And then we clicked on bedding and towels, and the excitement and enthusiasm coming from my son both made me smile and broke my heart at the same time.
He loved being involved in the decisions, and even though we didn’t have a home to put it all in yet, he knew exactly what we were getting. I’d have let him choose the ugliest stuff available purely to see him like this, but it turned out my kid had good—and also expensive—taste, so I was spared the pain of smiling about things I didn’t like.
I wasn’t going to just make his life the best and happiest I could. I was going to make sure we both followed our dreams. Words were cheap, and money just couldn’t buy you happiness, but actions were rich and said everything.
My actions were going to scream how loved and precious he was. Anything his dad had let him down on, I wouldn’t. Everything his dad couldn’t be bothered to do with him, I’d do. Every mountain he wanted to climb—although I meant that metaphorically—I’d be standing right behind him.
They weren’t empty promises, either. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I’d make sure I did.
Chapter One
Evie
It was the cut-off sweatpants that did it.
Eyes front and forward, Evie Louise.
Don’t you do it. Don’t look at—
I did it. Not just once but repeatedly.
Every time he pushed the mower forward, his crotch bulge would jerk in the same direction and then settle back until he took a step forward, which was almost constantly.
Those gray sweats, cut so that they were about two inches above his knees, weren’t designed for discretion. And either his underwear was baggy and the non-package-supporting kind, or he wasn’t wearing any. I didn’t care which it was—I was lying, the latter was front and forward in my mental sneaky peeks under his pants—I just had a whole new feeling of gratitude going on today for the whole situation.
Lord have mercy, sweats and lawn mowing porn should totally be a thing. Gardening stores would sell out of mowers, and designers would be drawing down gray sweatpant designs faster than you could say ‘gray sweatpant porn.’
Taking covert peeks out of the corner of my eye, I watched him bend over to do something with the mower and couldn’t stop my mouth from running away.
“Nice buns!”
Jesus Christ, Evie. What are you doing?
Reaching into the trunk, I stared at the box I’d just picked up from the bakery, ironically called Nice Buns. I didn’t subscribe to keto or carb-free diets, and I had zero regrets about it, regardless of what my ex had to say.
Well, that was a lie. I did regret eating carbs after I was done doing it, but I kept that little nugget of truth to myself.
“Excuse me?”
I needed an excuse that would get me out of this, so I lifted the lid before the box cleared the side of the car so it looked like I’d been looking into it when the words had slipped out.
With an exaggerated movement like he’d startled me, I straightened up and held the box in front of me.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there. You mowing the lawn?”
Someone smack me around the head for my stupidity.
Even through all of this, I fought with my eyes to not lower down to the bulge. It was like there was a magnet in his pants. If I even glanced he’d see it and know, so I couldn’t give in. But it was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do, seeing as how the area was facing me now.
The gray bulge was practically staring at me. I could feel it!
Looking from me to the mower and back again, Alex lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “What do you think?”
Fortunately, though, he was a gentleman, so he didn’t actually say it out loud.
“Yeah, grass’s growing quickly in this weather, so I have to do it almost every weekend.”
Mental note to self: get popcorn for the weekends.
“Is that your lawn mowing outfit?” I asked, then mentally kicked myself while I tried to dig myself out of the pervert hole. “It- Well, I-”
Think, Evie, think.
The whole time I was doing this, he was watching me with a slight smile on his face, like he knew what was going on inside my head.
Oh, Alex, you definitely don’t want to know that.
“It’s a comfortable outfit for it. I don’t mow my lawn—”
Don’t point at the stones covering your whole front yard—the feature that sold you on the house because it meant less yard work because there’s only grass at the back.
“—but if I had to, I’d totally go for sweats.”
Stop. Talking.
But did my mouth obey? Like hell it did. “Well, unless it was the summer and they weren’t cut-off like yours are. That’d be a whole new form of hell.”