“She doesn’t want to stay with anyone. She keeps telling me that she hasn’t lived under somebody else’s roof in over seventy years and she’s not gonna do it for any longer than she needs to. She offered to go stay with her sister who lives in a retirement community to ‘get out of my hair,’ but I’m not gonna let her live with anybody but me until her house gets fixed. She’s my grandma. I’m not about to pawn her off.”
I did not like this man as more than a friend. A passing acquaintance. He was just a nice guy and it made perfect sense to admire someone with his type of loyalty.
I did not like him. I didn’t. And I sure as hell wasn’t falling in love with him a little. No way.
While I was busy repeating to myself that, yes, I thought he was super-hot, and yes, his heart might be made of the finest silver in the land, but there were plenty of men like that in the world.
I didn’t even believe myself.
Dallas shoved the lid off the top of the crate and took a step back, eyeing me once before glancing back to the contents inside. “The motorcycle club is having a cook-off at the shop where Trip works to raise money for Nana’s house this weekend.”
Shit. I really had no business spending money on things while I couldn’t work. The flowers I’d bought for Miss Pearl had to be my one and only splurge for a long time.
He kept going. “This is the boys’ weekend with their grandparents, isn’t it?” I nodded and he did the same. “Come. I’ll buy you a plate.”
“You don’t have to—”
That big hand reached over to tap the back of my hand, his face tipped down and serious. “Are you ever going to accept me trying to be nice without arguing?”
I pressed my lips together for a second. “Probably not.”
He smiled. “Come.” He touched the back of my hand again. “Trip will be there.”
Why was my first thought,As long as you’re there, it’s fine with me?What waswrongwith me? I was asking for a mess. For pain. For heartbreak. For having to move one day.
And even knowing all of that, like an idiot, I didn’t say no, but I did sigh. “If you’re paying, Mr. Clean….”
* * *
“DIANA! MY HERO!”
Even surrounded by what looked like at least 100 people hanging around the lot of the mechanic shop right by the salon, I still managed to pull that one familiar voice yelling out of the air. Smirking, I glanced around from face to face until I found the one I was looking for in the crowd, pushing his way through. The big smile on Trip’s face was obviously the result of being a little drunk.
“Hey.” I waved at him, trying to see if I recognized anyone else at the cookout Dallas had invited me to.
Trip tossed an arm over my shoulder as he pulled me into his side, giving me a side hug. “How you holdin’ up?”
“Better.” I held up my bandaged hand. The blisters had finally started to go away, leaving tight, red skin behind. A couple of days ago, for some reason I was beyond understanding, I’d looked up burns online and almost lost my lunch. Things could have been a lot worse; I wasn’t going to complain about my injury after I’d seen that.
“Looks like shit to me,” he stated, inspecting my hand but keeping his arm on my shoulder and the other at his side. “What do you wanna eat? I’ll get you a plate. Where the boys at?” He was leading me through the people, and I took in the leather vests of the motorcycle club and the other dozens of people who looked like a mash-up of early twenties women to mid-thirties men, to forty, fifty and sixty-year-old people in jeans, layers, and more leather vests.
I thought about asking where Dallas was, but I kept it to myself. I needed to quit with the Dallas thing. “They’re with their grandparents. What did you try already?”
He hummed. “Brisket is pretty good. The ribs are pretty good. Steaks aren’t as good as yours—”
“Remember arguing with me over making them on the cast iron?”
Trip squeezed me to his side as he chuckled. “Yeah, I ‘member. I bought a cast iron skillet last time I ran to the store. I was gonna check up on you during practice on Thursday, but we get so busy with all the parents wanting to talk about how their kid needs more play time.” He made a grunting noise.
I snickered. “Don’t worry. I know we’re friends.”
“We sure as fuck are, honey,” he confirmed as we came up to three big barbecue pits lined up nearly side by side. “What are you in the mood for?”
I told him what I wanted: brisket and grilled corn on the cob. When the pretty girl helping the thin, elderly gray-haired man at the barbecue pit scooped some potato salad onto my plate, Trip whistled. “You’re a doll, Iris.”
“Fuck off, Trip,” a tall man who had been standing off to the side with a toddler strapped to his back and a baby wrapped in a pink blanket in his arms snarled. I looked once at him and then one more time before glancing away. There were tattoos up to the man’s neck and he had the grumpiest frown I’d ever seen on anyone, but that didn’t change the fact that his face alone could have impregnated some woman.
“Yeah, yeah.” Trip ignored him, winking at the girl helping to serve.
