Wilder laughed, and he was still grinning when he walked out the front door. I watched him out the kitchen window as he crossed the yard between our houses, and I smiled to myself at the spring in his step. I’d worried that Wilder kissing me would end up making things awkward, but it looked like it might just work out after all.
Just as long as I remembered there were no strings attached.
The cookout wasa lot of fun. I took the poster board over for Gracie as well as the potato salad, and both were a hit. Danny and Miller were great guys. Cash was quiet but still managed to clearly broadcast his opinions with faint snorts and eye rolls. Chase was abrasive as shit, but it didn’t take me long to warm to him despite it—he was an asshole but a funny one, and he was incredibly protective not just of Cash but the other guys too. They could all talk shit about each other, but if you were an outsider who tried it? Prepare to be eviscerated. It felt a lot like being at home with my brothers and sisters.
And I got to see Wilder in his natural habitat, which turned out to be the back porch by the grill, not nailed to the front one.He was so good with Gracie, in that casual way that the best parents were—making space for her and including her as naturally as breathing, not like those dads who acted like they expected a gold star and a parade just for showing up. He didn’t go too far the other way and spoil her either. She was clearly the center of his world, but that didn’t mean she could get away with murder. She had a wobble at bedtime, still overtired despite her nap earlier in the day, and Wilder picked her up and took her inside. I heard him reading a storybook to her when I took a stack of plates into the kitchen.
He was good with her. He was doing it right. I hoped he knew that.
I sat on the porch with a beer and listened to Miller talk about some new restaurant that was open in Hopewell and how they made the best Reuben sandwiches. I didn’t know Hopewell, so I just nodded along like I also had strong opinions about Reuben sandwiches.
“Bobby wants to start selling gourmet sandwiches at the gas station,” Danny said.
“Bobby?” I asked. “Not the guy who owns the Adventurama?”
“Yeah, the mayor. He owns almost everything in Goose Run,” Danny said. “I told him we don’t have the room for a whole-ass kitchen, but when Bobby gets an idea it’s safer to just stay out of the way and let whatever happens happen.” He cracked open another beer. “Then he said maybe he could attach a deli to the bakery.”
“Goose Run has a bakery?”
“Nope,” Danny said. “It’s another one of his ideas. Most of them don’t ever come to nothing.”
“And the rest never should,” Chase added with a nod.
Wilder came outside, picking up his half-finished beer and then sitting beside me on the bench that ran along the back wall of the house. We were close enough that his thigh pressed against mine, and I had to force myself not to move even closer.
“Gracie asleep?” Danny asked.
“Yup.” He took a swig of beer. “Took three books to do it.” He grimaced. “She was still asking why we don’t have Disney like at Grandma’s. Like, what am I supposed to say to that? That I don’t even know if we’ll have money forgroceriesnext week?” He snorted and shook his head.
“Get the man another beer,” Chase said.
“I’m not even finished with this one yet,” Wilder complained but took the beer that Cash gave him. “It’ll be fine. If Steve doesn’t have the work, I’ll see if Candii’s got more gigs.”
Miller shot him a wide-eyed look.
“What?”
“Your kid’s kindergarten teacher isright there.”
“Catch up, Miller. He knows I strip,” Wilder said. “Right, Avery?”
“Yup.” I nodded and took a swig of my beer. Then, feeling brave, I grinned and said, “The cowboy outfit is my favorite.”
Everyone hooted with laughter, even Miller. Then, because Miller still didn’t know the story, Danny told it in exaggerated and mostly incorrect detail while Wilder laughed and shook his head and I blushed a lot. It was a little embarrassing, but also? It was fine. I didn’t feel like an outsider. I felt like I was their friend too.
Wow, look at me! I had a house, and a job, and I had work friends and now nonwork friends. My nonwork friends were also my neighbors, which was kind of a two-for-one deal. And if one of those neighbor-nonwork friends was also a guy who thought I was pretty and wanted to kiss me, I guessed that meant I was pretty much winning at life.
I grinned around my beer, which was a mistake because some of it went down the wrong way and Wilder had to smack me on the back while I coughed. But he kept his hand resting against my shoulder blades even after I’d remembered how to breathe again, and the warm weight of his touch almost made choking worth it.
By the time I made my way home an hour later, I had apleasant buzz going on from the beers I’d drunk. Wilder saw me out, and I could still see him silhouetted against the porch when I reached my front door.
Maybe he was watching to make sure I made it home safely, but I preferred to think it was because he couldn’t stop staring at my ass.
The next coupleof weeks flew by, and the best thing about them was that nothing memorable happened at all. Work was going great, and I was really starting to find my groove with both my own class and the other kids at the school. I went for drinks again a couple of times with Dana and Alan, but I stuck to beer like I’d promised myself. Wilder was there one of the nights, but he didn’t give me another lap dance, which left me both relieved and disappointed.
He was back working for his uncle’s roofing company, which meant there were still times he was running late to pick Gracie up, but somehow it wasn’t the big deal I’d thought it was before, although that could have been because now I knew it wasn’t deliberate. It was just life kicking Wilder’s ass.
It was thinking about Wilder that prompted me to walk next door one Saturday morning and knock on his door. There was silence for a moment, and then Wilder answered the door. “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”
