Flipping Love You (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild #3) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,73
you were younger shook loose any sense of pain or fear.”
“Cora, you got something for me?” he asked his grandmother’s partner and best friend.
Cora smiled and reached into the front pockets of the apron she wore. She pulled out a glass jar of some kind of yellow cream and a bottle of brown powder. “Put the cream on your sore muscles. The powder goes in hot water and drink before bed.”
“You’re the best.”
Cora gave him a sweet smile. “Wait till you see what kind of dreams you have when you use that powder before bed. Then you’ll really love me.”
He chuckled. Then focused on his grandmother. “You’ve seen Jill?”
Ellie looked over at him. “No.”
“Then how’d you get my sock?”
“It was hanging on the doorknob to the back door of this place,” Ellie said. “Had a note that said ‘Zeke’s’.”
Zeke shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t she just put it on my doorknob?”
“I suppose she thinks that you need someone else taking care of your socks.”
“Good Lord, she thinks I’m a dumb ass.”
Ellie shrugged. “It’s possible.”
Ellie Landry was never going to be awarded warm-and-fuzzy-grandmother-of-the-year.
“Hey, I built her a very nice penguin enclosure.”
“You can be a dumbass who can’t keep his socks together and still be a great builder,” Ellie said. “Lots of people are dumbasses in some areas and smart and talented in another. Have you ever met a lawyer?”
Zeke snorted. “This is what you’re going to say to me instead of assuring me that I’m not a dumbass and that no one would ever think that of me?” Zeke asked, amused in spite of himself.
“Didn’t you have to get her shoes the other day?”
“I borrowed some from Paige for her, yes.”
“Why?” Ellie asked.
“Because she got her shoes wet.”
“How?”
“Crawling into the penguin enclosure.” Zeke realized how that sounded as he said it out loud.
“Right. Maybe you and Jillian have a lot in common.”
“Being dumbasses?”
“Leaping before you look,” Ellie said with a smile. “By the way, it’s one of my favorite things about you. Sure, once in a while it ends up dislocating a joint, but some people just assume they can’t make it and never even try. You, on the other hand, are never afraid to make the jump. You sometimes fall, but you get help, and then know how to cross that distance next time.”
“And you think Jill and I have that in common?”
“She climbed over the gate instead of accepting she couldn’t get to what she wanted.”
Well, damn.
He really loved his grandmother.
And he was pretty sure he was falling for Jillian Morris as well.
“I like that spin on the dumbass angle.”
Ellie smiled at him affectionately. “You’re not a dumbass, Zeke. You just don’t worry about much. But then why would you? You’ve always had a huge safety net.” She looked around the room.
Zeke felt a little warmer in his chest. She was right about that. He had always had a number of people watching his back.
“Jill’s not a dumbass either.”
“Of course she’s not. She just does dumbass things sometimes. As we all do.”
Okay, he’d give Ellie that. But he couldn’t resist saying, “She’s passionate. And she puts the end goal in front of all the steps it’s going to take to get there. Like when she wanted to get inside the enclosure. She just climbed over the fence rather than waiting for someone to get there to help her.”
“But she can clean up and dry,” Ellie said simply.
Exactly. All of the steps in between the starting point and the end point were details. How a person got there didn’t always matter as long as they were willing to deal with the consequences of taking a different path.
“Thanks, Ellie.”
“For?”
“For making dumbass moments seem perfectly normal.”
She laughed. “Years of practice.”
He leaned across the bar and kissed her cheek. Then he tucked the cream and powder from Cora into his pocket and headed back to the table. Just in time, it seemed.
He got there just as Zander said, “Knox and I have good reason to go out there and look around.”
“What’s my reason?” Tori asked.
“You’re one of the owners of Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild?” Zander asked.
“Sure, but she owns everything out there, she even bought the land from us.”
Griffin looked at Zeke. “They’re all yours.”
“What’s going on?”
“Everyone’s trying to figure out a reason to head over to the penguin habitat. Their curiosity is killing them.”
Zeke’s eyebrows slammed together. “Nobody’s going over there.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “You’re going to stop us?”