Chapter 21

Zeke

"Doyou want me to knit you something?"

Rainey was tracing her finger across my chest, outlining each of my muscles and making me ticklish. I snatched her hand in mine and brought it to my lips to kiss each digit. My chest rumbled with barely awake laughter.

"Why would I want you to knit me something?"

She shrugged, her breast moving against my ribs and making me feel like waking her up three times last night had somehow not satiated anything. "Marlo is knitting Vander a pair of shorts."

That had me cracking up. Rainey's head bounced on my chest and she swatted at me to calm down. "I've seen him in his knitted apology pants. I don't want anything like that. There's a small hole on the back where she dropped a stitch or two and believe me when I say no one needs to see that much of Vander's ass."

"Maybe I could sew you a shirt?" She lifted her head. "Or design you a logo for your company? I saw you don't have one."

I tilted my head to look at her, wondering where all this was coming from. "I mean, sure. If you want to."

Her eyes lit up. "What's your favorite color? And do you like cartoon-type drawings or the, like, geometrical-type logos?"

"Um, blue and shapes, I guess." I rolled into her and clamped my fingers on her lips. "Enough with the questions, chatterbox. I need breakfast first."

When I let her go, she snapped her teeth at me playfully before disentangling and springing out of bed. I watched her bounce away, enjoying the view of her ass and legs and the way the ends of her hair flitted against her spine. Fuck, she was beautiful.

"What can I make? What's your favorite breakfast?" she asked while scooping my shirt off the ground and pulling it over her head. Fuck me, now she was even hotter, standing there naked under my T-shirt.

"Whatever has protein and keeps me full?" What was with the questions this morning? I didn't necessarily mind it, though it was different.

She opened her mouth, no doubt to play a game of Would You Rather, breakfast edition, but her phone buzzed on the bedside table where she had it plugged in and charging. She scooped it up and made a face.

"What?" There it was again, that black cloud casting shade over an otherwise perfect morning. I was instantly on alert, expecting bad news.

"It's Grandma Gertie. She wants to know if they can throw us a wedding reception or if we're still in our honeymoon phase."

That wasn't bad news. I slid my hand up the back of her bare thigh to squeeze her ass under the hem of the shirt. "Still in our honeymoon phase," I grunted. Rainey smirked and moved out of ass-grabbing range. She bit her lip as she moved her thumbs over the phone screen, which meant she was thinking. Hard. "Wait, has she been asking a lot?" Rainey hadn't said anything about pressure from her grandma.

She put the phone down and edged toward the doorway, not making eye contact. "Uh, yeah. Pretty much every other day."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pulled on a pair of workout shorts I'd folded but forgotten to put away. Dread sat like a brick in my empty stomach. "Why don't you want them to?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Seems like a lot of work for an old lady. She just doesn't need to do that." She rapped her knuckles against the doorframe. "Last chance to choose: omelette or french toast?"

"Both," I answered, no longer feeling happy and carefree like I had when I woke up this morning. Rainey may have asked to date me, but her mind was far from made up about leaving. If she already knew she wanted to stay, she would have let her grandma throw us a reception. The excuse about Gertie being old was lame and we both knew it. That woman could dance circles around us both. She went to the gym every single day and played pickleball in the afternoons. The truth was, if Rainey said yes to the party, she'd be publicly locking herself into staying.

"Both it is!" Rainey called, already heading down the hallway.

"Fuck," I muttered to the walls. I thought last night was a turning point in our relationship, but we were still where we'd always been: in limbo.

Breakfast was fantastic, even though I had to dodge more than twenty random questions about my likes and dislikes. It was like Rainey got ahold of some book promising one hundred perfect questions to ask on a first date. When I'd agreed to date her yesterday, I didn't think I was signing up for an interrogation.

Frustrated, I left after I helped clean up the kitchen, using work as an excuse. It was true, I did have a job to get to, but it could have waited if I wanted. I was on edge, happy on the surface but just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My truck and I wound through the town until I came out the other side. The town cemetery looked both somber and achingly beautiful with the morning sunlight filtering through the tall trees. I'd spent quite a bit of time there after my father passed away and I always appreciated how well Marlo and her family kept the sacred space.

Vander had bought the old Skinner House next door to the cemetery. I'd been doing quite a few projects for him since he moved here. We were in the process of converting the rambling house into a senior center, complete with owner's quarters in the back. He and Marlo already had five seniors staying with them and had capacity for three more if I could get the last few rooms finished. Today, he wanted to talk to me about the possibility of turning one of the four garage bays into an air-conditioned therapy room for his seniors. My reply was that everything was possible with enough money, but for my friend, I would try everything I could to keep the costs down. I knew he was a millionaire from selling his prior company, but Blueballers didn't gouge each other.

The doorbell chimes pealed out inside the house as I waited on the huge stone patio out front. The chair lift up the stairs to the front door had streamers tied to the back of it, either an addition by Gertie or Milly. Or possibly both. With those ladies, anything ridiculous was possible. Marlo opened the door and waved me in, her eyes narrowing on my bedhead. In my haste to get out of the house, I forgot to tame the hair that Rainey had gripped in her fists over and over last night.

"You look like you wrestled all night long instead of slept. Should I text Rainey and make sure she's walking okay this morning?" she asked dryly.

I shot her a look of death and destruction, but given she was the queen of both those lands, she was unaffected. "Where's the garage you want me to look at?"

