“What?” Layne asked.

“You need a dining room table. You also need something for that front space. I’m thinking a reading area. Chaise lounge. An elegant table. A floor lamp.”

Fucking hell.

“Ma –”

She cut him off. “I’ll be in the office tomorrow during the day. I talked to Dave. He said you need listeners and I’m a good listener. I can do some office work while I’m at it.”

He wasn’t going to turn that down.

“Ma, the furniture –”

Vera looked him straight in the eye. “Is Rocky eventually going to move in?”

“Yeah,” Layne answered.

“Then you need to give her a home to move into.”

“It’s already a home, Ma, and she hasn’t complained.”

“She moves in, are you going to go furniture shopping?”

“Fuck no.”

She threw out a hand and announced, “No time like the present.”

She had him there so Layne grinned.

“You’re a nut,” he muttered.

“Yep,” she replied on a smile.

“You gonna stay in town much longer?”

She tipped her head to the side and shared, “Florida isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They have hurricanes and they don’t have Hilligoss donuts.”

This was true and Hilligoss was worth moving back home. So was being close to her grandsons before they both moved off to educate themselves and start their lives as well as being close to her son when he was happy and last, being close to Rocky again.

“So you’re moving back.”

She answered with, “I can do your books.”

That wasn’t a receptionist but it was something.

“Thanks, Ma.”

“You’re welcome, Tanner.”

 “By the way, I’m not sure you’d be doin’ Aunt Flo or Helen a favor, hookin’ them up to Devin. He’s not young but that doesn’t mean he’s not wild.”

She cocked her head to the side again. “Hooking him up with Flo or Helen?”

“I know your game.”

She smiled and it was a smile he’d never seen before in his life.

Then she suddenly stood, hitched her purse on her shoulder and walked to the door. In the door, she turned and leveled her gaze on his.

“It isn’t Flo or Helen makin’ him beef and noodles, Tanner.”

Holy fuck.

Layne stared.

Then he started, “Ma –”

Her smile turned lazy and Layne didn’t know what to do with that because he was a man and she was his mother, for fuck’s sake, and as a man, he knew what that smile communicated and he hoped to all that was holy she never directed that smile at Devin. The man wouldn’t stand a chance.

“All these years, after your father, never met a man who was worth the trouble because, except to get you, your father proved not worth the trouble,” she remarked.

“Ma –”

“Until now.”

Oh shit.

“Ma –”

“See you later, honey,” she said cheerfully, turned and walked out.

Layne stared at the door. Then he shook his head.

Then he started laughing as he reached for his phone to call Rocky.

* * *

Thursday, 6:11 p.m.

His client lifted his eyes from the folder he was reading and noted, “This didn’t take you long.”

Layne sat across the client’s desk from him. “He wasn’t real smart with hiding it,” Layne replied, “and he didn’t try.”

The man’s face closed down. He was embarrassed, or more accurately, humiliated. And he should be. He had an employee who had been embezzling for over three years and he didn’t cotton on until about a month before he hired Layne which was only a few weeks ago.

Layne moved him past it.

“He’s also got a ticket to Argentina. He leaves Sunday. So, my advice, pick up your phone and call the cops.”

The man nodded, reaching for the phone.

Layne stood and moved from his office but stopped and turned when the man called his name.

“You ever need a reference, you can tell your potential clients to call me,” the man stated.

“Obliged,” Layne muttered and moved out of the office.

He was out of the building and nearing the Suburban when his cell rang. He pulled it out, looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Yo, sweetcheeks.”

“You like oak?”

Layne bleeped the locks on the Suburban. “Come again?”

“Oak. The wood. For the dining room table,” she explained. “See, I don’t like oak. I mean, it’s okay, but I prefer walnut or cherry wood. Also mahogany. But your Mom and I found this awesome dining room table. Ladderback chairs. One beautifully carved, thick, center leg, with four clawed feet coming out at the bottom. It’s amazing. Two leaves so it could sit ten. You could even squeeze twelve in, at a push. The perfect Thanksgiving Dinner table.”

By the time she was done talking, Layne had swung up in the cab and closed his door. “You like it, get it.”

