Chapter 23: The Renegade Billionaire: Chapter 23

Pops’ feet keep our porch swing swaying in a gentle rhythm while Grey inspects the shutters I leaned against the railing last night. It’s still warm out, but the cloying stickiness is gone.

“You’re not afraid of heights too, are ya, kid?”

Grey lifts a scornful-looking brow at Pops. “No. I’m not afraid of heights. But please remind me when I agreed to hang these for you?”

Pops kicks out his heels and clasps his hands behind his head. “It was yesterday afternoon, before I asked if you’ve ever plucked a turkey for Thanksgiving and after I asked if you loved working at Omni-Reyes or if you were doing it out of duty to Ace.”

Grey scoffs. “Right. You do enjoy tossing out those invasive-as-fuck questions, don’t you?”

“Life’s too short not to be doing what you love.”

“Brax, come down here and hand me these things so I can get back to work.”

I wink at Pops, then help Grey move all the shutters. He’s only at it for about fifteen minutes when Sage and Madison walk outside. I hope he didn’t make her late. I heard them whispering upstairs so I gave them privacy, but she had planned to leave an hour ago.

“What happened to your eyes?” Pops bluntly asks Sage. The poor kid shuffles his feet on the porch.

“Pops,” I say, as Grey growls, “What the fuck?” and Madison stands behind Sage, whipping her finger back and forth across her throat to tell him to cut it out.

Pops ignores us all.

“I thought it would be better to try and fit in today.” Sage tugs on his earlobe, something he hasn’t done in years.

“Why?” Pops asks before I can intervene. Grey is stomping down the ladder, but I hold up a hand to stop him. In the time I’ve spent with him, Pops has never done anything malicious, and I’m choosing to trust him with Sage now.

Look at me trusting again.

“It’s a small town, and I didn’t want to embarrass Madi.”

“What?” Madison gasps. “You would never embarrass me.”

“Let me ask you this, Sage.” Pops calls him by his name, and I’m still boy. Go figure. “Do you wear all that black crayon stuff to hide who you are, or do you wear it because it feels like who you are?”

Grey, who had been marching across the lawn toward the porch, stops short at Pops’ question.

Sage tilts his head and stares at the floorboards below him, but we all give him time. I’ll count to ten, and then if he doesn’t answer, I’ll cut in and give him an out. But this is probably something we should’ve asked him a long time ago.

When I glance over at Grey, I’m guessing he agrees by the frown on his face. He’s the only man I know with fifty shades of frown, but this is the one meant for himself.

I reach number nine, when Sage finally opens his mouth. “People always thought I was weird. It felt safer to give them the version they thought I was than show them the real me and risk getting hurt.”

Grey’s heavy footsteps land on the stairs next to me, and the railing rattles a little when he clutches it. He looks as shaken up as I feel.

“Sage, I—I didn’t know that.” My throat feels thick and uncomfortable.

Sage shrugs. “I don’t think I did either.” His brows are still pinched together when he looks back at Pops.

“Now let me ask you this,” Pops says, putting his swing into motion again. “Did you leave it off today because you were afraid of embarrassing Madi or because you wanted to see if people would accept you for you?”

Jesus. When did Pops turn into a shrink?

“I don’t know,” Sage admits. “But it is exhausting hiding all the time though.”

“There ya have it, Sage. Be you, and don’t ever hide. If you want to wear crayons, you wear crayons and hold your head high. If you want to dye your hair blue and call yourself a peacock, then you do that too. The world is alive with color, as it should be. It would be a damn shame if we were all shades of the same color, don’t you think?”

“What the hell just happened?” Grey whispers.

“Yeah, I—I agree,” Sage says. Then he walks over, bends down, and hugs the old man tight.

He’s always been an affectionate kid, something neither of us were used to and were probably not great at giving, but for him, we tried.

Pops wraps his old wrinkly arms around him and squeezes him back. He whispers something I can’t hear, and when Sage pulls back from the hug, he’s as content as I’ve ever seen him.

Somehow in the last five minutes, Pops has managed to break down walls we didn’t know existed.

“Well, fuck me,” Grey mutters the second he gets a look at Sage.

The change in his posture is immediate. Whatever Pops said to him had more of an impact than anything either of us has probably ever said to him.

When Pops finds us staring at him in varying degrees of disbelief, he chuckles. “What’s got y’all tongue-tied? I’ve got a rainbow flag out there so folks of all flavors know they’re welcome here. We don’t discriminate, and I think kids should be who they’re meant to be.”

“This is not the South I thought we were getting involved with,” Grey says to my back.

“Nope, this here is Happiness, Georgia. The Heart of Joy lives in Happiness, didn’t y’all see the sign on your way into town?” He chuckles to himself, then whistles to the sky as though he didn’t just rip open our world and heal it in the same damn sentence.

