“Oh look, Daisy’s back in town.” Ali’s voice interrupted her memory.
Jess opened her eyes and saw Ethan’s grandma walking toward them. She couldn’t help but smile as she took in and appreciated the woman’s choice of bright pink capri pants with matching floppy hat and tiger print button-up shirt. “How was your cruise Mrs. Steele?”
“I told you, it’s Daisy.” The woman pointed her finger at Jess. “Mrs. Steele was my mother-in-law. And my cruise was heavenly. I’ve never seen so much food in my entire life. Morning, noon, and night there was food as far as the eye could see. I gained ten pounds just looking at it.”
Daisy was a slip of a woman, and Jess doubted that she’d gained an ounce on the cruise.
The brim of her floppy hat bounced as she excitedly announced, “And I met someone.”
“Oh?” Jess, Ali, and Brynn all chorused, their interest piqued.
“She’s perfect for Ethan,” Daisy completed her thought, and her words deflated Jess’s interest.
“Dr. Susie is smart, funny, and I just know that if Ethan would give her a chance the two of them would hit it off. He’s a good boy and just needs to find the right woman to settle down with.”
Jess could feel both Ali and Brynn’s attention turn toward her, and she hoped that Ethan’s grandma didn’t notice.
“Speaking of settling down, I hear congratulations are in order, dear.” Daisy reached out and examined the ring on Ali’s hand. “Kade did good.”
Ali beamed. “Yes, he did.”
She held Ali’s hand between hers. “Patrick would’ve been so happy for you both.”
A layer of sheen glossed Ali’s eyes as she teared up. “I know.”
“What about you two? Any young men that might be getting down on one knee?”
Brynn and Jess both looked at one another and then laughed.
“Nope. I’ve been there and done that.” Brynn had been what she described as happily divorced for a decade. She’d been a teen mom before the MTV show made it popular and then divorced before she could legally drink.
“So has that one.” Daisy motioned down toward the pier. Laura had arrived and was standing beside Ethan, her hand resting on his shoulder. “And you don’t see her throwing in the towel.”
Throughout the day, Jess had noticed that Laura took every opportunity to brush her hand against Ethan’s arm, his shoulder, his leg. It wasn’t that she’d been spying on them, but she’d noticed that Laura didn’t let five minutes pass without touching him. Though the fact that Jess had noticed that probably meant she technically had been spying on them.
“She’s a braver woman than I am,” Brynn said sincerely. “I think I’ll concentrate on trying to raise a man, not marry one.”
Daisy accepted that response before turning to Jess. “What about you? Any man, or woman, of your dreams?”
It was sad that Jess’s love life was so inactive that a woman that had known her her entire life didn’t even know what her sexual preference would be.
“Nope,” she lied.
Her eyes drifted back down toward the pier as the conversation around her shifted to talk of the twins and Ryder starting high school this year. There was absolutely a man of Jess’s dreams. She was just too stubborn or scared, or both, to do anything about it.
But maybe it was time to change that.