Strawberry Wine (Strawberry Inn Book #2)

Chapter 23

BLAIR

When Cody had sent me a text to tell me that his quick business trip to Houston wouldn’t be as quick as he thought, I tried to tell myself I wasn’t disappointed. For so long I was used to Cody not living up to his promises, so when eventually something fell through, I didn’t feel as let down. Things had changed for us though. Cody wasn’t breaking promises in the way that he used to and if he said he was going to be around, he was there. Not that this was entirely his fault, we were lucky that he was able to work remotely, and even though this new Cody was way more present, his job was still going to have the unexpected happen.

Hayes and I opted for a low-key dinner instead of the date-night dinner that Cody was going to take me out for and I left him in the living room watching TV while I escaped to my bedroom to call Cody. I felt like I was sneaking around, and I guess that is because I was. Soon we were going to tell Hayes that we were dating again. Hopefully, he would take it well and not be too confused. Maybe he would be excited, he wasn’t a child after all. He was aware that Cody was around a lot and knowing my smart child, he probably started to put two and two together. 

The phone rang once when Cody answered it, but he didn’t say anything at first, I just heard a lot of shuffling, “Cody? Are you there?”

“Yeah…shit,” he exclaimed, and then I heard something fall to the ground in the background. “Oh, that’s just great.”

“I feel like I’m interrupting something,” I chuckled.

“You could say that. I’m just trying to get some things packed up around here and I’m clumsy as fuck. How are you doing, Bear?”

“I’m doing fine. Hayes and I just finished dinner. It wasn’t the exciting dinner that we had originally planned for our date night, but we made chef’s salads dripping with homemade ranch dressing.”

“The ranch that your mom makes?”

I could almost hear him salivating on the phone, over ranch dressing of all things. “It is mostly the recipe that my mom uses, except instead of the bit of sour cream, I add greek yogurt. It adds an extra tang to go with the buttermilk.”

“God dammit, Blair, you’ve got me thinking dirty thoughts about you and ranch dressing now.”

“Cody!” I chastised, “you’re trouble.”

“I’m not responsible for the things you do to me. Do you have any idea the power that you hold?”

“I like the sound of that.” I move around on the bed to get more comfortable and then change the subject, “What exactly are you packing anyway? I thought you had everything here that you needed.”

“So…about that…”

“Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Just tell me what’s going on, Cody, I don’t want you sugar-coating anything.”

“I quit my job.”

“You did what?” I yell into the phone.

“I’d rather talk to you about this in person, but the gist is that Robert told me that he wanted me to come back and work in the office full-time and I told him no. He didn’t give me much of an option so I put in my two weeks’ notice.”

“Wow…holy crap, Cody. I can’t believe you would do that. What does this mean?”

“It means that I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I’m packing up what is left here and I’m moving home to Strawberry, for good.”