Marlo huffed. "Oh, it's like that, huh? Okay, I'll play along." She put her hands to her mouth and shouted, "Vander? Zeke's here!"

Instead of summoning Vander, the elderly among them burst out of the kitchen like they'd been eavesdropping. Gertie approached first, giving me a hug and foisting me on Milly, who also insisted on a hug. Jerry, the surly senior who'd been here right from the start of the senior center, just gave me a head nod. Behind him were two men I hadn't met yet, but they looked vaguely familiar. Probably went to church with Wendy and my mother.

"Buzz and Arthur," Jerry said, then waved a hand at me. "Meet Zeke."

The two men eyed me with interest, elbowing each other over and over, which was weird, but then again, a houseful of seniors was weird in and of itself. I would have expected better behavior from a kindergarten class while their teacher left the classroom to go to the bathroom.

"Zeke!" Vander called from behind me.

I turned to greet him and groaned. "Not the fuckin' apology pants." Marlo smacked the back of my head and I winced. "I mean, they're perfect for a summer day. Got vents and all."

Vander frowned, clearly not understanding the problem with the dropped stitches in the back. Marlo sounded like she swallowed a laugh so at least she knew what I was referring to. The woman probably dropped those stitches on purpose. Vander pulled me into the garage and we discussed all the changes that would need to be made, permits to pull, and problem areas. Once we figured everything out in terms of the layout, I told him I could write up an estimate tonight and email it over.

"Only if you want. You know I'm going to go with you no matter what number you put on that estimate." Vander folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the rear garage wall. "The work you've done in the bedrooms is top notch."

"Thanks, man. I don't do anything half-ass."

Vander went to say something else, but was cut off by a shriek from a real live banshee inside the house. "Shit." He burst into action, flying back into the house with me hot on his heels. The scene we found in the front parlor that had become an activity room for the seniors was horrifying.

Jerry was standing on top of a chair with his face red and blotchy while Buzz and Arthur cheered him on. Milly was shouting at him to get down before he broke his short stubby neck. Gertie held up three playing cards and attempted to twerk. Or maybe she was tying her shoe. I wasn't quite sure and I didn't intend to look any longer to find out.

"Hey!" Vander got Jerry down. Marlo ran in and helped Gertie back in her chair. "What is going on here?"

"She cheated!" Jerry shouted, pointing at Gertie, who squawked like she'd been accused of murder.

Milly lifted her nose in the air and waited for the riffraff to quit yelling. "Gertie usually does cheat, but she didn't this time and Jerry can't stand that he's losing."

"He's losing our other bet too," Buzz chided. Arthur cracked up. Jerry's face shifted into something more purple than red.

"What bet? Guys, you know we made a house rule. No betting." Marlo folded her arms across her chest, properly chastising them with her scary frown. "I know where all of you are going to be buried one day and I can make sure all the stray cats piss on your graves."

Arthur dropped the grin immediately, his owl eyes behind coke-bottle glasses looking hurt. "Damn, Marlo, it was just a harmless bet about when Gertie's granddaughter would ditch Blueball again."

"Shh!" Jerry shot his friend a wide-eyed look and then swung his gaze to me.

"What?" Arthur asked, clearly puzzled what had the head senior crony upset.

"Are you kidding me?" Gertie snapped, throwing her cards down on the table.

I was both shocked and humiliated. The seniors of Blueball were betting on when my marriage would implode. They didn't even know it was a marriage of convenience and they still thought Rainey would run right out of this town and leave me behind.

Marlo put one hand on Gertie's shoulder and her other on my forearm. "How about you all go back to your rooms? And if you don't drop that bet, I'll kick your asses right out of Skinner House."

"And I'll make sure no other senior homes will take you in either," Vander threatened, clearly angry on my behalf.

The three men scraped back their chairs, but I'd heard too much to stay silent like I normally would. Everyone thought they could push around the quiet guys. Rainey had rolled right over me in high school and apparently thought she could do it still. My mother was right. I had to start standing up for myself and demanding the treatment I deserved.

I lifted my hand and pointed to the three men, pinning them with a look I hoped they wouldn't forget anytime soon. "You're all assholes. You know that, right? I've lived in Blueball my whole life. My dad before me dedicated his entire career to working on your houses. You go to church with my mother, for fuck's sake. And you have the audacity to sit here and place bets on my marriage imploding?" Buzz and Arthur had some semblance of manners as they dropped my gaze to study their white sneakers. "Blueballers don't do that to each other."

Marlo reached for me with both hands now, but I backed up. If I stayed any longer, I might have ended up in a fistfight with some old guys and that wouldn't be what a Blueballer should do either.

"I gotta go." And without another word, I stormed out of the house. I was almost in my truck when Gertie came flying down the front steps far faster than someone her age should. She paused at my door and caught her breath while I tried to tamp down the anger still burning in my chest.

"I'm proud of you, Zeke," she finally said. "I've never seen you act like a honey badger, and I'm just so damn proud you're sticking up for yourself."

This woman had seen me at my lowest points in life, both when Rainey left and when my father died. She'd only had kind words and encouragement for me, almost like a second mother.

I grabbed her hand and held it. "Gertie, you may not be happy with me soon if I keep going down this ‘sticking up for myself' path."

She studied my face, understanding dawning. Her eyes went shiny, but she nodded. "You do what you have to do. If Rainey leaves again, that's on her." She let go of my hand to pat my cheek. "I like this version of you, and if she knows what's good for her, she will too."