When I finally turn to Madison, her face is shining with emotion. “He may get into trouble more than his fair share, but he loves, and he loves hard.”

“Nothing is more valuable than love from someone who cares. I’ve been telling her that since she was knee-high,” Pops agrees.

Grey clears his throat, then tugs at the collar of his button-down—yes, he’s still dressed for the office even climbing ladders. He’s never been great with his emotions, but by the pale shade of his face, I’m guessing this has more than quadrupled his limit for the day.

“I’m going to finish hanging these shutters so I can get back to work. Have fun with Madi, Sage. Call if you need anything.”

“Two weeks, Grey,” Madison calls to his back. His shoulders lift infinitesimally.

“Two weeks what?” he asks, not quite turning around.

“It took two weeks for Pops to rope you in. I told you it would happen, it always does.” She laughs, but she’s not laughing at Grey, or even this situation. I think she’s laughing because she’s finally accepted that Pops gets what Pops wants, and right now, he wants me and Grey doing manual labor.

“It’s not my fault. The old man talks me in circles until my head’s spinning.” Grey does the most un-Grey thing then—he smiles at Pops. “You would’ve made a great lawyer.”

Pops shoos him toward the ladder. “Nah, too much school. The words never did work right for me.”

“Pops is dyslexic,” Madison explains.

“I didn’t know that.” It feels like something I should’ve known.

The old man simply rocks his head side to side. “We all have obstacles that test us. That was one of mine. Now get to work. Daylight’s running short.”

“It’s eight in the morning,” I remind him.

“Lots to do, my boy. Lots to do.”

Madison giggles, and my chest dances to the sound. I watch as she and Sage pile into her car and back out of the driveway.

It’s then that my chest pinches as though someone’s squeezing my heart in their fist.

I peer up at Grey on the ladder. “Have we sheltered him too much?”

He’s nodding his head. Does he have the same fears that I do? Did we unknowingly install our hang-ups on our nephew in the name of keeping him safe?

“Give him time,” Pops says. “He’s still got a long time to find himself.”

“He’s the real-life version of Bert from Mary Poppins,” Grey says, hitching his thumb in Pops’ direction.

It was Sage’s favorite story for three years straight—Mary Poppins and the Match-Man.

And he’s not wrong.

Perhaps Madison isn’t the only matchmaker in Happiness.

“Why the hell do I have to sit in the middle?” Grey grumbles as he faces off with Pops at the passenger side door of my truck.

“Because I said, and I’m not too old to whoop your ass. Now get in the truck,” Pops says sternly.

“Whoop my ass?” Grey scratches the side of his head. It takes a lot to stump him, but Pops is proving to be a worthy opponent.

“I said what I said. The sooner you learn you won’t get your way acting a fool, the happier you’ll be here in Happiness.”

Grey leans down into the truck to stare at me with wild eyes. “Why is it every time I talk to him it’s one giant mind fuck?”

I shrug and start the engine. “He’s had a lot of years to perfect it. Just get in. I want to check on Sage.”

He curses under his breath but slides in. “Are you fucking kidding me? I have to straddle this thing?”

“It’s a gearshift,” Pops says, following him inside.

“I know what it is.”

I glance down at Grey’s legs and burst out laughing. He’s practically resting his chin on his knees in here.

“Just go,” he barks. “How the fuck does a brand-new car just die in the driveway?”

He had a new Mercedes delivered a few days ago, but when Pops starts whistling, I think I know why it wouldn’t start, and I keep forgetting to talk to him about it, even if it is funny to see Grey this way.

Reaching over his legs, I put the truck in reverse.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fuck me and my life.”

“Don’t be such a crybaby.” Pops pats his knee and chuckles. “Ace said you needed to loosen up. You just haven’t found anyone who can go toe-to-toe with you yet. But you will.”

“No. I won’t. How long until we get there?”

“Ten minutes,” I say.

Grey presses his lips together into a thin line, and Pops whistles a melody I can’t place. When I give Grey a sideways glance, his eyes are closed, and I think he’s praying for patience.

Just one big happy family.

By the time I pull into the Chug, Grey has moved on to the breathing exercises Ace made us learn as teenagers.

“Look at that. Busy place today,” Pops muses.

“Get. Out.”

Grey hasn’t even opened his eyes yet, so I elbow him in the side. “You need to relax, okay? This place is…different. You’ll see.”

“What the boy said.” Pops opens the door and slowly exits the truck.

“I have a billion-dollar company to run. I don’t have time to.” He scans the building in front of us. “Seriously Braxton, I want to be in and out of here in five minutes. We can leave Sage if he’s having fun, and we’ll snatch him out of there if even one person is looking at him funny.”

