Crazy: Gibson Boys Book #4

by Locke, Adriana

  He walks across the kitchen, his jeans showing off a set of thighs that were probably crafted by the hands of God, if I were guessing, and picks up his lemonade. The longer it takes him to down the lemonade, the antsier I get.

  Finally, he drops his glass in the sinks and smiles. “If you don’t want to stay here, I get it. Although I might bitch—meaning I will—about packing your shit up again, I’ll do it. A woman should never stay anywhere she’s not comfortable.”

  “It’s not that, Peck, I am comfortable with you—here, I mean,” I say, correcting my misspeak. Because although the first part is true, it sounds weird. Like I mean it more than I do.

  “Good.”

  “Everything just happened so fast that when I had a second to look up, I realized you could be a serial killer, and all I had was this saltshaker.” I set it on the counter.

  “And what were you gonna do with that?”

  “Hit you in the eyeball.”

  His laugh is quick and loud and, even though I know it’s at me, I laugh too.

  “I might just cancel my home security with you around, Hawkeye,” he chuckles. “A saltshaker? Really?”

  “It’s all I had.”

  “Just a helpful hint—knives are in that drawer,” he says, pointing behind me. “Unless you have some super skill I don’t know about, they’ll come in handier than a damn saltshaker.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest. The veins flex in his forearms beneath nicks and scrapes and scars. I look away before I get distracted in a very real way.

  “Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll give you two minutes to ask me anything you want before we leave.”

  “Leave? What do you mean, leave? Where are we going?”

  “One minute, fifty seconds.”

  I grin. “What’s your name?”

  “Wesley.”

  “Aha! I knew it!”

  “You knew what?” He laughs.

  “Your name wasn’t Peck.”

  “I told you it wasn’t Peck, genius,” he teases. “I just didn’t tell you what it was.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “No one calls me that. Sometimes, I forget my name isn’t Peck.”

  “Wesley, huh? What’s your middle name?”

  “Chapman. Wesley Chapman Ward.”

  I ponder that. It’s a very strong name and reminds me of a pastor in the Old West that would shoot you with his six-shooter if you acted up.

  “I like it,” I say.

  “Well, good, because there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” He looks at his watch. “Anything else? Or are you sure I’m not a murderer?”

  I raise a brow. “Well, I’m fairly certain you’re not. Wesley sounds much more good guy than bad buy.”

  “And you’re pinning your safety on that? My name?”

  No, I’m pinning it on that smile.

  “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “Nope. Your life.” He grins. “Now come on. We have somewhere to be.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Unless that’s the name of an actual place, that’s a cop-out.”

  He laughs and heads for the door. “Come on, Hawkeye.”

  “I’m not dressed to go anywhere,” I say, looking at my dirty shirt and shorts. “I’m not presentable.”

  The light fills the room as he pulls the door open. He stops with his hand on the knob and looks at me. He grins. “There’s not a damn thing wrong with how you look. Now come on before dinner gets cold.”

  He bows his head and heads out the door. I follow, my cheeks aching from the smile on my face.

  Ten

  Peck

  “Here we are,” I say.

  My truck rolls to a stop next to Nana’s rose bushes. I cut the engine and take a deep breath.

  Although I’ve never lived in the white house with black shutters, it’s the place I think of when someone says the word “home.” It’s where I’d go if I had a bike wreck—or a car accident as I grew up. This is the place for pot roast on Sunday afternoons, and where my cousins and I would gather to watch baseball games or fighting events because she’d fix us so much food we couldn’t eat it all. Christmases have always been held here, and the lawn has hosted more Easter egg hunts than any place I’ve ever been. Even now that we’re all in our late twenties and early thirties, we still hunt candy-filled eggs each spring just because it makes Nana happy.

  And maybe us.

  I look over my shoulder and see Dylan looking at me.

  “Why do you look nervous?” she asks.

  “I’m not.”

  “Liar.”

  Either I’m way too easy to read, or she’s making a stab in the dark, but she’s not altogether wrong.

  I’ve never done this. Sure, I’ve watched my cousins bring girls to Nana’s house dozens of times, but I’ve never walked through her door with a woman. It’s always felt like a big deal to me. Like bringing a lady to meet the most important person in my life would be the moment I knew I’d found the person for me.

  Yet here I am, sitting in the driveway with a girl I barely know.

  I just invited her to tag along like I was heading to Carlson’s Bakery or something. I blurted it out before thinking it through beforehand—something Walker and Sienna say I need to do more often.

  Clearly, they’re right.

  Dylan leans against the door, squaring her shoulders to me. “Just because I’m staying at your house for a while doesn’t mean you have to cart me all over the world with you.” Her eyes glint with mischief. “I mean, unless you think I’m gonna steal your stuff while you’re gone or something.”

  I laugh. “I have a history with you that makes me believe you’re anti-theft. Plus, you have this vigilante justice thing going on—ouch!” I say as she takes a swipe at my shoulder.

  She laughs too. “Honestly, though. I can see you’re having second thoughts about bringing me here. I can just sit in the car. I’m totally cool with that.”

  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 m
y 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.”

  “Well, I happen to love it.” Dylan smiles genuinely at my nana. “It feels like a kitchen should, you know? All warm and cozy.”

  My grandmother beams.

  I lean against the wall completely forgotten as this little mischief-maker wins over Nana. A chuckle passes my lips as I wonder what Nana would think if she heard the shit that usually comes out of Dylan’s mouth.

  Dylan hops off the bar and gets into a discussion with Nana about cookie jars. I couldn’t chime in even if I wanted to. The sight of the woman who’s been like a semi-comfortable nail in the bottom of my foot chatting it up with my silver-haired grandma like they’re the best of friends is enough to make my head spin.

