Chapter 14
Raeleen
“You’re glowing, dear.”
I looked up, startled as Margaret smiled at me. The whole table was watching me and I now knew what one of the cockroaches felt like when Penny eyed them before making them her snack. “Really?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.
The three women sitting around the table with me playing bridge gave each other conspiring looks.
“Told you she was hiding something,” Henrietta said with a sniff.
“It’s a man,” Norma concluded.
“Of course it is,” Margaret told her. “It’s always a man.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Don’t you three have anything better to do than sit around gossiping about my non-existent love life?”
“That’s what we’re saying,” Norma replied. “We don’t think it’s so non-existent anymore.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, staring down at my cards. If I looked up they were going to see the truth in my eyes because my dinner with Pyre last night had gone as well as it could have.
We’d talked the whole time we’d eaten and the date had ended with another mind melting kiss at my front door.
He hadn’t tried to take it any farther and I was beginning to realize he was courting me.
He wasn’t acting like any of the men my friends had run into, where they thought buying them a meal meant they owed them something in exchange.
Not that Kaisa or Maya had put up with that nonsense when it’d happened.
They’d shut those men down so incredibly fast. And who wouldn’t?
Kaisa was right when she’d said there were too many good men in the world to put up with that bullshit.
And Pyre was just out here proving it. He hadn’t tried to talk me out of what I’d told him before our date.
In fact, we hadn’t talked about me wanting kids at all, but he had talked about his cousins’ kids and how much fun it was to spend holidays with them.
Like he was signaling to me that he wanted kids, but not pandering to me.
“See? That right there,” Margaret said, pointing at me. “Only a man puts a twinkle like that in a woman’s eyes.”
“Exactly, but is it the ‘I’m smitten with this man’ twinkle, or the ‘I just had mind blowing sex’ twinkle?” Henrietta asked.
“It’s definitely the smitten twinkle, if it was sex she’d be glowing and too relaxed to argue…or play a good hand,” Norma replied. “Trust me, I know these things.”
Shaking my head, I laughed. Nothing was off limits with these three. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lies,” Henrietta said. “This girl doesn’t think we know her tells even after playing poker with her.”
“Shhhh,” Norma hissed, looking around. “Don’t let the wardens hear you say the p-word.”
I laughed again. These women loved to gamble.
They met up in secret once a month and put on a poker day.
It was against the assisted living home’s rules to gamble.
So naturally they moved the day, time, and location of the poker days.
The last time it was in the little room beneath the stairs.
It’d barely fit those of us who’d been invited to come and play.
And Norma had taken me for a nice little chunk of change.
That woman might have been a con artist in another life.
I wonder what would happen if I let them loose in the MC’s clubhouse?
“Oh relax,” Margaret told Norma. “The wardens aren’t even around.”
The fact that they called the people who worked here wardens cracked me up.
Pretty much everything these women did cracked me up.
I came here a couple of times a month to visit.
That was how I knew Mrs. Templeton, though she rarely sat and played bridge with us.
She preferred to read, so we’d sit together and I’d read the old bodice rippers to her.
Near the end there, her vision was so bad that even glasses couldn’t help her with the small print.
I hadn’t minded one bit and enjoyed the time we’d spent together.
“Now,” Henrietta said, pulling my attention back from thoughts of Mrs. Templeton, “spill it, girly.”
“Yeah,” Norma said, resting her chin on the heel of her hand as she stared at me. “Give us the goods. We haven’t had any love stories around here in far too long.”
Margaret rolled her eyes. “Then what do you call Harry mooning after you if not a love story?”
Norma waved her hand. “That’s pure lust, honey. He only wants a place to stick his-”
“Norma,” Henrietta barked, interrupting her.
I choked on a laugh.
“All men want that,” Margaret informed her. “Even Rae’s young man.”
They all looked over at me. “Why would you want to hear about that and not Norma and Harry?” I asked, trying desperately to get the spotlight off of myself.
“Because you’re young and beautiful,” Henrietta explained.
“And your young man’s ball sack probably doesn’t look like a dried up old prune,” Margaret added.
“Harry’s doesn’t look like that,” Norma argued.
I gasped at the same time she responded to her friends, unable to believe we were talking about this. “Ladies-”
“Where?” Henrietta asked me with a grin.
Right.
