I couldn’t wait for Mitchell to find out we were headed to the police station. His dream was to become a cop, like his father was. Unfortunately, his father died in the line of duty, leaving his mother to raise three boys on her own. That was the main reason they left California and moved back to Colorado, so Mrs. Haus could be close to her family to help with the boys.
“Yep, we are for sure headed out on a field trip today. Have you had lunch yet?”
Mitchell shook his head. “No ma’am.”
Grabbing my purse, I motioned for Mitchell to follow me. “Good, because I’m starving.”
I decided to take Mitchell to one of my favorite places to eat lunch. Snow was slowly falling, making it a bit tricky to drive for me, seeing as I was still new to driving in this stuff. If it snowed in Texas, everything shut down and you stayed home.
“I hope you like pizza!” I said as we walked into Fired Up Pizzeria.
Mitchell laughed. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”
“I can’t argue with you on that one. Let’s grab that table over there before someone else snags it.”
After sitting down and ordering our drinks, Mitchell and I settled into a casual conversation about how school was going. His grades, how his little brothers were adjusting to life in Colorado as well as how his mom was doing.
Mitchell glanced up and smiled as I felt warm breath hit my neck. “Hey beautiful,” Gray whispered as he placed a kiss on the side of my face. I instantly felt my cheeks flush as I glanced over to Mitchell. The goofy smile on his face spoke volumes.
“Ah, Meg has herself a boyfriend!” Mitchell teased as Gray reached out and shook Mitchell’s hand.
“Indeed she does. You must be Mitchell, Meg speaks very highly of you.”
Now it was Mitchell who turned red. “Mitchell, this is my boyfriend, Grayson, but everyone calls him Gray.”
“The pleasure is all mine, sir,” Mitchell said. It didn’t take long for both men to get lost in the talk of sports as I watched Mitchell. Seeing him so happy was a far cry from a few months ago when his mother sat across from me in my office and told me her son hated life.
The adjustment from being one of the best high school football players in Sacramento, California and a super popular kid, to someone who had to fight to get onto the football team and was hated almost instantly by a group of jealous guys, had been a hard one. The fact that Mitchell was so good had intimidated the other players. Instead of them welcoming him in . . . they shunned him. It didn’t help matters any more when recruiters from colleges kept showing up to watch him play.
“So you’ve already had colleges interested since your sophomore year? Man dude, that is impressive.”
Mitchell grinned. “Yeah, it was crazy. When we told my football coach we were moving, I was almost positive I saw a tear in his eye.”
Grayson and I both laughed. “It was hard at first moving here. It didn’t help that a scout from Stanford showed up to talk to the football coach before I was even here.”
Mitchell looked down. “I think that’s why I had all the trouble when I first moved here. A lot of guys on the football team gave me hell.”
“Why?” I asked with a frown.
Mitchell shrugged. “A few of them accused me of coming here to get away from the competition in California. Like I was looking to catch recruiters’ eyes here better or something. It’s all so stupid.”
“How are things now?” Grayson asked. Mitchell seemed to be so at ease with Gray. I was stunned at how openly he was talking about all of this to him. I had to practically pull it out of Mitchell and that was after hours of working to gain his trust.
“It’s better. Once I actually got on the team and started playing. Casey helps though.”
With a smile, Grayson asked, “And who might Casey be?”
“Casey is Mitchell’s girlfriend. Things going okay with y’all?”
Mitchell laughed. “Dude, I’m still not used to you saying y’all. But to answer your question, things are going good. Casey’s been a big help with me getting settled in and feeling accepted.”
Grayson frowned. “I’m sure you’d fit in just fine though without Casey.”
Mitchell shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”
The rest of lunch was spent mostly with Grayson and Mitchell talking football.
After paying the waitress, I grinned and said, “You ready for my surprise?”
Mitchell chuckled. “Surprise? I thought we were going on a field trip.”
“It’s both!” I said as I slid out of the booth while Grayson held onto my hand. Lifting the back of my hand to his lips, Grayson kissed me softly and winked before turning to Mitchell and reaching for his hand to shake it.
“I’ll meet you both over at the station.”
Mitchell looked between Grayson and me confused. “O-okay see you at the . . . station?”
As we walked out to my car, Mitchell laughed. “So what station are we going to? Like the police station?”
Hitting the button to unlock my car, I glanced over to Mitchell. “That’s exactly where we’re going.”
Grayson