounds like a great idea. What time?”
“I don’t like to eat too late because it’s school the next day. Would six o’clock be too early for you?”
“Not at all. I’ll be in town anyway. Maybe he’d like to kick a ball with me, Cory, and Jake in the afternoon. I kind of promised I’d hang out with them and I can’t really back out of it now.”
Wow, moving fast here. “I’ll ask him but considering Cory is one of his best friends and he totally idolizes him, I’ll have to assume that it’ll be a yes from Noah.”
“Excellent. I’ll pick him up around three unless you want to meet us there? If you have something to do, I can do the honors.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind, Ethan? I hate to rely on you for this but I do have a Skype meeting with a potential client at three.”
“Of course not. But it’s a bit early to start booking the ballroom, isn’t it? We’re going to be at least a month away from looking like finishing the job and that’s if things go to plan. We know how that’s been working out.”
She grinned, the process brides went through obviously foreign to him. “You have no idea, do you? Brides book things up to a year in advance if not longer. Organizing a wedding is no small feat, let me tell you. The venue is only one aspect of the day and I intend to take over the whole thing eventually. The restaurant, wedding venue, and honeymoon suite. I want to put my plan to her and see if she goes with it. My experience in LA with her sister’s wedding encouraged her to approach me and the idea of getting married in Cherry Lake seems to appeal as well as I hoped it would. Destination weddings are a thing right now.”
“Fingers crossed for you then. And it’s not an imposition to pick Noah up. You keep forgetting we’ve known each other for most of our lives and even though he and I are only getting to know each other, he is my son. You can ask me to do anything and I’ll be there for you both.”
The smile on his face almost made her melt into a puddle. After the last few years of having nobody to lean on, it was very tempting to take him at his word. But things were different now. They both had their own careers, family commitments, and there was still his father to win over. And the trust issues between her and Ethan had to be dealt with. She wouldn’t assume she could walk back into town and take up where she left off. She had more respect for Ethan than that even if he didn’t understand yet. Besides, she’d seen the guarded look on his face when they talked about their closeness as teenagers and didn’t want to push things too fast.
Chapter Eleven
“Noah, I need you to remember that Grandma Pearl is going to be emotional, okay?”
He nodded and pushed another piece of peanut butter and jelly toast into his mouth, licking his fingers and making more of a mess than ever.
“She might cry because she does that a fair bit but it doesn’t mean she isn’t happy, more that she’s very happy.” It was going to be emotional no matter which way she looked at it.
Last night she’d tossed and turned and wondered if she should’ve said no. Avoiding the meeting might have saved her the emotions but it wouldn’t solve anything, nor would it be fair to Pearl. If only Jeff Benson could move on and forgive her for something she hadn’t done, she’d be able to get on with her life too. Funny how something so far back in her life was still impacting on her now.
“Mom, stop telling me. I get it.” He poked his tongue out and licked the edges of his lips, then followed it with a wipe with the back of his hand smearing the jelly across one cheek. “Ethan told me what his mom’s like. No big deal.”
“Ethan told you? When?” She stopped cleaning and stared at him, the use of his hand to clean his mouth ignored.
“Yesterday. Maybe the next day before. I dunno, but he told me she always cries. Ladies do that.” He picked his plate up and headed to the sink.
She nabbed him and wiped a tissue across his face. “Okay then. So long as you don’t get upset and think you had anything to do with it.” She tossed the tissue into the trash. “I have something else to tell
