“Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t seem like my gig, babe, but I’d try it if you wanted me to. Though if I don’t like it, I’ll share and bow out. I’ll take you to a Comic Con, got no problem with that. And Stranger Things is the shit.”
“I’m not a big football fan,” she admitted.
“I don’t care, though I am, but it isn’t my life.”
She hesitated a beat, and her voice was quiet when she asked, “You’d try Dungeons and Dragons?”
“I’m warning you, it’s probably not gonna be my thing. But yeah, I’ll try it.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time.
Then she said softly, “I think it’s going to be hard to get used to it. I’m not sure it was, like, a normal habit, just something I did. I think it was more like an addiction, something I needed. Helping them. Being that person they turned to. I got some kind of fix out of it, and in the beginning, it was a good high. Then, the more I gave, the more they took, and the high didn’t feel so good anymore. I want to say it’s already a relief, not having them in my life. But as dysfunctional as it is, instead, I already miss them.”
“They’re your family, baby,” he whispered.
“I need to stop being so judgey about Sid,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
They both fell silent and it also lasted a long time before she called, “Danny?”
“Right here, babe.”
“All that said, I think my new addiction is going to be pretty easy to get used to.”
He couldn’t let that go without touching her, so he moved a knee to the steering wheel to keep his truck steady while he squeezed her hand on his leg.
He only did it briefly, but she was Evie, so she gave him shit about it.
“You steer with your knee?”
“It was just for a sec.”
“You need to get over your aversion to my Prius.”
“I’ll work on it,” he lied.
“You’re not gonna work very hard, are you?”
“Nope,” he told the truth.
She giggled.
And there they were.
Mag let out a breath.
And drove the rest of the way to Evie’s friend’s house.
The woman was literally a little old woman.
Gray curly hair, face full of wrinkles and half his height.
Not even.
Gert stared up at him the minute she opened the door and then she declared, “Oh no. You are not gonna do.”
Mag pressed his lips together so he didn’t burst out laughing.
She looked to Evie and stated, “Evan, my girl, the pretty ones are always headache, heartache or both. I thought you knew that.”
“Gert, Danny made you chocolate chip cookies,” Evie told her, then held out the container with the cookies.
Gert cast it a suspicious glance. “From scratch?”
“Yes,” Evie answered.
“Not any of that tub of Toll House already-made stuff?” she pressed.
“None of that,” Evie promised. “They’re really good. Fluffy and soft. He makes them with Crisco.”
Oh shit.
The woman, still barring the door, looked up at him with disgust.
“Crisco?” she demanded.
“That’s how my mom makes ’em,” he said.
“Hmm,” she hummed, seeing as he’d pulled the mom card and no woman could say jack about what a mom taught her kid.
“Can we come in?” Evie asked.
Gert said nothing to that, but she shifted out of the door and opened it further.
Mag let Evie go before him (and he did not fail to note that Gert took the cookies from her as she passed) and then he was treated to Gert actually doing the fore- and middle fingers to her eyes then to him and back and repeat as he walked into her house.
He was again fighting laughter.
Tonight was going to be fun.
Entering the house put them right in a small living room that was filled with men, and Lottie.
And Boone wasted no time sidling up to him and muttering under his breath, “Beware, brother. She hates, like…all of us. All but Mo. And Lots. It’s good you’re here because no one’s talking but Lottie and Gert, and that’s because we’re all terrified of the old broad.”
Gert went around them (slowly), headed straight to an armchair and did this saying, “I’m too old to be serving anymore. You want a drink, the kitchen’s through there.”
She jerked her head to a doorway, set her container of cookies down on a table close to her chair, and then looked at Lottie.
“So you’re the mastermind behind this?” she asked, tossing a hand at Mag and Evie.
“Yup,” Lottie answered casually.
Gert was about to say more, but her gaze fell on Evie