“YOU’RE LATE,” Steve announced, greeting me at my grandmother’s back door.
“I’m well aware.” I gave him a quick kiss and then turned to the lady with the peachy cotton-candy hair waiting expectantly. “I am so sorry. I was with Donna and lost track of time.”
Gram shooed me out of her kitchen. “Go wash up. Dinner’s ready.”
In other words, don’t be late next time.
Five minutes later, I felt her eyes on me while I ladled gravy into the crater of mashed potatoes on my plate. “What? Am I hogging the gravy?”
“Yes,” Steve answered for her as he pulled the gravy boat in front of his heaping plate.
Gram shook her head as if she wanted to give us a lecture on table manners. “No, I was just wondering how your day went.”
I had no desire to put myself in the middle of a firing squad of criticism with these two at the table. “Fine.”
Looking down, she sliced off a tiny bite of roast beef, which appeared to be an avoidance maneuver, but failed miserably to disguise the pleasure lighting her eyes. “Did you happen to see your mother?”
I stabbed a limp broccoli spear and pointed it at her. “You know I did.”
She shrugged. “Well, I may have heard a little something about you two having lunch.”
“Then you already know how the play date you set up went.”
“You two had a play date?” Steve chimed in as he reached for another biscuit. “How cute.”
I aimed my best withering stare at him. “Don’t make this more uncomfortable than it already is.”
Gram set down her fork. “But I thought it went really well.”
“It went well enough.” And I hoped to leave it at that.
She narrowed her eyes at me while I chewed on the broccoli spear that she had overcooked. “That’s it?”
What did she want? “We didn’t exactly hug it out, if that’s what you were expecting.”
“But your mother called Renee to make sure that she took out any mention of the car. Surely, that deserves a little more—”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
Gram leaned in. “What do you mean, you didn’t know? It was obvious from that feature in this morning’s paper.”
Buckling under the weight of her disappointment in me, I studied the gravy congealing on my plate. “Since I’d had a preview of what Renee was going to write, I wasn’t especially interested in reading it.”
“And I suppose your mother never mentioned it.”
I shook my head. “If she intended to, we got interrupted.”
Gram split the biscuit on her plate and buttered it. “You do realize that was her way of apologizing.”
I realized that on my way over from Donatello’s. “Yep.”
“So what’s gonna happen with the car?” Steve asked, his mouth half full.
I gaped at him. “You are really not helping tonight.”
He shot me an innocent smile. “I was just asking.”
“Certainly, you discussed it when you were over there,” Gram said.
I knew she wouldn’t give me any credit for good intentions, and I couldn’t very well mention the tree guy who cut my lunch date short in front of Steve. “Why don’t we talk about this later?”
She dropped the biscuit she had been nibbling on. “Charmaine! Do you mean to tell me that you two didn’t get anything settled about that car?”
“We ran out of time because I had to get back to work,” I said, hating how lame that sounded.
“These biscuits are great, Eleanor. I shouldn’t …” Steve reached past me for another one. “But I will. Want to pass me the butter there, Chow Mein?”
He pressed his shoulder into mine when I handed him the butter dish, his breath warm on my ear. “Who says I’m not a help?”
Since the temperature level of the scorn emanating from the head of the table remained high enough to fry my potatoes, I patted Steve’s knee. “Nice try.”
“So?” Gram demanded.
“Like I said, we ran out of—”
She raised her hand to cut me off. “Honesty this time, please.”
“Mom’s contractor arrived during lunch and pretty much got us sidetracked.” Which was certainly the truth as far as I was concerned. “And then I really did have to get back to the office.”
Gram aimed an icy stare at me. “Then you’ll have to go back tomorrow.”
“I might have plans tomorrow.” Which, depending on what my new dentist had to tell me, might very well be the case.
“And I’m getting tired of seeing that car parked out front that no one is doing anything about, so I suggest that you rearrange your schedule so that you can talk this out once and for all with your mother.”
I stifled a cringe. “Fine.”
Gram wagged an arthritic finger at my plate. “Now eat your food. It’s getting cold.”
I’d lost my appetite.
* * *
After we finished the dishes and left my grandmother napping in her recliner, I walked Steve home across the street.
His arm curled around my waist as we stepped onto his front porch. “I hope you have something else in mind beyond seeing me safely home.” As he angled to kiss me, Steve’s eyes glinted dark as sin.
“I do,” I said, delighting in his touch. “Open the door.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He unlocked his door and pulled me inside.
Just as Steve pressed me against the wall and started lavishing my neck with kisses, I gently pushed him away. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Looking down at me, his brow furrowed. “Talk?”
“For a few minutes. Consider it foreplay.”
“I seriously doubt that what you have to say is going to resemble foreplay.”
I pointed at his cocoa brown leather sectional. “Sit.”
Steve took a seat and folded his arms. “This had better not be what I think it’s about.”
I shushed him. “I just need your opinion about something.”
“Okay.”
“Remember what I said about my mother’s contractor arriving when I was there today?”
He sharpened his gaze. “What about it?”
“It was Gary Carpp, some muckety-muck with the company that built her house. I guess there’s been an ongoing issue with some cracks that need to be fixed.”
Steve shrugged a shoulder. “Okay.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah.”
“From some interactions with him?” Like an arrest?
“If you want to call a county council meeting an interaction. But I mainly know him from coaching one of his kids a couple of years back.”
“That’s it?” I asked, inching closer to study his face.
He smirked. “You can look as long as you’d like. I got nothing else for you.”
“Really? That’s all you’ve got?”
“What exactly were you hoping for?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about him that’s a little creepy.” And that was before I realized that he was the tree guy.
Steve extended his arm in invitation, and I nestled next to him on the sectional. “Is your mother concerned about having this guy in her house or something?”
“No. I think I was the only one of the two of us who thought something felt a little off.”
“Probably because you were looking for trouble.”
“At my mother’s?” I rested my head on his shoulder. “Hardly.”
“Chow Mein, you’re always looking for trouble.” Steve leaned back and pulled me on top of him. “And I do believe you just found some.”