Turning away from the bar, Sharon ground to a halt as a very pale old woman with red hair stopped in front of her. Dressed in a vibrant green dress that showed off quite a bit of cleavage, she looked Sharon up and down with a frown.

“Hi, Aunt Meg,” Sharon said blithely, ignoring the look of disapproval on the woman’s face. “This is my date, Jake. Jake, this is my Aunt Meg.”

Jake was going under the assumption that Aunt Meg must have married into the family, because she didn’t look like any of the other relatives he’d met.

Turning her expression of disapproval to Jake, Aunt Meg looked him up and down. “You’re the construction worker?”

“Ah...” Jake had absolutely no idea how to respond to the disdainful statement. She didn’t sound like she required an answer.

To his utter shock, it wasn’t Sharon who stepped into the breach.

“Construction worker?” The lilting tones of Mrs. Bianchi were full of genteel amusement as she appeared at his elbow, but she was speaking just a little more softly than Aunt Meg had. Her arm tucked into her husband’s, they presented an unexpectedly united front with Sharon and Jake. “Why Meg, who on Earth was filling your ear with that drivel?”

Meg sniffed as Sharon leaned into Jake’s side. He looked down at her to see what her reaction was, and to his surprise, she grinned and winked up at him as if she was sharing a secret. Which just confused him even more.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Meg said haughtily, turning her nose up in the air. “We all know Sharon can be a little unusual but... a construction worker? Really?”

“Sergeant Standish is not only a decorated veteran who served for our country, he is now a contractor for a highly successful remodeling company, as well,” Mr. Bianchi said, his voice carrying even more than his wife’s had. Jake winced a little at being referred to as ‘sergeant.’ He wasn’t high-ranking enough and hadn’t been in long the service enough for anyone who was actually military to refer to him by his rank now that he was out. Sharon’s dad was just using it as a way to make Jake sound more important. “They just did Everett’s new office building recently. It’s top quality work.”

Mr. Bianchi nodded towards a dark-haired man across the room; Jake guessed he must be Everett. The name did sound familiar. Jake was pretty sure that was the guy who had the penthouse above his office that his crew had been working on when he’d first started up with Sharon.