Southern Gentleman (Charleston Heat 3)

There is so much love at this table right now my heart is bursting.

“Let’s also pick a date to put together your registry,” Olivia is saying, turning a page in her notebook. “I’ve asked some of my friends who have young kids for their input, and they gave me some great suggestions. Figured we could use those as a good jumping off point. How do you guys feel about a field trip to Hello Baby? There’s one out in West Ashley. Oh! And are you going to find out the gender?”

“You know,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “I haven’t actually thought about that.”

“Wait, Julia…Julia, are you okay?”

I am crying. All of a sudden.

Hard.

Snotty, sobby, happy crying.

“I love y’all so much,” I say. “Seriously, I’m overwhelmed, and I know I’m always crying when we’re together, but I was not expecting all this.”

“What?” Gracie hands me an extra napkin. “You really think we’d let you have dickhead Greyson Montgomery’s baby on your own?”

“He is a dickhead,” I say, wiping my nose. “He’s also really great and has a really nice penis.”

Olivia laughs. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting to hear that. Although I had a feeling something was going on between you guys. Something more than just sex, anyway.”

“Really?” I sniffle.

“Yeah. For all his growliness and general abrasiveness, Greyson’s actually been pretty great to Elijah over the years. He was one of Eli’s first investors. This was before people knew who Elijah Jackson was—before The Pearl was even open. But Greyson took a real risk and believed in this chef nobody had really heard of. In fact, it was when Greyson backed Eli that things really started to turn around for him. The Montgomery Partners name has real weight behind it in this town—people trust Greyson and Ford, and when they put their money behind something, people take notice. When The Jam closed”—this was Eli’s second restaurant, which never did well despite the success of The Pearl, his first restaurant—“Greyson still stuck by Eli, even though he could’ve easily tucked tail and run. He did a hard thing, a good thing, without having to. He’s a stand-up guy, Julia. And because you’re you, and you take no crap, and you see through people’s bullshit, I knew you’d eventually discover that about him.”

Because my heart wasn’t swollen enough.

It feels enormous now. Filling my entire chest cavity, squeezing my lungs so that it’s difficult to breathe.

“This is not how I pictured my life ending up,” I say. “That I’d be thirty-four and single and knocked up by a guy like Greyson Montgomery. I’m still struggling to come to terms with how off-course it is from where I thought my story would be. But the further along I get in my pregnancy, the better I feel, physically and mentally, and the more I get to know Greyson…I mean, it doesn’t seem half bad. Sometimes it actually seems pretty damn great. Which I was not expecting. At all.”

Olivia grins. “Trust me. I know all about your story taking a hard left when all your life you’ve been making carefully timed rights.”

“Yes!” I say, reaching for the chips. “I liked the path I was on. I liked my life just fine. And then this happened.”

“Who’s to say you won’t like this new path just as much? I never thought I’d end up with my brother’s best friend,” Gracie adds. “I didn’t think Luke was really my type, and I definitely didn’t think he’d ever be into me. So even though I had this, like, raging crush on him, I never in a million years thought we’d end up together.”

Eva smiles. “And now y’all are so damn cute together it’s kind of disgusting. I mean that in the best way.”

“Thanks,” Gracie says, grinning. “But yeah. Looking back on it, I was glad I got pushed off course. I’m glad I didn’t get what I thought I wanted, because it didn’t make me very happy. But what I ended up getting with Luke? That does make me happy. In ways I never could’ve imagined.”

Olivia nods. “Exactly. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to us is not getting what we want. Because there’s something better in store for us. Something we don’t see coming.”

“Something that will actually fulfill us,” I say. “You really think I can be happy with Grey?”

Eva’s lips twitch. “You’re calling him Grey now? Sounds serious.”

My body warms at the memory at the gravel in his voice when he said I like it when you call me Grey.

I felt more alive in his bed than I have in months. Alive and sexy and light.

“It feels serious,” I admit. “I spent the night at his place on Friday. I was telling him how much I wish I could tell my parents about the baby. And he invited me to his parents’ to tell them. I’m going over there for dinner tonight.”