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“Stop.” I closed the washer door with a clang and hit the button to start the wash cycle. “I have heard about every single woman in town at this point, but Toby is my priority. How do you think he’d handle it if I started dating?”
“Well, I don’t know. And neither do you unless you try. It could be good for you both.”
I hummed noncommittally. Maybe running the gauntlet of the women in the living room—and their inevitable questions about my private life and parenting missteps—would be better than my mother’s targeted attack?
“Just think about it,” she continued. “It’s been a year since your divorce. I want to see you happy again. Toby, too. He’s the sweetest boy, Hunter, but he hasn’t fully accepted that you and Holly won’t be reconciling.”
I dragged a hand down my face. “I know.”
Toby was always sweet as pie for his grandmother. But he’d been outright hostile toward me, and he was acting out at school. Things were not good. Adding dating to that mix would only be feeding the flame of his discontent. I couldn’t imagine he’d take it well. Maybe it would help him move on, but at what cost?
Iola Fletcher popped into the doorway. “JoAnn, it’s your turn to play.”
My mother patted her hair. “Oh, well, okay. Will you please tell Hunter he needs to get out and live a little? All he does is worry about Toby and that old house of his. It’s not healthy.”
Iola grinned like the Cheshire cat. “You’re quite the hot commodity these days, huh?”
“Unfortunately,” I muttered as I turned to lean back against the washer. “But my mother has already listed off every single woman in town, so—”
“What about single men?”
“Uh…” I wasn’t into dudes, but it seemed rude to say so. My brother was gay—and a drag queen—so it wasn’t as if the idea weirded me out. I settled on a diplomatic response. “I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”
“Sure, sure,” she said. “I bet the women in this town have been salivating over an attractive single father, hm?”
She scanned me head to toe, giving me the kind of once-over I preferred in a bar hookup rather than my mother’s laundry room. But I was getting used to being ogled since returning to Granville. In the year since I’d moved back, I had been reminded of just how overbearing small-town people could be. Well-meaning, yes, but so damn meddlesome.
“I’ve gotten my share of attention,” I said, wary of a trap.
She tsked sympathetically. “I bet it’s been overwhelming.”
“A little, yeah.”
Only last week, Thelma Walker had offered to hold my meat at the deli counter of the grocery store, and I got the feeling she didn’t mean the sliced turkey I was putting in my cart.
“My grandson is quite the catch though,” Iola said.
And there was the trap, so neatly laid.
“Have you met Clark since you came back? He’s about yay-high.” She held her hand a foot above her head, but that wasn’t saying much, because Iola was tiny. “Curly blond hair. Just an angel. He teaches at the high school.”
“Right, yeah, Clark,” I bluffed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know of him. It was a small town, and I’d seen him at The Stag Pub quite a few times. Last summer, I’d spent way too many nights trying to drown my sorrows, and I still stopped in to pick up dinner now and then because it was marginally healthier than fast food. But we’d never spoken.
“He’s only been back in Granville a smidge longer than you,” Iola said. “You two might have a lot in common.”
“Well, I appreciate you thinking of me,” I said awkwardly. “But I’m not dating right now.”
She pulled a sour face. “Yeah, that’s one of the things you have in common. I’ve tried to set him up with some lovely men, but he always finds a way to worm out of the date!”
“Well, uh, I’m sure he’ll date when he’s ready,” I said. “These things can’t be forced.”
“We’ll see about that. I’m going to find him such a good man he can’t possibly resist,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin. “So get with the program, Hunter, or you might miss out!”
She stormed off, leaving me bemused but impressed by how passionate some of the women in this town got about matchmaking. I hid until the laundry was nearly done, but eventually I was lured out by the sound of my son asking for yet another cookie.
“You’re going to spoil his dinner,” I warned my mother as I emerged from the hallway. “We’re leaving soon.”
