“Who?” Ryker asks as he moves each ice-filled glass to the water dispenser in the fridge to fill them. Gray pulls a knife from a drawer beside the stove and starts to cut the beef tenderloin, and Brian merely sips on his wine and enjoys my story as I tell it.

“Israel Kamakawiwo’ole was a Hawaiian folksinger, and he did this amazing mash-up of ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ and ‘What a Wonderful World,’ and it really is what made me fall in love with music. After that, there was no choice. It was the ukulele for me.”

“I heard her sing ‘Over the Rainbow,’ ” Brian says proudly. “It was amazing.”

“Ryker,” Gray slips into the conversation. “Can you hand me a plate?”

Ryker reaches back into another cabinet, grabs a plate, and hands it to me. I turn to hand it to Gray, and she smiles at me as she says, “Maybe one night Ryker and I can get over to The Grind and listen to you.”

“Really?” I ask, my smile cracking wide open. “That would be awesome.”

“Absolutely,” Ryker answers for his wife, and I turn back to him with the same smile. “Sounds like a lot of fun. I rarely get to take Gray out on a date anymore between our work and raising the girls.”

“Definitely sounds fun,” Gray adds, and the earlier awkwardness seems to have dissipated completely.

“So are you dating anyone?” Ryker asks me pleasantly, another question to learn more about me. Gray stops her transfer of the sliced tenderloin to the plate I had just handed her and looks at me with interest.

“Not really,” I say, which is the truth. “But I have a first date next week and I’m looking forward to that.”

And at this point, I hope that I don’t get any follow-up questions because I absolutely do not want to tell them that said date is with a Cold Fury player. Despite the fact that Gray has seemingly come to some acceptance of my presence, there is still some level of skepticism on her part. That was evident by her questions to me tonight and by the way she intervened to prevent her dad from offering me anything until the final DNA results were in.

Yes, there’s no sense in even bringing Roman into the conversation when we may go out Wednesday and totally not even click with each other. I seriously doubt that, as there is some obvious and intense chemistry between us, but no sense in upsetting the apple cart tonight.

Just to ensure that the conversations stays away from my love life, I decide to throw my dad, Brian, whatever, under the bus.

In the most loving way, of course.

“Speaking of dating,” I say as I turn to Brian and give him a sly smile. His eyebrows shoot upward over the suggestive tone in my voice and his body goes still. “You made quite an impression on Georgia night before last.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Brian mutters, and I’m astonished to see his face turn red before he puts his wineglass to his mouth and takes a healthy slug.

My eyes dart to Gray briefly, who is watching her dad with a smirk, and this eggs me on.

“Georgia can’t stop talking about you,” I say knowingly. “I think she has a crush.”

“Honestly, Lexi,” Brian huffs. “A crush? Is she twelve years old?”

“Forty-seven,” I provide.

His eyebrows shoot up higher. “Really? I thought she was younger than that.”

I knew it. He’s interested.

“Nope. And she’s totally single, and I bet she’d go out with you in a heartbeat if you asked her.”

Brian makes sort of a harrumph noise and waves his hand at me in dismissal. “I’m too old to date.”

“Seriously?” Gray jumps into the conversation. “Too old? You are not going there.”

“I’m sixty-one—” he starts to say, but she rolls right over him.

“You cycle over a hundred miles a week, you do strength training that’s on a par with some of the very athletes that you employ, and you still sport a damn six-pack, Dad. You should be dating because you are in your prime.”

“I’ve got gray hair,” Brian grumbles.

“Only at the temples,” I provide helpfully. “Which clearly labels you as a silver fox, not an old man.”

For the first time in the brief time I’ve known Brian Brannon, he actually glares at me, but I’m not taken aback. I’m actually happy I’m comfortable enough to rib him and he’s comfortable enough to be pissed about it.

Also bonus points that Gray and I are firmly united in this.

“So who is this Georgia?” Ryker asks with a smirk on his face, and I know to keep the conversation going, as he’s actually enjoying Brian’s discomfort.

Grounded in the knowledge that the spotlight is firmly off of me and my potential love life, I give them the brief rundown. “She’s really super cool. Like I said, forty-seven years old and totally gorgeous. Brian can attest to that,” I say with a wink his way, then barrel forward so he can’t deny it. “She’s originally from Georgia—which is why I guess her parents named her that. She opened up The Grind almost ten years ago. Has one son who’s twenty-five and lives on the West Coast, she’s never been married, and she’s completely crazy. In a fun sort of way, I mean.”

“Really?” Brian says dryly. “I found her to be a little rude.”

“She’s blunt,” I say, looking at him briefly before turning back to Ryker. “But she has the biggest heart in the world. And she likes to get under people’s skin, which is what I’m sure she was trying to do with you, Brian,” I say as I shoot a glance back at him. “I think that only means she really likes you.”

“Funny way of showing it,” he mutters, then adds petulantly, “She had me convinced Tink was a murderer.”

I burst out laughing, as do Gray and Ryker, and Brian shoots glares at all of us. Then he wipes away our amusement when he says, “That’s enough of this conversation. I won’t say I’m old, but I’m too set in my ways to date, and even if I did want to date, Georgia Mack would be the last person I’d ask out.”

Hmmmmm…he doth protest too much, methinks.

He’s so going to ask her out.

Chapter 9

Roman

I slip and slide my way across the snow-and-ice-covered sidewalk to the front door of The Grind. It’s close to 4 P.M. and I’m the only car parallel parked out front, but Glenwood Avenue is bumper to bumper, gridlocked traffic, for the “annual running of the southerners to take shelter during inclement weather” has begun.