“Yeah, we’ll see,” I said, then watched him pull his shirt over his head, revealing a flat muscled belly with a fine dusting of dark hair that grew in even darker and thicker just below his navel.

I stood there for a moment, just dragging air in and out of my lungs and trying to calm down before I turned to Minerva. “How many pies do you think those boys will eat? Five? Ten?”

“I’d go with five,” Minerva said, then chuckled as she reached for her glass of spiked lemonade.

“What?” I asked.

“That one has always been fond of you, hasn’t he?” she asked with a knowing smirk.

I coughed out a nervous chuckle and nodded. “And too damn mannish, if you ask me.”

“Hm. There is nothing mannish about him now. He’s definitely a grown man.” The look on Minerva’s face shifted into something more...lascivious? Yes, that was exactly what that look was, and I was scandalized.

“Minnie!” I gasped, giving her arm a playful thwack.

“Don’t act like you didn’t notice.”

The laughter died on my tongue as shame set my neck and cheeks aflame. “Yeah, I noticed.” And now, I was beginning to realize that it was a problem.

Minerva and I did a quick inventory of the food and drink that we needed for tomorrow’s brunch — the first of two I would host this weekend. This one was going to be small, close family only, but I was more nervous for it than anything else. Mostly because Jolene was going to be there.

Me and my husband’s mistress haven’t been in the same room in more than a year. Shannon willed her his portion of my business when he died, so we were business partners at MacFarland Brokerage, but that was in name and paperwork only. I ran the agency, and she was free to do whatever the hell she does without much interaction between the two of us. Jared was close with his little brother, but with him in Chicago, I only had to be comfortable with knowing he would visit his brother whenever he came into town. But tomorrow morning, Dylan would be in my house, eating at my table with her, and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t fucking bother me.

Maybe that was why my mind latched onto Tommy’s charm and boyish flirtation this afternoon. I knew that’s all it was. I would be silly to read anything more into it.

I sent Minerva home, poured myself another spiked lemonade, and made my way upstairs.

I loved this old house.