Crazy (The Gibson Boys #4)(26)

I consider for a split second backing down the driveaway and heading toward Carlson’s after all, but the longer I take in her button nose and the spray of freckles across her cheeks, the more I kind of want to take her into Nana’s with me.

She’s just a friend. It’s not like I’m taking a girlfriend.

Totally different thing.

I think.

“Come on,” I tell her as I pop open my door. “Let’s go.”

“Peck …”

“If you don’t come on, there won’t be any food left, and I’m not gonna feel bad that I’m stuffed and you’re starving.”

The passenger’s door squeaks as she pushes it open. The metal clinks as she swings it shut. I stand at the front of my truck and wait on her.

She rounds the corner, shaking her shirt. “You could’ve at least let me clean up.”

I could’ve. But something tells me Nana will like her just fine the way she is.

“Nah,” I say.

“This will be a terrible first impression.”

“Don’t worry,” I say as we head toward the back door. “You’ll never get the honor of being the worst impression anyone has ever made on Nana. That goes to a girl Vincent brought here in high school. In a bikini.” I laugh at the memory of Nana’s reaction. “I think she was a little drunk too.”

Dylan’s eyes go wide. “What? Drunk and naked? Was he out of his mind?”

“I’m not sure Vincent was ever in his right mind back in those days.”

I pause at the ramp leading up to the back door. Dylan eyes me carefully with a smidgen of trepidation in her eyes as she walks slowly up the wooden planks. I follow, gazing at a trail of dirt down her right side. It bends at the curve of her hip and slides down the back of her shorts.

Focus, Peck.

“Hey,” I tell her as we get to the top.

She turns and looks at me. My chest rises and falls so quickly that I’m aware of it. So many things are running through my mind, and I can’t sort them all. Especially knowing Nana has undoubtedly seen us by now and is waiting on us to come in—probably loaded with a hundred questions and even more presumptions.

“I should’ve warned you before now,” I say. “But, um, this is kind of a new thing for me, and I don’t know what Nana’s going to say or think or … whatever.”

I take in her rosy cheeks and the soft curve of her lips. I’d be damn proud to walk in there with her hand in mine. It would thrill Nana to death. Probably literally. I make a mental note to be this sure of the woman I do take to meet my grandma someday.

Dylan sticks her tongue in her cheek. “So what you’re saying is that she’s going to think we’re screwing?”

I cough like I’ve been knocked in the gut. And in the balls. They both ache like a motherfucker.

She laughs at my reaction, grabbing my shoulder as I sputter. The contact doesn’t help. At all.

Cringing, I take a step back.

“Please behave,” I almost beg.

“Define behave.”

“Why do you have to make everything hard?”

She fights back a laugh as I realize the innuendo she just ran with. “I make things hard. Good to know.”

The inside of my cheek burns as I bite down on it.

“Sorry.” She clears her throat. “So I should make it clear that we aren’t screwing?”

“Can we not talk about us screwing on my grandmother’s back porch?”

She spies my discomfort like the little troublemaker she is. My attempt at adjusting myself doesn’t go by unnoticed. She doesn’t even pretend to have missed it.

“Oh, so we are screwing? I thought we weren’t?”

My lips part when a tapping sound rings out from the sliding glass door behind Dylan. Nana stands on the other side, her face lit up.

This is gonna be fun.

Giving Dylan a narrowed eye, I venture past her—being careful not to touch her—and slide open the door.

“Hey, Nana,” I say as unaffectedly as I can.

“Well, hello to you too.”

Her smile is too bright. Way too bright. Shit.

“I didn’t know you were bringing a girlfriend,” she says. The happiness in her voice can’t be mistaken.

I look at Dylan. She looks at me. And smirks.

She’s getting way too much enjoyment out of this.

“Nana,” I say, forcing down the lump in my throat. “This is my friend that’s a girl named Dylan.”

The emphasis is lost on my grandma. She doesn’t even hear it. She blocks it out like she does when Machlan tells her that cake for breakfast is bad for her blood sugar.

“Dylan, it is a pleasure to have you over for dinner,” she says, taking in my friend. “Please, come in. Have a seat. Make yourself at home, dear.”

Dylan saunters by me, bumping me in the side with her shoulder. “I think she likes me,” she whispers.

“Behave,” I mutter. But if she hears me, she ignores me.

Par for the effing course.

“Look at this kitchen,” Dylan says as she climbs on a barstool. “It’s so lovely.”

“Why, thank you. My husband had this redone for me the year before he passed away. I’d like to update it a little, but I don’t quite have the heart.”