It was my turn to punch Lenny in the shoulder, and I never did that.
Unfortunately, she didn’t flinch or even act like she’d felt anything as she nodded in agreement to her grandpa’s question.
I didn’t even know why it surprised me she had told him about him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mr. Cooper flinch. The man was for all intents and purposes, my adoptive dad. There had been a reason why I had told him that we had broken up after a month becausethings weren’t working out. Not because me and the man I had briefly dated had wanted me to call him freakingDaddy.
“I didn’t like him either,” the man, who was right around Mr. Cooper’s age, if not a year or two older, agreed. “Now the silver-haired one I did like, Luna.”
I had too.
“He was all right,” Lenny sort-of agreed but then shook her head. “But it’s been more than three years, and I think it’s time we found ‘someone’ a new boyfriend.” As if thesomeonewasn’t obvious enough, she had the nerve to point at me.
I just shook my head, my gut telling me this was spiraling out of control too fast. “I’m fine,” I tried to insist, even though… well, even though I did want someone in my life.
Joining in on the conversation now, Lydia leaned forward from her spot two seats down and reached across to pat my hand. “Lenny’s got a point, Luna. You would be happy by yourself, but life is always better with other people to share it with, don’t you think?”
I blinked.
“I know a few nice men I could set you up with,” the woman kept going, her face thoughtful. “Let me make sure they aren’t in relationships, and I’ll get back to you.”
I was going to kill Lenny.
“That’s all right, you don’t have to—”
“ARE YOU TRYING TO START DATING AGAIN, LUNA?” Lily basically shouted across the table.
Scratch that. I was going to drag out her torture. For years.
I shook my head at my sister then
forced myself to smile. “Lily, why don’t you show everyone pictures of the house you’re going to be living in while you’re at school? It’s pretty nice—”
My traitor-butt little sister pretended like she didn’t hear me as she kept going. “MY P.E. TEACHER THOUGHT YOU WERE REALLY CUTE, AND HE JUST BROKE UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND.”
Did she have to shout that? But how she knew he thought I was cute, much less why she knew he’d broken up with his girlfriend, was beyond me.
“Nope, that’s all right—” I started to say before Lenny’s bish self cut me off.
“There’s a guy or two at Maio House who aren’t total pieces of shit I could introduce you to.” She was referring to the mixed martial arts gym where we had met. The same gym that her grandfather owned and that she worked part-time at. Someday, when Grandpa Gus finally decided to retire, she would end up taking over running it.
I could already imagine how her fixing me up with someone from there would go. That idea probably caused me more panic than Mr. Cooper knowing some guy—the second man I had ever slept with—had wanted me to call him Daddy while he’d been… doing it. God. He was probably scarred for life now. I really was going to kill Lenny. I really was. I would miss her for the rest of my life, but it had to be done. It really did.
“Or you could not. Just throwing that out there,” I told her, focusing on that for the time being instead of Mr. Cooper’s future nightmares.
She gave me a face I knew too well. “I know other people not from there I could set you up with. My people know people. It’d be easy. Right, Grandpa?”
My people know people.
These were my loved ones.
This entire conversation was my fault. I should have never brought up wanting to have kids someday. If I would have just kept my mouth closed….
“I’ve got a couple men in mind….” Grandpa Gus trailed off, getting a distant and way too thoughtful look on his face.
All right. This had gone on long enough. “Thank you, everyone, even you yelling over there for the entire restaurant to hear that you can fix me up, but I can find my own dates.”
I didn’t even believe that myself, and by the silence that responded to me, neither did they.
