Whereas my house was built on two floors and had three bedrooms on the top floor, with a small one on the ground that I’d turned into a home office, Evie’s had only been built on one level. Because it was on the curve of the road, though, her yard extended farther back than mine, allowing her the space to have the pool, massive trampoline, and a decently sized chicken coop for the poultry terrorists who were all standing by the wire, watching what was going on.
Bernice, Razzle, and Rocket had played for about twenty minutes before Evie’s dogs had decided it was nap time, leaving Bernice sitting to attention beside Evie while she laughed with her friends.
I definitely found what was happening amusing, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from going back to Evie’s mouth. Just then, she caught me doing it and blushed.
“So, things seem to be changing between you guys,” Tabby whispered as she leaned closer. “What happened?”
Sheena chose to launch herself toward me, jerking her poor mom’s arms with the force of it. Catching her, I bought some time while I tried to figure out how much to divulge. I wasn’t a sharing guy when it came to shit like this, and Tabby was my daughter-in-law, for Christ’s sake.
Accurately reading me, she looked around at the others, then muttered, “For the love of Pete, Alex, just spit it out. I’m your daughter-in-law, yes, but I’m also a friend. The former doesn’t outweigh the latter on things like this because all we want is for you to be happy. If we can give you advice or help you, we will.”
Smiling as Sheena pointed at Evie and squealed, I laid it out. “We fell asleep on the couch together last night and kissed this morning. That’s it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tabby do a fist pump. “That’s awesome.”
“It is,” I agreed, keeping my voice low and my focus on my granddaughter.
Fuck, my granddaughter. I was a grandfather, and Evie was a mom with a teenager—how fucked up was that?
“What’s that frown for? Don’t you like her?”
Groaning, I angled my body toward her, almost like I was trying to prevent Evie from being able to see what I was saying. “Tabby, don’t you think it’s weird that a man my age—a man who’s holding his grandchild—likes a woman Evie’s age who has an eleven-year-old son?”
“Not at all,” Bex said behind me, making me jump. “Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying—”
“Yes, you could. You’re nosy and deliberately leaned in,” Tabby snickered.
I looked over my shoulder in time to see Bex shrug and look unrepentant.
“How else am I meant to hear what y’all are talking about? Anyway,” she poked me in the arm. “Evie’s a total babe and one of the nicest women I’ve ever met. You know how she doesn’t get involved in drama? Well, remember how Dirk Kirkwood cornered me in the store and threatened my job and said he’d have Pops exhumed?”
We both nodded, remembering it well. Our former mayor—a corrupt son of a bitch—had been under investigation for the shit he and his family had been getting up to, and one of the people he’d tried to involve in it had been Bexley and her family.
She was an English teacher at Piersville High School, and he’d approached her in the store after she’d used a literary classic to make a point to some students and threatened her job because of it. After that, he’d told her he was going to get her recently deceased, and much loved grandfather exhumed from where he’d just been buried and prevent him from being buried elsewhere within the town’s limits.
It was so fucked up. Fortunately, he and his sons were now incarcerated and paying for their crimes, but I could only imagine what Bex had felt when he’d made the threats.
“Well, Evie defended me and then helped me afterward. I was shaken and felt sick, but she helped me more than she’ll ever know with what she said to me. She’s good peeps.”
Glancing at the women, I saw they were now washing the color off the mannequin’s hair. “She’s not that much younger than you, Alex, so who cares? It’s legal, not immoral, and you’re both free and single to get together, so what’s the problem?”
“Will people think our age difference is weird?”
“You and Lisa had him when you were sixteen, Alex,” Tabby said softly. “You’ve just turned fifty-one, and Evie’s thirty-eight. She’s not that much younger than you in the grand scheme of things. And with there not being that much of an age difference between you and Dave, it’d be hard to avoid being in this position unless you went for a certain age range or a woman who was older than you.”