Strawberry Wine (Strawberry Inn Book #2)

Chapter 11

BLAIR

“How was your run this morning?” 

I was already gone for work before Hayes woke up this morning and then he was holed up in his room studying when I got home. It wasn’t until the faint smell of bacon filled the air that he finally decided to grace me with his presence. I’m used to the elusive teenage boy that only comes out for food though. 

“It was good. Dad ended up being there after all.”

“Oh really? And to think you were so certain last night…” Cody was out of town for a few days but promised that he was coming back to Strawberry to work. I didn’t want to make Hayes feel bad by telling him I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t come back when he said he would. Cody doesn’t spend a lot of time here. Work would have been the perfect excuse to go back to Houston.

“I know, I know. Maybe I should have given him a bit more credit. After the text he sent, I was just so sure, you know?”

I ruffle his hair and Hayes winces the way he always does. Messing with his hair stopped being cute when he was about nine, but that hasn’t stopped me one bit. “Nobody would blame you for being critical about the things that your dad promises. That’s great that he showed up though.”

“Did you know he’s fast as fu….heck?” I laugh at Hayes’s attempt to not curse around me. I’m the one with the potty mouth and I know he has one around his friends, but I appreciate him censoring himself around his mom the way that he does.

“Did you think he was going to be slow and out of shape?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, “maybe.”

“Your dad played professional baseball, Cody. A guy can’t just show up to the field without being in good shape.”

“I know he played, Ma, but that was so long ago. He old…” I glare intently at him, daring him to finish the sentence. “Er…he’s older than he was back then. You know what I mean!”

“All I know is that you called me old since your dad and I are the same age, but you know…whatever,” I tease him back.

“Oh my God, Mom!” He whines, leaning over the kitchen island. “Please don’t turn into one of those parents, you’re too cool to be the nit-picky mom.”

I clunch my hands against my chest with an exaggerated motion, “You think I’m cool?”

Hayes rolls his eyes and then reaches across the island to grab a piece of bacon from the resting place on the paper towel. “What are you making tonight, besides the bacon?”

“I thought I’d throw together a pasta carbonara. Haven’t done that in a bit and Ruth next door brought over a bunch of peas that she grew in her garden this year.”

“I love pasta carbonara! Are you going to make a lot of it?”

“You know me, I can’t measure my pasta worth shit. I’ll have enough for at least a dozen or so people. I promise they’ll be leftovers.”

“I wasn’t thinking leftovers, I was thinking of maybe inviting somebody over.”

“Oh sure, we could do that too. Anybody I know?”

“I know what you’re thinking and no, it isn’t a girl.”

“I didn’t say anything about it being a girl. I simply asked if I knew the person. Geez, just go and make a big deal about nothing. Now that you bring it up though, you know if you ever wanted to invite over a girl that would be fine. I am the cool mom after all.”