“Nope. Your life.” He grins. “Now come on. We have somewhere to be.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere.”
“Unless that’s the name of an actual place, that’s a cop-out.”
He laughs and heads for the door. “Come on, Hawkeye.”
“I’m not dressed to go anywhere,” I say, looking at my dirty shirt and shorts. “I’m not presentable.”
The light fills the room as he pulls the door open. He stops with his hand on the knob and looks at me. He grins. “There’s not a damn thing wrong with how you look. Now come on before dinner gets cold.”
He bows his head and heads out the door. I follow, my cheeks aching from the smile on my face.
Ten
Peck
“Here we are,” I say.
My truck rolls to a stop next to Nana’s rose bushes. I cut the engine and take a deep breath.
Although I’ve never lived in the white house with black shutters, it’s the place I think of when someone says the word “home.” It’s where I’d go if I had a bike wreck—or a car accident as I grew up. This is the place for pot roast on Sunday afternoons, and where my cousins and I would gather to watch baseball games or fighting events because she’d fix us so much food we couldn’t eat it all. Christmases have always been held here, and the lawn has hosted more Easter egg hunts than any place I’ve ever been. Even now that we’re all in our late twenties and early thirties, we still hunt candy-filled eggs each spring just because it makes Nana happy.
And maybe us.
I look over my shoulder and see Dylan looking at me.
“Why do you look nervous?” she asks.
“I’m not.”
“Liar.”
Either I’m way too easy to read, or she’s making a stab in the dark, but she’s not altogether wrong.
I’ve never done this. Sure, I’ve watched my cousins bring girls to Nana’s house dozens of times, but I’ve never walked through her door with a woman. It’s always felt like a big deal to me. Like bringing a lady to meet the most important person in my life would be the moment I knew I’d found the person for me.
Yet here I am, sitting in the driveway with a girl I barely know.
I just invited her to tag along like I was heading to Carlson’s Bakery or something. I blurted it out before thinking it through beforehand—something Walker and Sienna say I need to do more often.
Clearly, they’re right.
Dylan leans against the door, squaring her shoulders to me. “Just because I’m staying at your house for a while doesn’t mean you have to cart me all over the world with you.” Her eyes glint with mischief. “I mean, unless you think I’m gonna steal your stuff while you’re gone or something.”
I laugh. “I have a history with you that makes me believe you’re anti-theft. Plus, you have this vigilante justice thing going on—ouch!” I say as she takes a swipe at my shoulder.
She laughs too. “Honestly, though. I can see you’re having second thoughts about bringing me here. I can just sit in the car. I’m totally cool with that.”
I consider for a split second backing down the driveaway and heading toward Carlson’s after all, but the longer I take in her button nose and the spray of freckles across her cheeks, the more I kind of want to take her into Nana’s with me.
She’s just a friend. It’s not like I’m taking a girlfriend.
Totally different thing.
I think.
“Come on,” I tell her as I pop open my door. “Let’s go.”
“Peck …”
“If you don’t come on, there won’t be any food left, and I’m not gonna feel bad that I’m stuffed and you’re starving.”
The passenger’s door squeaks as she pushes it open. The metal clinks as she swings it shut. I stand at the front of my truck and wait on her.
She rounds the corner, shaking her shirt. “You could’ve at least let me clean up.”
I could’ve. But something tells me Nana will like her just fine the way she is.
“Nah,” I say.
“This will be a terrible first impression.”
“Don’t worry,” I say as we head toward the back door. “You’ll never get the honor of being the worst impression anyone has ever made on Nana. That goes to a girl Vincent brought here in high school. In a bikini.” I laugh at the memory of Nana’s reaction. “I think she was a little drunk too.”
Dylan’s eyes go wide. “What? Drunk and naked? Was he out of his mind?”
“I’m not sure Vincent was ever in his right mind back in those days.”
I pause at the ramp leading up to the back door. Dylan eyes me carefully with a smidgen of trepidation in her eyes as she walks slowly up the wooden planks. I follow, gazing at a trail of dirt down her right side. It bends at the curve of her hip and slides down the back of her shorts.