Page 10 of Sweatpants & Sweet Tea

“Hey, Grandad! You ready for tonight? I laid out your suit.”

“I’m not gonna dress like a penguin.”

“It’s not a tux. Just your suit.”

“I don’t even want to go to the damn thing.”

“Okay, then don’t.” I wasn’t going to twist his arm. Hell, I didn’t want to go either.

Grandad mumbled something unintelligible under his breath as he tossed some papers across the kitchen table at me.

“What’s this?”

“That damn developer.”

I picked up the mail and read a letter amending a previous offer A.C.F. Holdings had given Grandad for the land. They had upped their starting number by twenty thousand. I would ask if he was considering the sale, but Grandad had made his feelings pretty clear on the matter of selling the farm. So unless hell had in fact frozen over, pigs had suddenly sprung wings and were flying, and the developer was able to pry the deed from his cold dead hands, a sale was not going to happen.

Technically, I had as much say in whether or not to sell as Grandad did. When Meemaw passed, I inherited the second mortgage she’d taken out on the property and the debt she’d incurred. It seemed for nearly ten years she’d been borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Grandad didn’t want anything to do with the finances, so I’d stepped in, and he’d signed over his rights to the property. Not that it mattered. I would never do anything against his wishes.

There was a knock on the door, and Grandad slammed his coffee cup down on the table. The liquid sloshed over the rim onto his mail. “It better not be that damn developer sniffing around,” he grunted as he struggled to stand and began coughing.

“I got it, Grandad.” I patted him on the arm as he lowered back into his chair.

He waved his hand at me. “You can’t answer the door like that.”

I had forgotten that I was only wearing a towel. Another knock came as I ducked into the laundry room on the way to the front door and grabbed my last clean pair of sweats from the dryer.

“Coming!” I called out as I walked down the hall. On my way, I noticed that the unevenness in the floor was worse than it was just last week as a board creaked loudly beneath my bare feet. I knew that the foundation had to be fixed sooner rather than later, but I’d just finished repairing the roof and the irrigation for the backfield. This farmhouse was over a hundred years old, and it seemed every time I got one issue under control, another popped up. It was like I was playing a never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole.

My mind was racing with ways to come up with the tens of thousands of dollars I was sure the foundation would cost mewhen I opened the door. All of my thoughts evaporated when I saw who was standing on my porch.

It was the girl from my dream this morning. The angel from next door.

I would have thought it was impossible, but she was even more stunning, even more potent up close. Her beauty was celestial and unmatched by any other human being I’d ever seen. Huge ocean blue eyes were peering up beneath a row of dark, thick lashes. As soon as our eyes met, an electrical current ran from the top of my head all the way down to my toes. Just like the first time I’d seen her, I forgot where I was, what I was doing, how to speak, and even breathe.

“Hi! Sorry, my, um…my aunt said…um…she’s yours?”

It was only then that I noticed she was holding Dini in her hands, cradled against her chest. Growing up on the farm, all of my animals had been rescues, and they were all outdoor pets. Dini was the only cat I’d adopted. I was walking around the Historic District, and there was an adoption fair. Dini managed to escape from her cage and ended up at my feet staring up at me with big brown eyes. She might be a teacup calico cat, but she had the puppy dog eyes of a basset hound, and they worked that day. I’d known from the second we locked eyes that she was mine.

It was the same sensation that I felt when I’d just looked into the sky-blue eyes of the fair-haired goddess on my porch. My gaze lifted again, and I found myself drowning in the endless pools of her mesmerizing stare.

“Is she yours?” she asked.

The question snapped me out of the spell that I’d fallen under. What the fuck was wrong with me? Had I seriously forgotten how to speak to a woman I was attracted to?

Apparently.

I blinked and cleared my throat. “Sorry, yeah.”

I reached out to take Dini, and when I did, her hair fell over the back of my hand, and my suspicion was confirmed. Her strands were as soft as spun silk, and just the slightest brush sent tingles spreading through me like a shot of whiskey. Then, her hand grazed mine, and the velvety smoothness of her skin sent shock waves rioting through me.

I felt like I was the Operation gameboard, and whenever she touched me, it caused a buzzing sensation. She must have felt something too, because the moment her hand touched mine, she stilled and sucked in a breath. Our eyes were locked, and the air between us crackled with awareness.

Time ceased to exist. I wasn’t sure how long we stayed frozen in that moment—a minute maybe—before she blinked and the bubble that we’d been floating in burst.

Dini meowed as I pulled her into my arms.

“Thanks, um, for bringing her back. And tell Miss Rhonda I’m sorry.”

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