Page 283 of Steamy Ever After

“I don’t think so, but I’ll check after we hang up. Why would he have?”

“He wanted to talk to you about a little somethin’-somethin’, would be my guess.”

“Oh, this isn’t good. I wish you hadn’t encouraged him. It’s going to be so awkward at the wine dinner.”

“Call him and tell him you’re not interested.”

“Let me check something. Hold on.” Peyton set the phone on the kitchen counter, counted to five, and then picked it up again. “I checked. I am still me, which means I’m not you. You make those kinds of phone calls. I avoid people until they get the message.”

“Handle it your way, sista. Only, my way is far more effective. Gotta go. I think the Mad-man might be here to ravish me again.”

“Talk to you later, Alex.”

“Buh-bye.”

When Peyton saw there was one voicemail from a number she didn’t recognize, she put it on speaker to listen.

“Hi, Peyton. Uh, this is Peter Wells calling. I’m, um, sorry to hear about your son. So, I was wondering if you’d like to reschedule. I could come up next Monday, and then maybe after we finalize the menu, we could have dinner somewhere. Give me a call when you get this message, and we can figure it out. I’m, uh, looking forward to seeing you, Peyton.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she heard Brodie say from behind her.

“Brodie! God, you startled me. How long have you been standing there?”

“Only long enough to hear the tail-end of that message.”

“It isn’t polite to eavesdrop,” Finn yelled from the sofa.

“Who’s eavesdropping?” Peyton shouted in his direction. “This doesn’t concern you, Finn, any more than my message concerns you, Brodie.”

Brodie sat down next to her at the counter.

“What?”

“It does concern me, Peyton.”

“It doesn’t. That was a private message from a guest chef who we have a wine dinner planned with.”

Brodie shook his head. “That message had nothing to do with your wine dinner, Peyton. You’re definitely not going out with him.”

“Brodie!”

“It’s time for us to talk.” He looked over at Finn. “Let’s go outside.”

Finn got up and steadied himself on his crutches. “I’m going to my room now, parental units, where I’ll put on my headphones in order to refrain from eavesdropping.”

Peyton laughed as he passed them by, but would need to discuss his “parental units” remark with him later.

“Let it go,” said Brodie.

“Let what go?” she asked.

“Parental units. The less attention you draw to it, the less often he’ll do it.”

She took a deep breath. Did he really just tell her how to handle Finn? First, he told her she was not having dinner with someone, and then he told her to let something go with her own son.

“I had a lot I wanted to say to you, Brodie, but I’ve forgotten all of it, so I’ll say this. Don’t think for one minute that you know one iota more about my little boy than I do. You may think you’ve got me all figured out, but you don’t. And you sure as hell don’t know my son better than I do.”

She stood and opened the front door. “It’s time for you to leave. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and my family in the last few days. As I said, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

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