“Just because we’re old, doesn’t mean we don’t like sex,” Norma informed me. “And dehydrated kiwi’s would be more appropriate.”
“...good to know. However, I’m not used to…talking…so openly about it,” I countered.
Henrietta shrugged. “Well, you’ll get there eventually.”
“Best way to get over that shyness is to practice,” Margret said. “It’s been a long time since any of us have had the flexibility to—”
“Got it!” I cut her off, not wanting any images in my head of seventy year olds doing whatever was at the end of that sentence.
“So spill,” Norma added. “We want to hear all about him.”
Looking around at them helplessly, I tried to find a way around it. They wore expressions that perfectly matched my group of younger friends when they were determined to get their way. Worse, actually, since they’d had decades more practice. Sighing, I gave in. “His name is Pyre-”
“What kind of name is that?” Henrietta asked, interrupting.
“People and their new-fangled names these days,” Margaret said in agreement. “They’re just odd. I met a young lady named Rainbow the other day.”
“Where did you meet someone?” Norma asked.
Biting the insides of my lips to keep quiet, I hoped they would go off on a tangent and forget about me. My hopes were soon dashed.
“She was here to visit her grandfather. You know what? Never mind that.” She pointed at me.
A commotion interrupted us and I jumped out of my seat to grab Penny as she scuttled by.
Before I reached her a tray clanged far too near her for my comfort and bounced away.
Penny froze mid-escape and fell over onto her side, stiff and seemingly lifeless.
She’d been scared into playing dead, though thankfully the tray hadn’t hit her.
It at least would give me the chance to catch her.
“I thought pets weren’t allowed here,” a woman named Betty complained. She was standing there with her hands on her hips after throwing the tray.
You can’t hit an old lady. You can’t hit an old lady.
Oh, but I wanted to. She’d almost hurt my sweet little girl.
The only reason I brought her here is because a bunch of the residents living here begged me to.
They loved seeing any kind of pet brought in.
Had anyone ever heard of a therapy opossum?
It was something I’d been thinking about looking into.
I’d have to rethink that idea now that Betty could be a threat to Penny.
“Oh shut it, Betty,” Norma snapped at her.
“Yeah, Penny is family, not a pet,” Margaret told her.
I knelt down and scooped Penny up. She burrowed her head into my chest, looking for a safe place to hide.
She’d given up playing dead as soon as I had her in my arms. She’d been visiting with the people who lived here as we sat in the rec center, not bothering anyone.
Looking up, I glared at Betty. “Do that again and we’re going to have a problem.
” If she continued to go after my girl, then I wasn’t going to hold back.
Eighty years old or not, Betty was begging for me to return the welcome she’d given Penny.
Betty’s eyebrows shot up, but all she did was turn and go upstairs.
Between my threat and everyone down here glaring at her for scaring Penny, she knew she wasn’t going to win that battle.
Normally I was quiet and reserved, but I’d go to war for my loved ones and Penny was more important to me than most.
“Is she okay?” Henrietta asked.
“Yes. She’s alright.” I sank down onto my heels, cuddling her close, crooning quietly to soothe her.
“Betty is a retched, awful…” Norma paused. “Oh…”
“My,” Margaret said with awe in her tone.
“Where can I get one of him?” Henrietta asked our group.
“Just one?” Norma asked with a smile. “I’ll take two.”
Frowning, I followed their stares to the door of the rec center then gasped. Pyre was striding toward me, his long legs eating up the distance between us. There was a scowl on his face and his eyes were pinned directly on me.
“What happened?” he asked as he approached.
I blinked up at him as he fisted my bicep and helped me to my feet. Holding Penny close to my chest I swallowed hard as those intense blue eyes bored into me. “N-nothing. It was just a misunderstanding.”
He looked me over, as though I might be injured, then focused on Penny. “You bring your pet opossum to the old people’s home?”
“Oh they don’t like it to be called-”
“Listen here son,” Harry said, sidling up to us. “This is the assisted living home. We’re not old.”
I bit the insides of my lips to keep from smiling because Harry was eight-five years old.
Pyre crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing Harry. “Sorry about that, Gramps.”
“Gramps,” Harry huffed, clearly offended.
Ignoring Harry’s indignation, Pyre focused on me once more. “Why were you on the ground like that?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “It looked like you were hurt.”