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She glares at me. “Why do you say that?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. There’s just something…off about it. So your grandma couldn’t have made it.” There’s nothing off about that pie, and I feel like a turd for even saying it, but Ms. Markie nods and looks satisfied. I feel her foot bump mine under the table.
Evie harrumphs and crosses her arms. “Try the other one.”
I take a bite of the other one. “Mmm. This one is better. This one is definitely your grandma’s.” I point my fork at it. “It is so good!” I cut myself another piece, larger, and eat it in two huge bites without stopping.
She leans toward me, a smirk of epic proportions on her pretty face. “Guess what, Grady Parker?”
“What?” I ask around my mouthful.
“You just lost.”
I try to look surprised, and Ms. Markie pretends to be miffed at me, but she sends me a secret wink that makes me happy. “I did not!” I point to the pie with the rosettes on it. “There’s no way that you made that pie.”
“I did.” She uncrosses her arms and leans toward me again. “Ask Grandma if you don’t believe me. I spent the whole morning on it.”
“Well, damn!” I pretend to pout. “I hate shoe shopping.”
She waves a breezy hand in the air. “Don’t worry, Grady. We’re not going shoe shopping.”
“Then where are we going?” I can’t think of anything that could be worse than shoe shopping, but if anyone could find something that would make me miserable, it would be Evie.
“We’re going to the turkey shoot.” She looks supremely satisfied.
“But I lost.”
“I know, but I just got a new twenty-gauge shotgun and I want to try it out.”
I point my fork at her. “You just got a new shotgun.”
She nods.
“And you want to try it out.”
She nods again.
And if I hadn’t known that Evie Allen was perfect for me before that very moment, I certainly know it now.
“Okay,” I say with a shrug.
She nods as if pleased at the outcome, and I reach for another piece of pie. She shoves the whole thing in my direction as she rolls her eyes.
Her phone rings again, and she excuses herself to go and answer it.
“I owe you one,” I say to Ms. Markie. Then I take a bite of her pie.
“Mine’s better,” she whispers. I nod, although I’m not at all certain that’s true. Evie’s might just be better. But I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. I’m damned either way, so I just keep eating.
And when Evie comes back out of the bedroom, she’s wearing a skin-tight pair of black jeans, a black sweater that hugs her boobs and her hips all at the same time, and a pair of cowboy boots, and I’ve never seen her look sexier. I almost do a double take when she walks in. She looks down at herself.
“Do you think I look okay?” she asks. “I don’t know what to wear to a turkey shoot.”
“You look fine,” her grandma says.
Evie grins and goes to find her shotgun.
And I feel like I just won the fucking lottery.
