Apparently, the whole thing was her house. She’d raised three babies in it. Then, as her health declined, she’d chosen to move into the smaller part of the house for less upkeep.
And now, or at least before I’d moved in, she was having her grandson keep the main house in tip-top shape, and she was just biding her time before the grandson wanted to move into it.
It worked out great for me seeing as I’d needed a bigger place to stay—sure, I hadn’t needed twenty fucking bedrooms—but I’d needed more room, nonetheless.
“Because my old place’s lease was expiring, and I needed more room.” I pointed to my still-flat stomach.
Hastings looked at it, then hers.
“Maybe I’ll just move in here with you since your brother’s being such a dick right now,” she muttered darkly.
I laughed. “My brother is an opinionated asshole, and he’ll come around. All of them will. Eventually they’ll get over the shock of me being pregnant, breaking up with Mark whom they all loved, and moving out all within a week timespan.” I paused. “Right now, they think I’m having some sort of mid-twenty crisis. They think I’m setting myself up for failure or something.”
“Are you?” she asked curiously.
I rolled my eyes.
“No,” I said. “I just want a freakin’ kid. Why is that so bad?”
She leaned her hip against the still-ticking lawnmower. “I don’t think it’s bad. I wish I had half the confidence that you do. Fuck!”
Then she punched the air.
“That’s new,” I said as I noticed her new move.
Hastings had Tourette’s.
She was a sweet, beautiful young woman who said fuck a lot.
The thing was, I said fuck a lot and I didn’t even have the excuse of having a disease to blame it on.
“I know,” she grumbled. “It’s annoying, too. Especially when there happens to be something in front of me when I do it. I punched your brother in the nipple this morning. He has a bruise.”
“Sucks to be a little bitch like him,” I teased. “Are you going to be okay to make it back in the dark?”
Hastings had planned on just stopping to say hi, but then we’d gotten to talking and one thing had led to another and now she’d been here for over an hour.
“I was thinking about calling your brother and asking him to come get me,” she admitted. “He doesn’t like it when I run in the dark.”
“How about you go hang out on the front porch on a rocking chair, and I’ll take you home when I get done mowing this last patch?” I suggested.
She gave me a thumbs up. “Sounds good.”
So that was what we did.
I mowed the last patch of yard, then put the lawnmower away in the most immaculately kept barn I’d ever seen, then gestured for Hastings to meet me at my car.
“A new car, too?” she said as she took it in.
I looked at the Challenger.
“Actually, no,” I confessed. “I was in a wreck two days ago and they’re repairing it. Some fool fifteen-year-old decided to take a merry little drive through town. He hit me at the turns right by the school. Caused four thousand dollars’ worth of damage, too. Now I’m going to have a wreck on my history when I do go and trade it in a few months.”
“A fifteen-year-old?” she said as she climbed into the Challenger. “What the hell?”
“Exactly what I said,” I admitted. “Though, I did used to drive to the corner store when I was fifteen. But that kid lives all the way outside of town. I’m not sure that I was quite that brave when I was that age. I did scare the crap out of the kid, though. He was texting and driving.”
“Oh, boy,” she said as she buckled herself in. “What did he do?” She tilted her head. “Or should I say what did you do?”
“Well,” I admitted. “First, I yelled at him. Then I called the cops. Then I yelled at him in front of his father. Then, when his mother got there, I yelled at her, too.”
Hastings snickered. “And how did the kid take it?”
“The kid is a spoiled little asshole,” I muttered. “I swear to God. They’d already bought him a brand-new Ford F-150. Like brand new, straight off the lot, all the bells and whistles. Do you want to know my first car?”
Hastings’ grin was infectious as we made it all the way out of my driveway and onto the road that we both lived off of a mile and a half apart.
“What?”
“A Volkswagen Rabbit. We used to call it the microwave. It was Sammy’s first, and then when I was old enough to drive, they bought him a new truck and then gave me that Rabbit. That thing was the shittiest little car I’d ever driven. Sammy practically ruined it. It smelled like beer and BO for the entire year that I drove it,” I explained.