Swiping her thumb across her screen, she taps on a message. A quick glance shows it’s from Nick. Her swollen eyes scan the words before a smile claims her mouth, and she taps out a quick response.
Funny how one text from Nick can put an enormous grin on her face, probably making her forget about everything that happened tonight.
“Thanks for this.” Melrose points to her beer before rising and calling for her dog. “And thanks for … checking on me. Think I’m going to call it a night. I’ll report everything first thing in the morning, I promise. I just need some sleep. Want to go in with a clear head.”
Her screen lights again with another text—probably another from Nick—and the two of them head inside.
I’m not a jealous man … and I don’t have a thing for Melrose … but a wave of something—I don’t even know what—passes through me when I watch her walk away.
Taking a seat, I finish my beer and brush it off.
“Screw emotions and feelings,” my father once said, “and screw women instead. Save yourself a lot of heartache that way.”
I’ve never particularly admired the old bastard and his quote-worthy fatherly advice was few and far between, but that’s one thing that’s always stuck with me over the years.
And one thing that hasn’t been proven wrong yet.
GRAM THROWS HER HANDS in the air Sunday afternoon in her typical dramatic fashion. “Rand, that horrid breaker keeps tripping.”
My father places his tablet down on the kitchen table. “I told you, you need to hire an electrician. How many times a day do you go out to the garage and flip breakers?”
“Too many, that’s how many,” Gram says, pacing the kitchen around the dinner she’s prepared. She hunches next to her double oven, which was supposed to be roasting Cornish hens, but now it’s a lifeless, dark box.
It’s been a tradition—at least whenever my parents are in town—to come here for Sunday dinners, which Gram cooks herself since she gives everyone the day off on Sundays.
“My roommate’s an electrician,” I say. “I bet he could look at it.”
“Your roommate is a boy?” My mother, Bitsy, asks, eyes widening. I chuckle at the image of Mom picturing Sutter as a boy and not a strapping, well-endowed man. “You didn’t tell us that.”
I shrug. “I didn’t tell you that because it doesn’t matter. He’s a friend of Nick’s.”
“He’s an electrician, you say?” Gram asks.
I nod. “Owns his own company.”
Her arched brows rise. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s hated having contractors come and do work on her house because spending weeks with strangers invading her personal sanctuary is her idea of hell. Gram loves to keep her public life public and her private life excruciatingly private.
This is probably why her house hasn’t been renovated in decades. If anyone ever makes a movie that takes place in the eighties, they could use Gram’s place and not have to change a single thing. It’s straight out of Dynasty.
“Rand,” my mom, Bitsy, places her hand over my father’s. “Maybe we should start hosting dinner at our place?”
I try not to laugh when I think about how royally pissed my grandmother would be if Mom took over her decades-old tradition.
“Bitsy.” Dad shakes his head and his voice is so low, I doubt Gram can hear it. This is nothing new. He’s spent his entire marriage being caught in the crosshairs of their love/hate relationship.
Gram thinks Mom is too dependent on my father.
Mom thinks Gram is always judging her.
They’ve been a work in progress for the past twenty-five years, and I’m sure they’ll still be a work in progress another twenty-five years from now.
“So this roommate of yours, you think he can help me?” Gram asks, tucking a taut curl behind one ear before resting her hands on her hips.
I probably shouldn’t volunteer him, but seeing how he went out of his way last night to comfort me when he saw me crying, I think there’s a little bit of nice inside that obnoxiously sexy exterior of his.
This morning, I woke before he did, walked Murphy, went for a solo jog, then ate a bowl of oatmeal all before heading to the local precinct to file a report on Robert. I was hoping to see him this morning, to thank him again for what he did last night, but I never got the chance.
I also wanted to tell him what the police said—that they can only question him for now and that without tangible evidence, there’s a good chance the county prosecutor won’t want to bring this to trial, but they reiterated several times that it’s “good to have these kinds of things on record.”
Anyway, I can only assume we’re good now. No more fighting or cock-blocking or hurled insults. We might even be headed in the direction of something that resembles a friendship? But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here.