And, well… he wouldn’t be wrong. Or not by much, anyway.
She was never quite sure how much he understood about adult things – on the one hand, he was a bright kid, but on the other, he could be so quiet that she often didn’t know what he thought about any given situation unless she actively asked him.
On theotherother hand, she was pretty sure that he understood that nobody wanted to have their panties out on display to strangers.
She was vaguely aware of Ash cracking the door open ever so slightly to say hello to Calvin, Bella excitedly trying to shove her head through the door in order to get outside, and Diana took the opportunity to grab the entire rack, stagger across the room and down the hallway, and heave the whole thing through the bedroom doorway before slamming the door behind it, studiously ignoring the sound of the rack hitting the floor and taking her freshly laundered intimates with it.
Taking the briefest of looks in the hallway mirror and confirming that she looked like a sweaty, half-crazed mess, Diana ran her hands fruitlessly through her tangled hair, plastered a smile on her face, and returned to the front door, where Ash was still holding Calvin hostage.
“Oh, hi!” she said breezily. “Come on in.”
“Are you sure?” Calvin said uncertainly through the gap. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“Oh, no, you’re not intruding at all,” Diana said, gesturing for Ash to open the door properly. “There was just a bee inside, so I was shooing it out the back door. It’s all good now.”
Ash looked mildly shocked at this blatant violation of their shared ‘no lies’ policy, but Diana widened her eyes slightly in a way that clearly indicatedWe’ll talk about it later,and he wisely kept his mouth shut.
“Well, it’s important to look after pollinators,” Calvin said, and Diana swooned a little.
Gorgeous, kind,andenvironmentally minded? Sign me up!!
Calvin stepped through the doorway, ducking his head ever so slightly even though he had a couple of inches’ clearance, and Diana guessed that he’d learned the hard way to err on the side of caution.
She supposed that there had to besomesort of downside to being so tall and rugged and handsome.
“You can put your bag in the corner,” she said, watching the easy grace of his movements as he did so. Everything he did was smooth and effortless, like some sort of wild creature. Diana would bet that he’d never had so much as a creaky joint in his life. Lower back pain was surely unknown to him.
Fidgeting in the silence, she blurted, “Would you like to have that shower now?”
If the silence had been awkward before, it was positively horrendous now. Calvin blinked, and the deer-in-the-headlights look was surprisingly cute on him.
“Or would you like a cold drink?” she added quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rush you. Please, have a seat.”
“If there’s a drink on offer, I certainly won’t say no,” Calvin said, easing himself into a chair at the dining table. The chair looked almost ridiculously small beneath his enormous frame, but luckily it seemed to be holding up.
“Great. Fantastic,” Diana said, forcing a smile. “Do you like ginger beer?”
“We finished that last night,” Ash piped up.
Crap. We did, too.
“That’s okay,” Diana said, keeping the smile firmly affixed to her face, even as internally she was screaming a little. “I’ll find something. Ash, do you want to chat with Calvin, or would you like to come into the kitchen and help me look?”
She was giving him an out – Ash could be painfully shy, and while she always made sure that he at least said hello to visitors, she would often let him go to his room after a while if it was clear that he was feeling overwhelmed. And he probably didn’t want to hang around with a stranger while his mom made painful attempts at flirting.
But, to her surprise, Ash simply said, “Can I talk to Calvin?”
Taken aback, Diana blinked, before smiling. “Of course. You two chat, and I’ll see what I can rustle up.”
Calvin, to his credit, looked perfectly content with being put in the situation of having to talk to her introverted kid, and Diana smiled as she left the room.
He really is the perfect guy. Almosttooperfect. There has to be something wrong with him.
What it could possibly be, though, she had no idea.
Rummaging through the fridge with ever-increasing frustration, Diana quickly came to the conclusion that they had nothing to drink but water and milk.
Is the best thing I have to offerreallyice water?she thought with a sigh. It would have to do, though.
