Page 47 of Gray Hair Don't Care
She shook her head. “You don’t want to do that.”
“But I do.”
“But then I’ll just kiss you back.”
“That’s sorta what I was hoping for.”
“And then you’ll walk away and I’ll be mad and everything at work will get weird.”
He sighed. “You sound like Echo.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know she knows about us. Our past.”
“I do know that. She asked me about it. She asked me if you were a mistake.”
Donovan swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear what was on the other side of the question his daughter had asked. He was 99% sure the answer was yes. “What did you say?”
“That I don’t regret it. And that it was just another life lesson about not putting someone on a pedestal they don’t want to be on. I thought far too much of you in college.”
He supposed it was better to be a life lesson rather than a mistake, but that was of little consolation. He’d messed up. He knew that. All of this was merely the logical aftermath of his choices. “Is it possible to think too much of someone?”
“In my case, yes. Don’t worry. I’m very well aware that you’re human now. You’re notactuallya god on a Vespa.”
“Good. That’s good.”I wouldn’t want you thinking too highly of me.He held on to her tightly as the song changed again—another slow one,Don’t Dream It’s Overby Crowded House. Was it over for Lela and him? It sure sounded like that. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the direction his heart wanted to take. He knew he was stumbling his way through this, but he had no clue how to break his fall.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lela triedto avoid excessive swearing, but sometimes it was the only thing that made sense. “Holy shit. What the fuck happened this weekend?” Standing in the foyer of the James Estate, she frantically scrolled through the notifications and texts on her phone for the first time in two days. It was… a lot.
“Dad. Lela. Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?” Echo was in a bit of a tizzy, pacing back and forth.
“Echo. Put away your phone, love. We need to go.” Lucius marched past them, ferrying bags to Austin’s car. Donovan’s brother was dropping off the happy couple at Logan Airport in Boston so they could get on their honeymoon flight to Turks & Caicos. The New York airports were closer, but Echo had always hated them. Plus, she wanted a little bit of time with her uncle.
“Social media is freaking blowing up with Lela B. All of the big beauty influencers are talking about it,” Echo called after him, as if he actually cared. “It’s everywhere. All because of Lela’s gray hair.”
“Don’t get too carried away, honey. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” Donovan just had to be the voice of sobriety and caution.
Lela wasn’t really in the mood for it. She’d never been so popular, ever. Also, she was exhausted after being unable to sleep at all last night after the reception. There had been entirely too much physical contact with Donovan yesterday. Between the Vespa ride and slow dancing, her body was still buzzing. And then he had to go and tell her about the many times over the years he’d wished he could talk to her, but hadn’t reached out? She was tired of being turned onanddisappointed. “I can’t believe this. I have thousands of new followers. Everywhere. On every platform. What’s with this hashtag? #GrayHairDontCare? How does that even happen?”
“Hey, Echo. Lucius is right. You guys need to get on the road,” Donovan said, still totally blasé. It was like nothing was going on. “Have you said goodbye to your mom and grandmother?”
“I said goodbye to Grams before she went to do her meditation. Mom left an hour ago, remember?”
“Right. I forgot,” Donovan said.
Lela was still scrolling, trying to ignore Donovan’s cool and detached behavior. Why was he being such a wet blanket? This was exciting. She swiped at her screen and two eye-popping notifications appeared. She squealed. “Serena WilliamsandReese Witherspoon are following me? What the what?”
“Lemme see,” Echo blurted, grabbing Lela’s arm and gawking at her phone. “That is so cool.”
Lucius stomped back into the foyer. “Echo. We have to go or we’re going to miss our flight.”
Echo grimaced and dropped her head back. “Aargh! Why does everything have to take off right when I’m also about to take off?”
Donovan slung his arm around Echo’s shoulders. “Come on, darling. Lucius is right.” He took a step toward the door, but she didn’t move.
“Dad. I can’t leave. There’s too much to do,” she pled. “Somebody needs to talk to sales and marketing. We should probably be booking new ads. We need to get the publicity department up to speed.”
