Page 90 of The Usual Family Mayhem

He raised an eyebrow, looking all sexy and playful. “You could come over tonight and return the robe.”

“Should I be wearing it?”

He winked. “Definitely.”

“Gram was wrong. We’re communicating just fine.”

Chapter Forty-Two

A few hours later the house settled down. I’d returned Jackson’s car keys—but not his robe because I might never give that back—so he could scamper, probably off to work. A hot shower and two cups of coffee helped to get the day back on track.

First stop, the kitchen. A pre-lunch scone waited for me. So did Gram and Celia. They’d clearly attended the shortest church service ever or skipped out on the after-service gossip, which they never did.

“You’re back.” I tried to make that sound like a good thing.

Celia smiled. “We are.”

An ambush.Great.

They’d retaken their seats at the table. Gram had made an early switch today from a hot beverage to her beloved sweet tea, which meant she planned to linger as long as it took for her to get the information she wanted.

Apparently no one in Winston-Salem needed fresh pastries anytime soon.

I made it the whole way to the table and my plate before Gram spoke up. “You certainly know how to liven up a Sunday morning.”

Celia nursed a cup of coffee, holding it close to her mouth but not drinking it. “Leave the poor thing alone.”

“She’s the one who came crashing in on our breakfast.”

Celia nodded. “We’ve all been there.”

Wait a minute. What were these two doing while I was in DC? “You’ve been caught wandering around town in a man’s robe?”

Gram snorted. “You’d be surprised.”

We’d hit on an interesting topic filled with messiness and mistakes that weren’t mine. Finally. “Let’s talk about that for a few minutes.”

“No.” Gram’s tone didn’t leave a lot of room for disagreement. “So, what does all of this mean?”

“You and Jackson. Together.”

I figured out the context without Celia’s help. “Yeah, I know what Gram is referring to.”

Gram poured herself another glass of tea and hunkered down, ready to interrogate. “I’m still not hearing an answer.”

That was on purpose because there was a limit to the amount of sex talk I could have with my grandmother. Celia was Jackson’s aunt. This situation hadickwritten all over it. “I thought I could finish my scone first.”

Gram pushed a plate full of scones in my general direction. “You can do more than one thing at a time.”

Gram was not backing down. She wouldn’t be happy until I presented a PowerPoint presentation on yesterday evening’s activities. “You understand this is embarrassing, right?”

Celia crossed the room and picked up the jam and clotted cream. If she intended to force me to talk by stuffing me with scones... yeah, that would likely work.

“It shouldn’t be. We’ve all had sex with men before.” She launched that bomb as she sat down again. “Admittedly, for me, not great sex. He had no idea what he was doing.”

“Men always think they’re so good at it.” Gram delivered a well-placed snort. “All that fumbling and grunting.”

Celia made a face that showed how distasteful she thought that was. “At least it was over quickly. That was the one benefit of the lack of skill.”

---