Page 65 of Peaches & Pistols

Me: Never mind.

Connor: Why’d you remove James from the thread?

Me: Because he’s a worse gossip than any of the women.

Reid: Fact.

Connor: Come on Grey, you can talk to us.

Me: How did you know you were falling in love?

Reid: Wasn’t expecting that.

Connor: Is this a hypothetical or are you catching feelings for Mia?

Reid: I’m not trying to gossip like James, but I’ve overheard the girls, and I don’t think it’s hypothetical.

Me: …

Connor: Definitely not hypothetical.

Connor: I fell for Delilah over like fifteen years, so I can’t pinpoint the moment I knew. But I can tell you what being in love feels like, at least for me.

Me: Yea, okay.

Connor: It’s when they’re the first person you think about when you wake up. The person you want to tell when you have good news or bad news. When you think about your day, or any day in the future, they’re there. When your primary purpose becomes making them happy and keeping them safe. You can be your full self, the version you’re supposed to be. But you always want to be better for them. It’s a cliché for a reason, but being in love is when you can’t live without them.

Me: Reid?

Reid: Hayes is dead on. Falling in love with Isabelle was fucking torture at the time. My chest hurt when I was with her and hurt even worse when I was away from her. She consumed my every waking thought, and most of my sleep. My mouth was shredded from biting my tongue not to say something stupid, or my inner cheek when I had to refrain from touching her. Now, she feels like home. Isabelle’s my comfort, my joy, my purpose.

Connor: Everything Reid said, 100%.

Greyson: …

Greyson: Fuck.

Cecelia’s invited the girls to bake cookies and have a slumber part. If that’s okay, I was planning on making chicken parmesan and using the last jar of peaches for cobbler. Singles Inferno marathon?

xo

Mia’s note burns a hole in my pocket. We’ve had lunch together nearly every day since the first of the year. But today, she had plans at the ranch and I was on my own to microwave the delicious leftovers she prepped for me.

I scarfed it down, burnt the roof of my mouth even, because the loneliness was closing in on me. I reopened the store after twenty minutes instead of my normal hour break.

I’m a straightforward, confident man. But around this young woman, I’m a bumbling idiot. Each day she’s home, plating lunch for the two of us, I thank past-Greyson for having the balls to question her about the lunchtime absences.

I’m thirty fucking seven, pining after my twenty-five-year-old nanny—who’s navigating life as a single parent, and healing from god knows how much trauma from the man she’s still married to. What have I gotten myself into?

Why don’t hearts listen to logic and reason? It’s bullshit if you ask me. My world’s precariously tilted on its axis by a woman far too good for me, and the organ in my chest won’t let me level out.

I press my fingers painfully into my thigh to alleviate the heat generated by Mia’s note. A night alone is a miracle for a single parent, let alone for two living under one roof.

I involuntarily crack my neck at the intrusive thought of licking Mia’s peach cobbler from the hollow of her throat.

I’ve been procrastinating like a moron. What kind of man delays time alone with a beautiful woman? The kind who’s never had feelings for a woman in his life and is terrified of fucking it up.

I close down the store, and as slowly as I trudge, you’d think I was walking to my death. Each stair my boot hits, my heart pounds harder. I’m going to have a heart attack before I get in the door, and I’ll miss having Mia’s chicken parmesan and peach cobbler as my dying meal.