Toast wasn’t done.
“Me bein’ tight with you, everyone is opening wide about her. And I’ve learned she’s like a second mom to Lou’s daughters, which is good, seein’ as half the time they don’t have a dad. Hear she’s got a brother whose brains were scrambled and she takes care of him. They go and play with the dogs at the shelter on the weekends, for Christ’s sake. Walked into Babycakes a Sunday ago or so, right after her and her brother left, and I swear, Babycakes laid it out for me either I got your head out of your ass about this Greta woman or the rest of the town would.”
Hix blew out another sigh and said, “They can relax. We’re back together.”
“You got a solid rep, bro, but this woman is—”
Hix cut him off. “We’re back together, Toast, and I’m not gonna fuck that shit up. I know what I got. I’ve got it so I know. So they can relax and you can too.”
Toast gave him a huge, goofy-assed smile. “Well, all right. When you bringin’ her to the Outpost to meet your boys, then?”
“Soon’s the broken nose that asshole gave her slammin’ her face in her own goddamned kitchen island heals.”
While Hix spoke, Toast’s smile died.
“Fucker,” he muttered.
“He’s going away for a long time,” Hix said, watching as play began and his daughter, a starter as a sophomore on the varsity team, sprang into action.
“How much effort it take for you not to kick his ass while he was in one of your cells?” Toast asked.
“So much, it’s a wonder I can walk.”
Toast chuckled and turned his attention to the game.
They watched and Hix uncrossed his arms from his chest and clapped, shouting out, “That’s it, Corinne!” when she aced a serve.
Pissed at her dad, her head needing to be in the game, she still loved her old man and he knew it when her eyes slid to him briefly and a grin flirted with her mouth as she walked to the line with the ball before she regained focus to set up for her next serve.
“The kids like her?” Toast asked after the team blew it and lost Corinne’s serve.
Hix knew what he was asking.
Did they like Greta?
“Nothin’ not to like.”
Toast left it a beat before he murmured, “Happy for you, bro. Way to land on your feet.”
Hix glanced at him before looking back to the play. “You’ll find someone, Toast.”
“I need to get laid on a semi-regular basis and I need to stay single. Outside that bullshit getting me my kids, shoulda stayed single from the start.”
“You’ll get over that.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Toast muttered.
Hix shook his head and said no more.
Hope and his shit was ugly. Toast and his shit with his ex was Armageddon.
As the teams were switching sides, Mamie skipped up with half a box of popcorn she’d consumed the rest of and handed it to Toast.
She then dug back into her dad’s side so Hix held her there.
He caught his son arriving and tried to stay loose even after he also caught the expression on his face.
And the set of his girl’s.
Hix gave Shaw a sharp look.
Shaw shook his head at his dad and Hix knew the state of play with the way Shaw actually spotted his girl as she led them to some seats, like she was doing it with a broken foot.
Things weren’t going good with her dad’s treatments.
Shit.
He’d talk to his boy.
Now it was about Corinne.
So he turned back to the game.
After the game, while Shaw was finishing up his date with Wendy, which Hix assumed would take him to the very last minute of his weekday curfew, Hix pulled his Bronco into Greta’s drive but he rounded the front seeing as he saw her on her porch as he pulled in.
He made it all the way to her with her watching his progress and bent to wrap his hand around the back of her head and touch his mouth to hers before she spoke.
“Hey, did she win?”
“No.”
“Bummer,” she muttered.
He grinned, let her go, shifted and rested his frame in the chair beside her.
“Want a beer?” she asked.
“I’ll get it in a second.”
“I have a broken nose, Hixon, not a broken leg.”
He looked from her street to her and repeated, “I’ll get it in a second.”
She rolled her eyes but did it with her lips twitching.
Then she lifted a mug to her lips and took a sip.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Sleepytime,” she answered.
“Say again,” he ordered.
She took her eyes from her street and repeated, “Sleepytime. Sleepytime tea. Chamomile. Spearmint. And—”
He cut her off. “Babe.”
“What?”
“Don’t waste your breath. The concept of tea does not exist for a man who owns a Bronco.”
He enjoyed the show as she busted out laughing.
When she was done, she noted, “Britannia ruled the waves, darlin’, and those boys drank a lot of tea.”
“The kind they drank didn’t have spearmint in it.”
“Good point,” she muttered, her lips curved up as she took another sip.
He hated doing it but he had to so might as well get it out of the way.
“Hope was at the game.”
Her gaze slid to him. “And?”
“She’s in the know you’ve spent the night at my place while the kids were there.”
“And she’s not a big fan,” she guessed.
“Not sure I care but just in case she gets up to something, you should know.”
She nodded and added, “And we’ll slow that down.”
No, they wouldn’t.
“I like you in my bed.”
He also liked how her face got soft when he told her that.
“I like it there too, baby,” she told him. “But your apartment isn’t real big and it’s kinda in their faces more than it would be in that space. Plus, this is very new to them.”
“It’s also very much happening so they might as well get used to it.”
“Another good point,” she muttered again.
“And Greta, we’re movin’ to a place on Lavender Lane on Saturday.”
She stared at him. “Lavender Lane?”
He grinned at her.
And he did it because he liked the place they found but now he liked it even more because it was two blocks to the north of her place, on the same block.
“Wow, we’re practically gonna be neighbors,” she remarked and did it looking like she was trying hard not to laugh.
“Yup,” he agreed the same way.
“You buy?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nope. Everything on the market sucks and I can’t keep the kids in that apartment any longer, and not just because I hate the freakin’ place so much myself. Folks who own the house we picked are retired and movin’ to Florida. But they’re worried they’re gonna hate Florida. So they’re renting their place for a year to try it out. If they hate it, they’ll come back and revisit where they wanna spend their golden years. If they like it, they’ll sell to me and deduct the year’s rent from the final sale.”
She gave him a smile. “Great deal.”
If they didn’t come back, it was.
If they did, he had to find another place.
But they’d assured him they’d give him plenty of notice and his real estate agent was going to keep an eye out in the meantime.