Lots of Naughty & A Little Nice - Leigh Lennon Page 0,11
to treat you both to dinner.”
“We didn’t come to your rescue. We were just being neighborly.” Rowan’s formal words have me stifling a laugh.
“Okay, so let me be neighborly. Come over about seven tonight. It’s nothing fancy, just takeout.” I won’t give them a chance to say no as I make it into my home. Anyway, I have to wake my sister up and break the news she’s been caught and is currently grounded.
Both men are making their presence known in my kitchen as they scrutinize the delivery options, debating over the choices as though the fate of the world is in jeopardy. But they’re sweet and nice and fine as fuck to look at. Whitney is rubbing off on me. I’ve told her swearing isn’t lady-like. It was something our mom never did, and I’ve chosen not to sound like a sailor. But after two years of living with her dad, I guess his bad habits have rubbed off on her. And because I don’t have any plans to alienate her, I pick my battles, and the way she dresses or talks is not one I’ll fight.
As they continue their philosophical debate on our dinner choices, I pull out my checkbook from my purse. “Rowan, how much do I owe you for the luminarias?” He waves me off, and I continue to fill out the checkbook.
“It’s the least I can—”
“I’m not fighting with you on this, Mr. Peterson.” And when he gives me the amount, I finish filling out the check, then hand it to him.
He gazes at it for a beat longer. “Avery Chapel? Glad to know your last name finally.”
His speech is so formal and almost quirky, but after his boyfriend's explanation and the one-on-one interaction I’ve had with him, I’d say conversation isn’t his strong suit.
These men have made me feel as if we’ve been neighbors forever in just a few short days, and it’s odd because I’m not one to click easily with others. My mother could make a friend for life within a matter of seconds. Her funeral was standing room only in a church that generally held five hundred. People traveled from out of state to attend.
“Have you two figured out what you want?” I ask as Knox pulls out a quarter, tossing it in the air, and he shouts heads.
The quarter falls on the counter on heads. “Ah, pizza it is, Ro.”
The interaction between these two is sweet. On paper, I’d never put them together. Knox is very affectionate, and Rowan is more reserved.
“Are you not a pizza person?” I ask, grabbing the new wine I bought this morning when I had a chance to get to the store. My glasses are reduced to red Solo cups, and I pour all of us a generous portion.
“It’s not my favorite. But I’ll eat it because I love Knox, and it’s his favorite.”
Turning the delivery menus over, I peruse the options. “There’s pasta. I’ll get that for you.”
“Nah, I’ll just have whatever this guy has.” There’s no explanation, so I leave it, chalking it up to his quirkiness, but this in and of itself is pretty sexy. He’s the eccentric type with a long and slender build, dark-rimmed glasses, and deep black hair cut short right above the ears. His beard, sprinkled with premature gray, frames his high cheekbones. He can’t be older than thirty with his baby face, and wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a pair of dress shoes, and a pin-striped button-up shirt, his attire fits every part of his sexy nerd-like persona.
The eat-in dinette I’d bought for the kitchen fits the three of us with our wine and pizza, chatting about everything and nothing until the clomps of my sister’s combat boots descend the staircase in the front part of the house.
I wait a beat, and she rounds the corner in what I’d classify as her dressed-up version of her emo self. “Oh, you got pizza.” She walks over and grabs a piece without putting it on one of the paper plates I set out for all of us, then shoves it in her mouth immediately. “Jessica and I are going out for a little bit, maybe catch a movie. You cool with that?”
She’s pushing me, and somehow, she thinks having company means I won’t argue with her. Not to mention, I swiped her keys to her reliable Volvo I insisted on buying her. I remember when I was sixteen, and Whit is a hell of a lot wilder