I bite my cheek to keep from laughing and lie to my best friend. “Fine. Let’s go.”

There’s no chance in hell we’ll be out of here in one hour, let alone five minutes, but lying to him is the only way to get him to move.

Exiting the truck, I head straight for the front door, knowing that he’ll follow, then I roll my neck from side to side on the way because there’s no telling what kind of chaos we’ll find in here today. Pops stands waiting for us at the top of the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Grey asks.

“There’s a lot of people here today,” I explain, “so when you place your order, you’ll be choosing sides. It’s coffee or tea, and there’s enemies on either side.”

“I don’t have time for riddles, Brax.”

“The town is divided. You’ll see.”

“Is this what people do in small-town America? They fight over caffeinated drinks?”

“It’s much more than that, kid. You’ll learn.” Pops opens the door and ushers us inside.

I’ve never seen this place so packed. The sign in the quiet room says book club in progress. There’s a crowd around the sound booth, but I can’t see who’s inside. Madison’s friends sit in the center of it all, and taking up the entire right side of the space is the offense for the football team.

And Sage is sitting right in the middle of them, pointing at something on a screen. His face is animated and energized. He looks as though he’s having fun—real fun with people his own age.

“What’s going on over there?” Grey mutters but makes no move toward Sage.

I don’t either. We just stand and watch, completely lost to the moment and unaware of anything but Sage.

“Ethan is a good kid,” I say.

“The MacBook kid?” Grey asks.

“Yeah, he’s sitting to the right of Sage.”

Applause draws our attention back to the sound booth. Madison is in the doorway, shaking hands with some, hugging others, and she takes pictures with them all.

She’s a small-town celebrity.

“What’s going on over there?” Grey asks. He hasn’t moved an inch, but his gaze tracks everything.

“I’m not sure.”

“Hey, boys,” Blissy says, stepping between us.

“Hey, Blissy. What’s Madison doing?” I ask.

“Oh, that girl. She’s the sweetest. About four times a year she hosts a live show, and people come from all over Georgia for a chance to pick her brain.”

“Pick her brain about what?” Grey asks before I can.

“Have you listened to her show?” she asks.

His only response is to frown harder.

“Well, she’s the matchmaker.” She looks at him expectantly. “You know, from The Matchmaker Manual?” When he continues to stare at her, she huffs as though he offended her. “First she gets you to fall in love with yourself, and then she helps you determine what type of partner you’d be the most compatible with. She’s poured her heart and soul into it since she was knee-high. How have you never listened to her? She has near a hundred percent success rate.”

“Why not a hundred?” I ask.

“I’ll give you one guess.” The disgust in her tone tells me everything.

“Harry,” I grumble.

“You got it. Now, what can I get ya boys?”

When Grey doesn’t answer, I order for the both of us. “I’ll have a coffee, black, and a tea with sugar, please.”

She cackles, startling Grey where he stands. “Still haven’t picked a side, huh? No problem. You still have some time before the Cozy Cup Festival, that’s when it gets cutthroat around here.”

I start to ask more about the Cozy Cup when I catch sight of Madison walking in our direction and practically glowing, but it’s the confidence she exudes that has me looking a little bit closer.

Whatever went on here today is what she should be doing every day. This is her calling.

“Hey,” she says. Her cheeks are flushed as though she’s still on an adrenaline high.

“Hey. What’s all this?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing. Just a little thing I do for listeners a few times a year. I actually forgot about it today. I’ve never done that before. Did you see Sage?” She’s obviously deflecting, but it’s something I’ll make sure we come back to.

“We did. What’s going on over there?”

Grey is made of stone. He hasn’t moved, but I can tell he’s absorbing every inch of this place by the way his gaze darts around the room.

She grabs both of our sleeves and drags us over to the check-in desk where it’s only the slightest bit quieter.

“Sage was helping me move stuff around the room to accommodate the crowd, and the boys were in here watching game film. Their kicker broke their leg, and the backup and their prospect for next year committed to our biggest rival.”

She looks from me to Grey to make sure we’re following because even though the buzz is dying down, it’s still louder than she normally allows.

“Anyway, from what I could tell, they were studying their footwork because someone on the O-line will have to fill in for the rest of the season. Sage stepped in to offer a suggestion, and they’ve been over there for almost two hours now.”

The group of boys erupts in laughter that has Blissy ringing a bell, and instantly the entire room falls back into the relative silence of a coworking space.

At that moment, Sage lifts his head and finds us watching him, and it’s as though he grows up right before our eyes. When Grey tugs on his collar, I know he feels it too. Sage has been holding himself back, for us.

He points in our direction, then slowly rises and comes to meet us.