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“Look at him,” Jase started laughing. “I think I see sweat on his forehead.”
“Come on, man, let’s get you a beer.” Hart clapped my back.
I collected my forty dollars and followed my friends back to our booths in the restaurant area.
“And here I was hoping for a little peace and quiet,” Simon said as he stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Especially after the shit that went down with Maddie.”
“Huh?” Jase grunted.
“It’s Graham’s fault,” Nolan said, pointing his beer at me. “Him getting all tangled up with Joy means that there are sure to be problems.”
A tingle ran down my spine. Now that he mentioned it, the thing with Maddie, and then recently, with Ruby, did seem to indicate that romance and trouble did tend to go together.
“You’ve got it wrong, Simon. Joy is just a sweet hometown girl. She’s an open book, there won’t be any problems from her background.”
“The thing with Maddie was because of me, not her,” Simon pointed out.
“Fine, whatever.” I shook my head. “But nothing’s going to happen. Anyway, Joy and I haven’t even gone on a date yet, so nobody has anything to worry about.”
“Graham,” Roan said with a twinkle in his eye, “you’ve been talking about this woman’s baking skills for a month.”
“Three weeks!”
“Whatever.” Hart smirked. “You know her work schedule better than your own. And yesterday you asked me to ask Roxie what kind of ice cream she liked.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“You’re so far gone, you can’t even see it,” Hart interrupted. “But hey, if you want to keep telling yourself this is all easy and drama-free, be my guest. Just remember, pride goeth before the fall and all that shit.”
I drained my beer and stood up. “Y’all are just jealous that I found a sweet, mild-mannered woman who doesn’t come with a target on her back.”
As I headed to the bar for another round, I heard Hart call out behind me, “We’ll see about that, Romeo.”
I flipped him off without turning around, but I was smiling. Let them tease me all they wanted. I knew what I had with Joy. Simple, sweet, and blissfully uncomplicated.
Chapter Six
I slapped so hard at my phone’s alarm, it dropped to the floor and kept playing ‘I Want To Do It All.’ It was supposed to get my ass moving in the morning; instead, it was pissing me off. I’d seen Graham bare-chested and sweaty three times while he’d been painting the house Sunflower Yellow, and since then, my dreams had been beyond delicious. I’m talking strawberry-gelato delicious. We had just gotten to the part where my top and bra were off, and he was pulling me against that hot, sweaty chest, and I was about ready to explode.
But no… Teri Clarke had to freakin’ interrupt me! Telling me to do it all. Well, what did she think I’d been doing? I had been getting ready to do it all, for fuck’s sake!
I shut off the incessant singing and hauled my happy ass out of bed. I could already tell it was going to be one of those hot and humid days that only Tennessee could deliver. Right now, it was livable with the windows open, but come one o’clock, I’d be a sweaty mess, so it was definitely a double deodorant day.
I’d set my alarm earlier than normal because I wanted to make a special treat for Graham and give it to him when he picked me up for lunch today. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, going out to lunch. I mean, we’d had lunch together at least nine times.
Not a big deal at all.
Nope.
What’s more, it was a lunch date, not a dinner date. A daylight date. However…
Miss Laverne wouldn’t be there.
But we were going to be at a restaurant. So, it was kind of a big deal. He’d promised me barbecue brisket, macaroni and cheese, with baked beans. I had eaten just a small portion of Miss Laverne’s meatloaf last night, just imagining the barbecue we were going to indulge in this afternoon. I didn’t think he’d be taking me to Down Home Diner even though it had the best barbecue in the state. It would be too weird since Little Grandma would be watching us the entire time. And I couldn’t imagine him taking me to Pearl’s Restaurant. He had to be taking me to someplace in Pigeon Forge because he couldn’t take too much time for lunch, or could he?
Come to think of it, sometimes he’d be at the house for a few hours, making repairs where needed, like it didn’t matter how long he was gone. Then there was the fact that I knew he sometimes covered for Dave Draper at the hardware store, and he’d gone over to Thatcher’s Automotive and pitched in when they had a complicated Harley build. Just how did his employment at Onyx Security work, anyway?
That was something I would have to pin him down about at lunch, but in the meantime, I would just have to keep myself from eating half the food in the fridge before Graham came to pick me up. I went down to the kitchen in search of Miss Laverne, but she wasn’t there.
