She looked at her nephew disapprovingly, then shook her head and looked at me. “You okay holding him?”
I nodded. “I am.”
Five minutes later, we checked out and left, me pushing the cart and holding the baby, while Fran searched in her bag for her keys.
Her face was bright red when she looked up at me next.
“Want to come have lunch with us?” she blurted.
Of fucking course I did.
Even though I tried not to go out and eat because eating out meant eating bad in my book. Because I couldn’t seem to resist the sweet tea or the cookie at the end of the meal. No matter where I went, or how bad or good the sweet tea was.
I tilted my head. “Where?”
She frowned hard. “Well, that is a good question. My normal spot is Mexican food, and I have that pact going on with the gym that I’ll try to eat better. I guess we could try Uncle Sam’s. I could have some eggs and bacon.”
I grinned. “I’ll take you somewhere. Follow me.”
After leaning over one more time to make sure that the baby was securely in the car, she closed the door and then said, “I have to make a single stop first and unload all this. It’s at the mechanic’s shop in town. Then we can leave from there?”
“Murphy’s?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said.
A flush crept up over Fran’s face. “Sounds good.”
Then she was getting into her car and heading in the direction of Murphy’s Garage. Murphy who happened to be another member of our gym. Though he was strictly a five a.m. class goer. Fran wouldn’t have had the chance to meet him at the gym just yet.
CHAPTER 6
Planks well with others.
-T-shirt
FRAN
I was utterly embarrassed, while also very proud of myself.
I’d asked him out on a lunch date!
I couldn’t believe I’d had the balls to do it, honestly.
I’d never been on a date before. And I’d certainly never invited anyone to do anything, imaginary or otherwise, that looked like him.
The one and only guy I’d been with that’d ‘popped my cherry’ had been… boring. He’d literally looked like the anti-Taos. Nerdy, blond hair, and smiled easily.
When you glanced at Taos at first, he was intimidating, quiet, and grouchy. But the more you got him to talk, the nicer he became.
When we arrived at Murphy’s Garage I left Mavis’ minivan running, seeing as in the five-minute drive Vlad had fallen asleep, and got out.
Murphy met us at the big bay door with a wide grin on his face.
That grin wasn’t for me, though. It was for the man behind me who’d pulled up and gotten out of his own vehicle. A restored older muscle car that I had no clue what the name was.
But it was pretty.
It was sexier even when the man that I really wanted got out of it with a small grin on his face aimed at the mechanic.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Murphy said from behind me. “Who the fuck do I owe this pleasure to?”
Murphy didn’t wait for an answer, only went up to the car and circled it. A car, that I might add, was not my sister’s minivan.
Murphy whistled. “You got the paint job.”
“I got the paint job,” Taos confirmed, looking at me with a small grin. “Two months ago, this thing was a beast, but it was ugly as fuck. Brown and primer as we got it ready to go get prettied up.”
That made sense.
And did the man know everyone? He’d literally waved ‘hi’ to at least eight people throughout Target, knew the cashier personally, and had found two in the parking lot to wave to. Now he knew the dude I was delivering dog food to?
“It looks sweet,” Murphy grinned. “I’m glad it turned out all right. It was my first time doing all that pretty shit.”
Apparently, ‘pretty shit’ was doing the bodywork on the car.
“You mind if I leave it here for a bit while we go have lunch?” Taos asked his friend.
Murphy shrugged. “You were talking about bringing it in next week to get that tune-up we kept talking about. Why don’t you leave it with me now?”
Taos shook his head. “Madden is on this week with the SWAT team, meaning I can’t take his car. And before you offer one of yours, the last time I did that, you had to ride your motorcycle because yours went out on you. I’m not taking your spare. So it’ll have to be next week.”
That was when I opened my mouth and interrupted. “How long is this going to take?”
I pointed at the car, and Murphy’s eyes came to me. “About two days, give or take. I need to get the parts in, then get them on. It shouldn’t take long at all.”
I turned to Taos. “You do know that driving people around is one of my services, right?” I batted my eyelashes at him. “And sometimes, people pay me in food.”