Peter smiled. “She said,Are you seriously tan all over?And I think I said,Yes?And then she kind of shook her head and made aHarold and Maudereference, which I also didn’t get at the time. That’s that cult classic movie—”
“About the suicidal kid who gets into an intimate relationship with an eighty-year-old woman,” Shay finished for him. She knew. “Lisa seriously thought…?”
“That I was banging her aunt H,” Pete, in turn, finished for her.
And there was another creative use of that verbto bang,also used with authenticity.
Was he?Harry wondered.
Shhh,Shay murmured silently.
“At the time, I was clueless,” Peter was continuing with a rueful shrug. “Lisa told me later, you know, that that was what she’d thought. She and her family lived just a few blocks over and a neighbor told her about some kid with really long hair visiting Hiroko at odd hours. So Lisa came swooping in to protect and defend.”
“That’s really sweet,” Shayla said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure about that,” he said. “Yes, it’s what she said, but in truth, it was more complicated. Hiroko and Lisa didn’t always get along. It’s possible Lisa was looking for leverage or even blackmail material—more about power and self-defense. But that’s not for Maddie to hear. Anyway, I’m standing there, with literally nothing to hide as Lisa grills me as to how I met Hiroko, and where I’m from, and what I’m doing there. I told her, and I guess she believed me.
“She finally stood up and handed me my towel, probably because she’d also figured out that she was way more embarrassed than I was about the full frontal nudity. But then she said,Hurry up and get dressed, Goldie. We’re already late for school. I’ll wait for you in your car.” Pete smiled at the memory. “So I drove her to school, and I’m thinking,Okay, that was interesting,but now it was over. You know, it felt kind of like an alien encounter—I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna happen again. Except the next day, after my shower, I head for my car, and she’s sitting in the front seat. She hated riding the bus, so it became a regular thing. She called me hercarpool buddy—when she wasn’t calling meGoldieorGoldilocks.She was funny and smart and blindingly attractive, and she gave me her full attention for twenty minutes every day. I’d get in the car and she’d announce a topic of discussion.Kirk or Picard?The Beatles: Yes or No? Who’d Win a Wrestling Match: George Bernard Shaw or Shakespeare? Was FilmingFlipperAnimal Abuse?
“A few days in, I remember thinking,Huh, I kinda don’t hate it here anymore.A week later, I’m allYup, I love San Diego. And a few days after that, I knew I was doomed, because I recognized that what I really loved—whoI really loved—was Lisa Nakamura.”
Shayla was typing as fast as her fingers could move, but she just had to glance up, because his tone—his voice—had changed. He sounded softer—dreamy—and yeah, his face and body language had softened perceptibly, too. His eyes were distant and warm—he’d time traveled. And she knew she was looking at the ghost of teenaged Peter Greene, and she wished Maddie could see just how powerful and pure his love for her mother had once been.
He wasn’t done. “I was smart enough to recognize that when a girl—especially a senior who was already dating the school’s star athlete—used words likebuddyand nicknames likeGoldilocks,” he continued, “Well, the chances that she’d fall in love with me were a snowball’s in hell.”
Shayla nodded as she transcribed his words. This was good. With just a few minor tweaks, it would be ready to send.
Still, she wondered if Maddie would recognize what she did—that the melting-in-hell snowball really represented Lisa’s chances ofnotfallingfor Peter. There was no way on earth that that boy could have successfully hidden his feelings from anyone, let alone the object of his affection. And that much adoration would’ve been hard for anyone to resist.
Also?Harry pointed out,Lisa had seen him naked, in his all-over golden-tan glory.
Yup. Game. Over.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thursday
Tevin was in the kitchen, doing his preworkout morning zombie shuffle, when Shayla was ready to leave.
It wasn’t quite sixA.M., but she’d glanced out the window to see Peter already waiting for her, standing in his driveway beside his truck, checking his phone.
He was wearing…“Oh, dear God.”
“Everything all right?” Tevin asked. He looked out the window, too, and saw the SEAL, who was wearing his Naval Officer uniform—the short-sleeved sleek white version, rows upon rows of colorful ribbons on his broad chest. “That’sthe neighbor you’re helping? Go, Moms.”
“It’s not like that,” Shay said. “Not even remotely.”
“Well, why not?” Tevin looked so much like his father, it was sometimes startling. That quicksilver smile, those adorable dimples and laughing brown eyes, that same warm umber tone to his perfect skin…But when he walked and talked, Tevin was absolutely his own sweet self. Dynamic, creative, original, sensitive, caring…Her baby boy, in a nearly grown man’s body.
“Well, he’s younger than I am, for one thing,” Shay said.
T looked out the window again. “Not bythatmuch,” he countered. “Tiffany’s, like, fifteen years younger than Dad. Nobody’s got problems with that.”
He had a point. Even Shayla liked Carter’s latest live-in girlfriend. Tiffany might have been young, but she was smart, funny, open, and she genuinely cared about the boys.
Tevin grinned. “What’s that old movie you like to watch whenever you get the flu?”
Shayla knew exactly the movie to which her cinema-loving son was referring, but she pretended not to. “The Bodyguard? Whitney Houston?I-eee-I! Will always love—”
