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“Not during the day.” Winter shimmied with a grin. “You know you want to. We can pretend it’s like the good ol’ days and order Pyramid Pizza.”
Jazz’s stomach growled as if on command. “Only if we get an order of bones with extra honey.”
“Deal. You’ll see, pizza fixes everything.” Winter picked up her cell to call in their order.
“Pizza can’t fix this, but it’s a good start,” she corrected, reaching for another bottle.
Leo would call her back…she hoped.
Chapter 20
“Her parents are crazy. I mean, you knew them when you guys were growing up, right?” Will asked Leo, passing cold beers around the group.
The men were sitting in lawn chairs in the garage at Will’s house. The space had been turned into somewhat of a man cave, with sports flags and specialty beer boxes decorating the large space.
“I thought she’d stand up for us.” Leo bit out the words, still pissed at what had happened that morning. He’d felt sick to his stomach about the way things had gone and it was a feeling that wasn’t going away.
Nix leaned forward. “I’ve never met her parents, but after being around Jazz, even I can tell that she is a people pleaser.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Leo growled, not pleased with the fact that Nix had even been invited out to the driving range with them earlier that day. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the man, but the last thing he needed right now was someone that had been interested in Jazz popping into the picture at the same time they were hitting a rough patch. He wasn’t happy with her right now, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her. He wasn’t about to let this break them up.
“I mean that Jazz always tries to help. She doesn’t want to be a bother. She goes with the flow no matter what, even if it’s something that she doesn’t really want to do,” Nix elaborated, before taking a long draw on his own beer.
“Nix is right,” Will agreed with a nod. “We had a charity truck wash in March after it had snowed, to raise some money for local schools. Problem was that we had about three times as many cars show up as we had planned, and Winter was calling in favors left and right to get volunteers. Originally, Jazz was only supposed to be providing hot chocolate to the workers, but soon she was out there in her fancy clothes spraying and scrubbing with the rest of us. That woman looked tiny enough to have fit right underneath the tires. Yet, there she was, soaked to the bone and scrubbing away like she was a high school kid earning summer money.”
Nix chuckled. “I still remember Win dragging her out from under that truck like she was a little kid.”
“Am I making a big deal out of nothing?” Leo asked, rubbing the center of his chest where it was aching.
Both men answered in shrugs.
He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why didn’t she just tell them we’re together?”
“Tell me Leo, when was the last time you were around the Kingsfords?” Will cracked open another bottle before offering one to Nix.
“Not since her high school graduation party.” He took the fresh bottle that his friend was holding out for him. “I moved out of KC not long after that and once my mom retired, there was no need.”
Will sighed and shook his head. “I have a feeling that they are a lot worse than you remember.”
“I don’t envy you, man,” Nix added.
“What does that mean?”
Nix cleared his throat. “I had a little crush on her. I mean, who wouldn’t? She’s smart, sweet as can be, can bake a hell of a cookie, and has an ass that makes me want to cry.” At his last words, he barely dodged the punch that Leo swung at his arm. “But shit, man. She comes with a lot of baggage. Those folks of hers have probably run off tons of guys without her even knowing it. I do not envy you one bit.”
“What’s to say they haven’t run me off too?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer deep in his soul.
“’Cause it’s Jazz, man. She’s special.” Nix tipped the beer bottle he was holding toward Leo in a mock toast. “I’ll tell you right now, if I had that little spitfire looking at me the way she looks at you…” He smiled. “There wouldn’t be anything anyone could say or do to make me give that up. Not one damn thing. In fact, it would just make me that much more determined to tie her to me.”
Leo hated to admit it, but Nix was right.
“Well…what are you going to do?” the other man asked after a moment. “Because I’ll tell you right now that you’re a goddamned idiot if you let her parents fuck with what’s between the two of you.”
“Now I’m an idiot?” he snorted, throwing a hand up in the air. “Nix, she’s twenty-six fucking years old and her mom thinks that she can set her up on a date.”
“She never said she was going on the date, you big asshole, now did she?”
Leo thought back to their conversation from this morning and shook his head, “No, she said she wasn’t.”
