“So, where are you from?” Alex asks. “Your accent tells me you’re from the south.”
“Yeah, I’m from Georgia,” I tell him.
“That where your parents are?”
I shake my head as I swallow a sip of beer. “My dad has never been in the picture, and my mom died when I was ten. My grandma raised me. She passed away last year and I came out here to be near Peyton. She’s been here for a while and had been begging me to follow her. We started up our own business about six months ago.”
“Oh, nice. Sorry about your parents, though, and your grandma.”
I give a soft smile. “Thanks. What about you? Are your parents nearby?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, about as nearby as you can get. My parents live above you and my brother and his husband live above me.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised.
He laughs again. “It’s okay, I know it sounds weird.”
I shake my head, “No, it sounds amazing, actually. I’d love to have family around me. I just have Peyton.”
“Well, if I introduce you to my parents they’ll probably adopt you on the spot.” He grins and there goes my blush again. “They own the building so us living in it is kinda a no brainer.” He winks and I chuckle.
He asks about the business that Peyton and I are in together and I tell him about being a massage therapist.
When I leave an hour later it’s with plans for him to come over the following week so I can reciprocate the dinner invitation, and introduce him to the first episode ofSupernatural.
Before I go to bed that night I look through the box of things I packed and put in my car so I would be sure not to lose or break them, and pull out the photograph I have of me and my grandma at her last birthday. We had gotten dressed up and I had taken her out to dinner. Then we’dcome back to her place and I’d dished us each a giant slice of the gooey chocolate cake I’d baked for her.
The photo is a selfie I took of us with the cake. Gram is smiling widely, her blue eyes sparkling, and my chest aches as I look at the photograph of the best woman I’ve ever known. She never complained once about raising me after my mom died, never acted like I was a burden, never made me feel anything but loved and wanted. She got me the therapy I needed, let me crawl into bed with her on all those nights I couldn’t sleep or was having nightmares, sang to me as I clung to her and cried.
Living with her was how I met Peyton. She lived across the street from me and saw me outside in the cul-de-sac kicking a soccer ball around, and invited herself to play with me. We’ve been best friends ever since. She would come over several times a week to hang out, and once I got to know her better and wasn’t as shy, I started going to her place, too, and her parents treated me like I was their own. We painted ornaments together every Christmas, baked cookies with Gram, colored eggs together every Easter, went trick-or-treating together every Halloween, and I even took karate classes for a few years with Peyton and ended up really enjoying it. Gram would buy Christmas presents for Peyton every year and attend her choir concerts with me. She adored Peyton just as much as Peyton’s parents adored me.
She was such a lively, vibrant person, and I miss her every day.
After she passed I found out that she’d left everything to me, and I was able to use some of the money to make the move out here and start my business. I wish so much she could be around to see me making my dreams come true, but I know she knows, and that she’s proud, and that eases the ache in my chest a little. I chuckle to myself thinking ofthe words she would have had for Stacy if she were here. There would have been some colorful language, that’s for sure. No one messed with her little boy. Even as big as I am, she was my protector. I wonder what she would think of Alex. I think the two of them would get along pretty well.
I kiss my fingers before touching them to the photo and setting it on my nightstand. “Love you, Gram.”
I turn the light off and close my eyes, then slowly drift to sleep.
Chapter Five
Bentley
As promised, Peyton spends the following day helping me unpack. Well, she’s supposed to be helping me unpack. What she’s really doing is looking out the peephole every two seconds hoping to catch a glimpse of Alex. Of course, as short as she is she has to get a step stool to fucking reach it. It’s been a few hours already and I swear she’s only moved off her perch twice, once because the dinner we ordered had arrived, and the other time because I had to take out the trash that was piling up.
“I thought you were over here to help me unpack, not stalk the neighbor,” I tell her.
She looks back at me from where she's standing on said step stool and grins. “Luckily I can multitask.”
“You’re literally not multitasking,” I point out. “That's the whole point of this conversation. Unless standing and creeping through the peephole is multitasking.”
She ignores me.
“The guy’s notthatgood looking,” I mumble.
That gets her attention. She turns to me, hands on her hips. “Hush you.”
I roll my eyes and grab the giant bag of trash we’ve been collecting over the last hour. “You’ll have to give up your perch again so I can go throw this out.”