  “You could put them up there,” Dylan says as she points at the top of a cabinet. “We could put some ivy around them or little lights, and it would be so fun. I think that would be so cute.”

  Nana’s smile splits her cheeks. “You think like I used to think, back when I could do things for myself. It’s hard once you become dependent on everyone else.”

  “Oh, stop that.” I tug open the refrigerator. “It’s not like you’re dependent on anyone. I have to fight ya to let me help you most days,” I say. I peer behind the wall of butter containers that hold various leftovers. “Has Lance been here?”

  “Yes. He was here today. Why?” Nana asks.

  “Because he ate the rest of my cheeseball.” The door closes with a thud. “I’m gonna kick his as—butt.”

  Nana gives me a stern look. “Just do it before Sunday dinner. I refuse to get in the middle of your cheeseball wars.”

  Dylan laughs. “You fight over cheeseballs?”

  “Um, yeah,” I say. “If you’d had her cheeseball, you’d get it, Hawkeye.”

  “Stop calling me that.” She sits across from me. “Or else I’ll call you something … Wesley.”

  Our lips upturn at the same time.

  “You two lovebirds are too cute together,” Nana says.

  Dylan’s eyes fill with amusement. “We aren’t actually lovebirds.”

  “Oh, don’t start with me,” Nana says.

  “What?” Dylan laughs. “We’re not. We’re …”

  Her voice drags off as the humor in her features starts to fade. She sticks her hands under the table as she looks at me for help.

  “We’re friends, Nana,” I say. “You know Navie, right? This is her friend.”

  “I’m old, but I’m not stupid,” Nana says. She runs a hand through the air like she’s silencing us. “You two can call it what you want, but I know. I’m not blind.” She walks to a cabinet. Bending over, she reaches for a tray and almost falls.

  I spring out of my seat and grab onto her. “Whoa, there. You okay?”

  “Yes.” She pats my hand on her arm. “These cabinets are just so deep. I get dizzy when I bend over and dig around for what I need.”

  “Hey,” Dylan says. “I saw a thing in the store the other day. You can attach these little trays that slide in and out of your cabinets so you don’t have to dig around.”

  Nana leans against the counter. “Oh, that would be wonderful. Can we do that, Peck?”

  “Sure.”

  Dylan adjusts her weight from one foot to the other. “You know, I don’t want to interject myself into a situation that’s not mine to be in … but, um, I’d be happy to come over and help you with those and to rearrange the cookie jars. I mean, if you want. I don’t start work for a while …” Her cheeks flush. “I’m doing that talking without breathing thing again, aren’t I?”

  I wish I had a funny comment in my back pocket to whip out. That or something to redirect everyone’s attention from the fact that Dylan is looking at me. But I got nothing. This woman doesn’t know my nana from Adam, yet here she is offering her time and thoughts and energy five minutes after saying hello. Like I would or Walker or Sienna. Like family.

  “You would do that for me?” Nana asks.

  Dylan nods. “Sure. Of course.” She then turns to me, looking … contrite. “If I overstepped, I’m sorry,” Dylan says quietly when I fail to respond.

  My tongue is tied up, twisted around as I take in what’s happening. Dylan being so sweet to my grandmother, and Nana thrilled to have someone take an interest in something she values.

  “You didn’t overstep,” I tell her. “Not at all.”

  My throat is lined with cotton as I try to force a swallow down the narrowed tubes. I wish I could reach for her and give her a hug, but that would be out of line.

  Because she’s my friend.

  And Nana seems to have forgotten that too.

  “I’d love to spend time with you,” Nana says. “It would just thrill me. I was afraid I’d b
e dead and gone before Peck was going to settle down. It’s like he thinks I’m gonna live forever.”

  “Well, that’s because you are,” I deadpan.

  “And again, Nana,” Dylan says, testing out the name, “I’m not Peck’s girlfriend.” She looks at me with a weighted stare. “I’m sure whoever gets that title will be deserving of it, but it’s not me.”

  “Well, it should be,” Nana says, smacking me on the chest before going into a speech about how if I don’t hurry up, she’ll never get to see my children.

  I don’t want to have this conversation with Nana at all, let alone in front of Dylan.

  It’s not that I’m against getting married or having a family or even having a steady girlfriend. I’m not. I even like the concept and see it work well for other people. I just don’t think it will work for me. Not really.

  Sure, I’ve dated a little here and there. I’m never alone if I don’t want to be. But hopping from bed to bed like Lance did before he met Mariah isn’t that appealing, and dedicating yourself to a relationship you think might work out over time is such a drain when it doesn’t work out. Because do relationships ever really work out?

  It’s so much work to care about someone on that kind of level just to see them walk away. Because that’s what people do. They walk away. Even if they love you now, even if they gave birth to you, they’ll take off for the next thing when it comes. It’s the story of my life. Besides Nana, Molly McCarter has been the most consistent person in my life when it comes to women, and we’ve never been … anything.

  I look up into Dylan’s face. She eyes me carefully like she can see through me. It’s a little unnerving.

  Nana sits in her rocking chair that faces the kitchen from the living room. She cringes as she gets settled.

  “Where are you from, Dylan?” Nana asks.

  “Indiana. I was born in Detroit, though. We moved when I was little—six or seven, I think—so I don’t remember much about it there.”

  “What brought you to Linton?”

  “Well, I suppose I looked up one day and realized I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.” She looks up at me and gives me the shyest smile. “I needed some space. New friends. To be closer to Navie because she gets me.”