Leonard. I loved how she always called Leo by his full first name. Hell, sometimes I found myself doing it too just to tease him.
I shrugged. “They’re going pretty good, I guess.”
“You guess?” she asked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Christ, she didn’t miss a beat.
“It means I can’t predict the future, but right now, things are good.”
“How good?” she asked with a little smile perking up her mouth.
“You do realize it’s awkward talking to you about Leo, right?” I asked, and she waved a hand in the air.
“Oh, don’t be so uptight, Gemma,” she retorted. “I’m an eighty-year-old woman who sells sex toys and lingerie, for fuck’s sake. Pretty sure I can handle whatever you tell me.”
I laughed at that. “Good to know.”
“That’s it?” she asked. “Good to know?”
I shrugged. “What else do you want me to say?”
“I want you to fess up and tell me how things are really going between you and my nephew,” she said without hesitation or shame. “I know you’ve been spending a lot of time together. Would you say things are getting more serious?”
I honestly didn’t know the answer to that question.
Yes, we’d reached a point where we used cute terms of endearment and shit.
And, no doubt, we’d been spending practically all of our free time together.
But Leo and I had yet to have any sort of deep discussion about where we were headed. Mind you, we weren’t dating or sleeping with other people, but for the most part, we were just kind of going with the flow.
If I was being honest with myself, deep down, I had a hard time wrapping my head around how polar opposite our lives were.
He was a professional football star for the New York freaking Mavericks.
And I was the temp who took inventory photos for Alma’s Secrets.
It might have just been my insecurities talking, but the scale felt a little skewed with him at the very tip-top and me plummeting straight for the bottom.
After we’d made up from the big fight, we’d both just kind of been riding the rails along with the train. I had a feeling neither one of us wanted to veer off track. “I mean, we’re not talking about marriage and kids, but things are going good.”
“What about the sex?” she asked bluntly, and I nearly choked on my turkey sandwich.
“What in the hell do you mean by that?”
“Is it good? Bad? Just mediocre?” she questioned with a little smirk.
“Things are good, okay?” I said by way of ending this discussion before it got out of hand. “That’s all you need to know. Things between Leo and me are good.”
She winked. “So, what you’re saying is, the sex is good?”
I snorted. “I’m saying there’s no way in hell I’m going to answer that question in the disturbing detail you’re hoping for.”
“Rats,” she muttered with an amused smile, and I just giggled.
Our conversation turned quiet for a few peaceful moments until Alma couldn’t stand the silence and resumed her chattering ways.
“I have an extra ticket,” she said and popped a potato chip into her mouth.
“An extra ticket?”
“To the play-off game in Pittsburgh.”
“Oh, who are you planning on taking?” I asked dumbly. Of course. The instant the words left my mouth, I knew I was in trouble.
“I’m going to take you,” she said and then added, “Well, technically, you’ll be the one taking me, but same difference.”
I quirked a brow. “But what if I don’t want to go?”
She grinned. “Oh, c’mon, Gemma. I might be old as dirt, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Plus, we both know you want to go support the incredibly handsome man in your life.”
The old biddy had a point.
“Where is the play-off game again?”
“Pittsburgh.”
“But that’s like a five-hour drive….”
“Even more reason to have you come along so I don’t have to do that long-as-hell trip by myself.”
What could I say to that? The mere idea of Alma making the long drive by herself made me instantly nervous.
Plus, I really, really wanted to see Leo’s play-off game.
Even though I might regret being stuck inside a car with Alma for five hours, the decision was pretty damn obvious.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go to Pittsburgh together.”
Our first play-off game was intense, and the crowd was on its feet. It’d been a madhouse of over one-hundred-decibel noise nearly the entire time we were playing, and I’d had to turn myself into a goddamn werewolf to hear Quinn call the plays.
But if shapeshifting was ever going to be worth it, I figured it was when we had so much on the line and a championship run still alive.
I could feel the sweat running all over my body despite the frigid Pittsburgh winter air, and Sean had been in full hype mode on the sidelines for an entire hour and a half. Waving his arms, jumping up and down, catcalling like a psychopath, he’d demanded our crowd get to their feet and do their part, and they hadn’t fallen down even a little bit.