Fall From Grace

GRACE

Ipull my light-pink knit sweater on over my dress before I get out of the car at the Italian restaurant Anna told me to meet them at. I take a deep breath as I pull open the door to Bucelli’s. I have no problem meeting new people. I am outgoing and an extrovert. But I worry it’s written all over my face that I am fucking Carson.

“Grace!”

I turn toward the area I hear my voice being shouted from and see Anna waving me down from a booth.

I walk past the hostess and join the party, sliding in next to a girl with platinum-blonde hair who is texting away on her phone.

“Hi Grace. How are you?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Great. I am so glad to be out of the house.”

“You?” the blonde next to her asks. “You don’t have a ten-month-old.”

“Well, if you just moved here, you already know Hunter’s parents would watch him for you all the time, and you could spend more time with your husband.”

“Oh please, even if we moved here, he would still work all the time.”

“You never know,” Anna says.

The woman next to her turns to me. “I’m so sorry to be rude. I’m Faye. I should have introduced myself before going off on a tangent. I’m married to Carson’s brother, Hunter.”

“I’m Grace Prescott. So nice to meet you. Anna was telling me all about his brothers the other day.”

The girl next to me sets her phone down. “I would have liked to hear that conversation. I’m Seraphina but you can call me Sera.”

I smile at her. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Did he talk about all their fights? Or how they used to sneak girls into their parents’ house in high school?” she asks me.

Anna scoffs. “You really think that’s how I start all my conversations about them?” She rolls her eyes at Sara. “No, I just said they are all workaholics.”

Sera sips from the wineglass in front of her. “Well that sounds like a boring conversation.”

“So you work for Carson?” Faye asks me.

I nod. “Temporarily. My brother got me the job.”

“What did you do before you moved here?”

I take a sip of the wine that Sera poured for me. “I was an investigative journalist. Worked out of DC.”

“Why did you leave?” Sera asks.

I could tell them the truth but not even Owen knows the truth. “I was sick of politics. Well, not the investigations I wrote about but the politics at the magazine. Needed a break. But I’ve been looking. Maybe move home to New York if I can get a job there.”

“Oh that’s exciting,” Sera says. “I love New York. What kind of journalism did you do?”

“Well mostly political investigations when I was in DC but I’ve done all sorts of things. Poverty issues, profiteering, but my favorite was always political corruption.”

“Damn, isn’t that dangerous?” Faye asks.

I nod. “It can be. I’ve been threatened a few times but I guess I like living on the edge.”

Sera wraps her arm around my shoulders. “My kind of girl. Oh, you should come to my yoga studio!”