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“You have a type.”
“A what?”
Reid motioned toward Nadia, who was busy putting plates in front of the girls. “We have the same color hair.”
Grayson looked from Reid to Nadia, and then at Gemma. “I have nothing to say for myself,” he told her, laughing.
“Were all the girls you dated in college red haired?”
He shook his head. “Nope. You and Nadia are the only ones.”
“Ah, I see. Start with red, end with red.”
“Is there anything better?”
Reid smiled and said, “Nope. We’re literally the best.”
“Reid.” Nadia said her name to get her attention. “Grayson says you work together?”
“We do. I work in Human Resources.”
“We fear our HR department at work,” Kiran said. “Anytime we get an email from them, I think we lose a year off our lives.”
“Oh no, it shouldn’t be like that,” Reid said. “Where we work, we try to make HR approachable and part of the team. Everyone but our director is an employee advocate. We each have teams. Our director speaks for the company; we speak for the employees.”
“I’m surprised you’re not unionized,” Kiran said to Grayson.
“The setup at Wold is different,” Reid said as she looked at Grayson. “The owners really value their employees and make sure we receive an annual cost of living increase and bonuses, and we always give out merit awards for productivity, closing sales, things like that.”
“I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of someone designing tables until Grayson told me what he does,” Nadia said. “Now I look at this table differently.”
“Same,” Kiran said. “I went into a board meeting the other day and looked at the inlay.” He shook his head. “Grayson’s ruined me.” He laughed.
“What can I say?” Grayson held his hands up. “Anytime you want to come tour the facility, let us know. Everything happens on-site. Nothing is outsourced. From start to finish, the product is made at Wold.”
“Maybe we can take a visit this summer,” Kiran said to Nadia.
Reid didn’t miss the exchange between them and agreed with Grayson that Kiran definitely had a crush on Nadia. She tried to put herself in Nadia’s shoes, having two young kids and losing her husband. Would she move on after a year? It was hard to say. The heart made people feel things differently. The situation Grayson was in was the perfect example. He’d loved two strangers from the moment he’d met them and couldn’t imagine his life without them. Maybe that was the same for Nadia, with Kiran being Rafe’s best friend. They’d known each other for years, and falling in love could’ve been a natural progression. And then Reid imagined herself with Pearce and quickly changed her mind. He was nice and she liked him, but she knew far too much about him and his ways to think he’d ever be a good fit for her. But then, if you lost someone you loved, grief could really change you.
When Kiran and Grayson declared it was time to work, Nadia asked if Reid wanted to go to the mall. Before she could answer, Lynnea stated yes: Reid absolutely wanted to go to the mall with them. If Reid thought things would be awkward, she was mistaken. Within minutes of being with the Karlssons, she could easily see why Grayson was sosmitten with the girls. They were nice and kind and treated Reid like she was part of the family.
Throughout the day, Lynnea never left Reid’s side, and Gemma asked for her opinion on clothes or jewelry she liked.
“Grayson speaks very highly of you,” Nadia said when they stopped for a caffeine pick-me-up. They took their coffee and the girls to the indoor play place and sat down. “I’ll be honest, when he first showed up, I thought he was there in an attempt to rekindle things. You read about long-lost love and all that, and I came home one day and there he was. But as soon as I asked about his life, he showed me pictures of you. When he says your name, there are stars in his eyes, and you can tell how much he loves you.”
“I’ve loved him for a long time,” Reid said. “We’ve only been together for a year.”
“When you know, you know, right?”
Reid looked down at her ring and nodded. “He couldn’t commit ...” She trailed off, wishing she could take the words back and fearing the conversation was headed toward a path it shouldn’t.
“Because of his heart?”
Reid looked at Nadia, who kept her eyes focused on the girls.
“He got sick a couple of times in high school, and I remember his mom really freaking out. I saw the pills in the bathroom, and she used to harp on him about germs, taking the meds, and being careful. Grayson would never come out and say something was wrong, but I saw the names of the meds and figured it out.”
“Nadia—”
