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“Boring,” Raven confirmed.
A sigh. “And let’s not forget adrenaline. That flows through your body like the most treacherous of drugs.”
Something else she’d learned about Auntie Pat?
Her surrogate aunt could be more than a little dramatic.
“I’ll be at a desk all night, Auntie,” she reminded her. “Which means that it’ll be a quiet night for me.”
Pat scoffed again—something else she had down…wellpat.“Excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
“Tell me more about your neighbors,” Raven said instead of getting into a verbal battle. The woman was stubborn and smart and oftentimes—mostof the time—right.
Auntie Pat had also barreled her way into Raven’s life and hadn’t left, even when Raven had done her best to erect distance between them.
Turned out Pat didn’t much like distance.
As in,she didn’t like distance.
And much like her friendship with Frankie, Maggie, Misty, and Soph had begun—them basically bullying themselves into her life—her relationship with Pat had grown. She’d showed up that first day, woke her up, unpacked Raven’s things, then made her breakfast with food she brought from her own house. Before she’d left to go back to her place so Raven could nap, she’d already arranged a grocery delivery. Then had cooked lunch and dinner, the latter of which they’d eaten on Raven’s deck, watching the ocean grow dark in front of them as the sun went down behind them.
And Pat had showed up at Raven’s door every day after that.
Bringing drama and hilarity and…love.
Something that had grown in Raven’s heart as well.
Case in point, how Pat ranting about those new “millennial hooligans” had Raven in stitches over their exploits, real and imagined.
“Then they hung their sandy towels on the banister!” Pat complained. “They didn’t even care about the shower of sand they createdorthat it blew into my hot tub.”
“Oh the humanity,” Raven said dryly. “Notthe hot tub.”
“I’d watch that tone, missy,” Auntie Pat chastised. “You liked putting your feet in my hot tub.”
Raven had.
She wouldn’t have minded a full soak if her injuries had allowed.
But it wasn’t something she could risk while her burns were healing, not until recently, anyway.
Also, “I’d be annoyed if I had to clean sand of out my hot tub.”
A sniff—albeit a pleased one this time. “I knew you’d see things my way.” The sound of pots and pans in the background, the sizzle of food—all of which made Raven miss living next door to Auntie Pat. The food alone that woman made…well, Raven’s stomach was going to really,reallysad to have to deal with her own pathetic brand of cooking.
“All right,” she began as she turned into the parking lot, “I should—”
“Have you seen him?”
The question stole her breath, sent her fingers clenching on the steering wheel tightly enough to have her wrists protesting.
She didn’t answer.
Shecouldn’t.
“Raven?”
She sucked in a breath, released it, forced herself to say, “Yes.”