“Well, does it sound like something you’d like? I mean, oak… I’m not sure.”

“You like it, get it,” Layne repeated.

“Layne –”

“Roc, I really don’t care about furniture. If it’s there, I use it. I don’t care what it looks like or what it’s made of. So if you like it, get it.”

She was silent.

When this lasted awhile, Layne called, “Roc?”

“You care,” she said softly.

“What?”

“You care, Layne, and that’s okay. You can be a badass and also have style. I mean, you dress really nice too.”

Layne blinked at the steering wheel and repeated, “What?”

She laughed softly. “Sweetheart, it’s okay if you give a shit about this stuff. It’s not like it makes you any less of a man.”

What the fuck?

“Uh… Rocky, what the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“Your clothes, your furniture, Layne, they’re stylish, handsome. Your clothes make you look good, especially when you dress up. Definitely hot.” He knew she said this through a smile but he was too busy concentrating on his neck muscles contracting to let that penetrate. “And your furniture is fantastic. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be able to put a house together like that, Layne, but it looks great. I mean, it’s comfortable and manly but it’s still attractive. I love it and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Shit.

“Roc –”

“So, baby, since you know what you’re doing, in a badass interior decorator kind of way, tell me, do you like oak?”

“Roc –”

“Or do you want to come and look? Maybe we can swing in on Saturday.”

Shopping.

Shit.

He pulled in a breath then he let it out and made a decision. And he made his decision because shit happened and if he didn’t tell her, she’d eventually find out somehow. That shit had a way of making it to the light. Usually through Tripp.

“I didn’t buy that furniture, baby,” he said softly.

“Sorry?”

“Or most of my clothes.”

Silence then, “Sorry?”

“Melody did.”

He waited. She didn’t speak.

Fucking shit.

“Rocky –”

“Um… I’ve gotta go.”

“Roc –” he stopped speaking because he had dead air.

“Shit!” he hissed, tossed the phone on the passenger seat, started the truck and headed to her house.

He was standing out on her balcony an hour and a half later having a smoke when he watched her car drive up and swing into the spot beside his truck. She got out and moved from under the awning over her spaces, her eyes lifting to him. Then she dropped her head and walked to the sidewalk.

Layne moved to the little, black wrought iron table she’d had delivered from the Garden Center and he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray she left out for him.

He was inside when she came through the door.

“Rocky –” he started.

She didn’t look at him when she shrugged off her coat and stated, “I need some alone time.”

He crossed his arms on his chest and said softly, “Baby, you know that shit’s not right.”

She tossed her coat on a stool by the bar and turned to him. “I do?”

“We’ve had this discussion,” he reminded her.

“Yes, you had women in your life, we’ve had this discussion,” she agreed. “What you failed to mention during that discussion was that I was sleeping in her bed.”

Fuck, he was getting pissed.

He controlled it and replied, “She picked it, I paid for it, I sleep in it, it’s my bed, Roc.”

“Did she sleep in it?” Rocky shot back.

“Don’t do that shit,” Layne returned.

“She slept in it,” Rocky muttered, dropping her head and moving into the kitchen.

He followed her but kept his distance, stopping on the other side of the bar.

“Like I said awhile ago, sweetcheeks, I wasn’t in suspended animation when we were apart.”

She was at the fridge and she’d pulled out a fancy-ass beer. She opened a drawer, popped the cap, tossed it and the opener on the counter and turned to face him, resting her waist on the edge of the counter, lifting the beer and taking a pull.

She dropped her hand, her eyes hit his and she said, “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

What he knew was that was not good.

“Rocky, don’t do this,” he warned.

“And what I’ve been thinking is that, awhile ago, you were right. I played you.”

Layne was silent.

Rocky was not.

“You were right as well that I didn’t know it but, thinking about it, I did. I played you.”

“Where you goin’ with this?” Layne asked even though he really did not want to know.

“So, I asked you the other night, if I made that pass, would you have accepted it and you said you didn’t know. Which means no.”

“You don’t know what it means. I don’t even fuckin’ know what it means,” Layne returned.