I pop a piece of watermelon in my mouth, studying her carefully, but she’s careful to school her features. I met Derrick briefly when he came to get my car earlier this week. I remember him as thickly muscled, with a sleeve tattoo comprised of various nautical pieces that peek out beneath the thin, gray cotton shirt that boasted the logo of the auto shop he owns. His square jaw was covered in at least a day’s growth of whiskers, and a hat pulled low on his forehead covered his closely cropped hair. He had a warm, slow, Southern drawl that made me think I’d be perfectly content to listen to him reading me the phone book.
“Was he here with Rachel?” Nora questions. Her head tilts in my direction as she explains, “Rachel is his wife. He met her in Vegas a few months ago. He went there for a weekend with his old Navy buddies and came home with a wife.”
“Of course he is here with Rachel.” Monroe practically snaps—the first time I’ve heard her anywhere close to this upset. My eyebrows rise as I look over to Nora who has a small smile on her face, though she doesn’t exactly look happy.
“Roe…”
“Don’t.” Monroe does snap this time. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I just thought you’d like to know your car was almost ready, Tristan. Dad mentioned you weren’t thrilled to be borrowing Mama’s car.” Her tone changes at the end of her statement. She’s pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head, and I can see the desperation to change the conversation burning in her eyes.
So I pick up the topic she’s so handily laid out in front of me and run with it. “I’m just not used to virtual strangers letting me borrow their car. And I looked it up online. That is not a cheap vehicle. I sure as hell wouldn’t let someone I didn’t know borrow it.”
“Mama G would literally give her car away if someone needed it. That’s just the type of person she is.” Nora watches her friend for another second but wisely doesn’t bring Derrick up again. The conversation takes a few twists and turns, but I do my best to steer clear of any conversation revolving around my relationship with Owen, my car being vandalized, or Derrick Stewart. Lesa picks up the mantel, adding to some of the more colorful stories I had from patients while working at the emergency room just outside of DC, with some horror stories of her own. Lesa spent some time working at the hospital in Savannah. I’m just grateful to have the conversation off of Owen and me.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I would say about Owen and me. I can’t get the man to answer me whenever I ask him what in the hell it is we’re doing. He changes the subject, and somehow, every damn time, I let it happen without even realizing it. It frustrates the hell out of me—both the fact that he won’t answer the question and the fact that I somehow keep letting him get away with not answering it.
Lesa is telling some story about a man who had been brought into the ER claiming to be Frosty the Snowman. He’d tried to sleep in his cooler, and thankfully had been found by his roommate before he’d frozen to death. While she’s talking, I take the time to skim the crowd in search of Owen and Stella. It takes me a few minutes to find them in the ever-growing crowd, but I finally see them playing in a bubble machine. Owen has Stella lifted high up in the air as they run around and chase the bubbles that are being missed by the kids running around on the ground.
Stella is giggling like a mad child, her head thrown back, and her arms stretched up wide in the air to reach the bubbles. Owen is laughing as he runs around, dodging the other kids.
I feel my heart stutter in my chest again, watching them, so I force myself to look away and come back to the conversation at the table. Somehow it has moved to football.
“It’s Owen’s turn to host Sunday football.”
Monroe snorts. “Which means it’s my turn. That man never actually hosts. He doesn’t like to cook. I don’t know why he doesn’t just order pizza and dump some pretzels in a bowl like Bash does when he hosts. Or order subs like Wyatt does. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
“I’m sure we wouldn’t want to eat anything the man made anyway.” Nora takes another long drink from her glass.
“What are football Sunday’s?” I question them.
“Every Sunday, during football season, we get together and hang out and watch football games all afternoon. And we eat, usually better at my house or Monroe’s house, but never at Owen’s. He always wiggles his way out of hosting.”
“Are you bitching about me again?” Owen comes to stand behind me at the table. He smiles when he sees me looking around. “Ma came and grabbed her from me. She’s in good hands.”
“We’re merely stating that it’s your turn to host tomorrow and you’re going to convince us that there is some reason we can’t have it at your house.”
“Fumes,” he says automatically. “There are some kind of fume that means we shouldn’t be at my place.”
Monroe rolls her eyes. “See. He comes up with stupid reasons. You could at least get more creative. I’m pretty sure fumes is the excuse you used last time.”
“I’ll cook.” The words pop out before I can stop them. Everyone turns to look directly at me, and I shrug my shoulders in response to their looks. “I mean, I love to cook, so I don’t mind coming over tomorrow and cooking at your place, Owen.”
“Looks like those fumes have suddenly cleared right up,” he says with a grin. “I can’t wait to taste your food.”
I groan softly. “How did you make that sound dirty? How do you do that with everything?”
“I think you just have a dirty mind.”
My mouth drops open. “I do not!” I deny loudly. “I’m a mother!”
He snorts. “And that matters how exactly?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I have no idea.”
“Exactly,” he says with a smile. “I really think you’re the one with the dirty mind—not me.”
“Now that I know isn’t true.” I grin, leaning forward like I’m going to kiss him. I think better of it at the last second, resting back. He’s kissed me a few times, but I’m still uncertain exactly what it is we’re doing here, and I don’t want to assume. But the frown on his face tells me he’s not happy that I didn’t follow through. He dips down and drops a kiss on my lips.
“Mama!” Stella comes running over, her shirt wet from the bubble machine, and chocolate ice cream smeared around her mouth. “Mama G said next week we can haf a pawty. Can we, please?”
“What?” I ask, my brow wrinkling in confusion. “What party?”
Maureen laughs as she joins us, running a hand over the top of Stella’s head. “I thought next Saturday I could keep Stella for a few hours so you and Owen could have a chance to have some alone time.” Her eyes crinkle with her smile, and I can’t help but wonder if Owen’s mother is trying to set it up so I can have sex with her son. The twinkle in her eye as she looks at me is pretty telling.
“I would hate to be a bother,” I start, but I’m quickly interrupted.
“Oh, it wouldn’t be a bother,” Maureen says. “It’ll be nice for Liam and me to have a little one around the house again, even if only for a short while. It gets so quiet out here without the kids running around annoying each other.”