“She’s unconventional,” I said finally, pulling the burgers off the grill. “Chaotic. Has no sense of appropriate boundaries. Thinks gummy bears are a food group. Organized my snack cabinet by color instead of type.”
“Monster,” Hayden said dryly.
“She sounds fun,” Nathan added.
“She’s a liability,” I said, but even I could hear how weak it sounded.
“I agree. She sounds like a liability lawsuit waiting to happen,” Julien said, swirling his wine. “But also... fun.”
Fitz was watching me with the expression of someone who’d just won a bet with himself. “You like her.”
“I tolerate her. There’s a difference.”
“You’re thinking about her right now.”
I was. I was thinking about the way she looked yesterday morning, flushed and flustered and completely unable to form a coherent sentence. The way her hair had been even more chaotic than usual, like she’d run all the way to my house. The way she’d fled as if I were contagious.
The way I’d stood there in my towel, dripping on my own doorstep, wondering what the hell had just happened.
“I’m thinking about how you’re all in my backyard, drinking my beer, and interrogating me like I’m a suspect,” I said.
“Deflection,” Fitz said. “Classic.”
Megan giggled. “You’ve been weird since yesterday, Daddy.”
“I have not been weird.”
“You burned the burgers.” Fitz grinned.
“They’re not burned, they’re—” I looked down at the burgers. They were definitely burned. “Charred. It’s a style.”
Nathan was trying not to laugh. Hayden wasn’t even trying—he was full-on grinning. Fitz looked as if Christmas had come early. Quinton was recording this on his phone.
“Are you seriously filming this?” I asked.
“For posterity,” Quinton said. “This is a historic moment. Gabriel Lyon, burning burgers. Being weird. It’s like seeing Bigfoot.”
“Delete that.”
“Not a chance.”
“So,” Fitz said slowly, “what happened yesterday?”
“Nothing happened yesterday.”
“Dad answered the door in a towel,” Megan announced cheerfully.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Fitz started laughing. Not a chuckle. A full, gasping, doubled-over laugh that made him spill beer on my deck.
Quinton dropped his phone.
“Oh my God,” Nathan said. “Did she see you?”
“She came to check on Megan,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’d just gotten out of the shower. It was a coincidence.”
“A coincidence,” Hayden repeated, still grinning. “Sure.”
