Mrs.Matthews sniffed.“What are you having?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs,” Hutch told her.
“Garlic bread?”she asked.
“Salad,” he answered.
She curled her lip.
Then she shouted, “Mark!We’re staying for dinner!”
Hutch went to open the door.
Mrs.Matthews swept off her hat and gloves and gave them to me like I was the butler, then turned her back to me so I’d help her with her coat.
Oh yeah.
She liked me.
And I liked her.
Hutch was welcoming Mark in as I took her coat and was beckoning her into the kitchen where the only coat hooks were, seeing as Hutch usually went in and out the back door.
“Wait until you see Hutch’s kitchen,” I told her.
“A kitchen’s a kitchen,” she repeated Hutch’s words.
Then she stopped dead when we hit the kitchen.
“Now do you see what I’m saying?”I asked.
“I feel like I’ve stepped back in time,” she replied, gazing around in what I estimated was Mrs.Matthews’s wonder, that being appearing mildly interested.
“Exactly,” I said as I hung up her coat.
“Beer, Mark?”Hutch asked as he took Mark’s coat to the hooks.
“Good for me,” Mark answered, giving me a chin-dip dude hello.
“I’ll have wine,” Mrs.Matthews announced.
“Sorry.We don’t have any wine,” Hutch told her.
“You don’t have any wine?”She sounded incensed.
Unh-hunh.
So totally liked her.
Hutch looked like he was about to bust out laughing.
He liked her too.
But this was good.
Far better than the Mr.Overprotective vibe he’d been exuding, a vibe that gave me Ms.Worried About Her Guy’s State of Mind vibes.
“No,” he replied about the wine.
