Page 91 of Guarding Over You
He wanted to put a kiss on her lips but knew they couldn’t do that in front of Gracie.
He was still Dr. Blaze, the doctor, to Arden’s daughter. The neighbor. Not her mother’s boyfriend.
Hopefully not much longer.
He knew his girlfriend was nervous about letting her ex know about him on Saturday, but it had to be done.
For a lot of reasons.
One, for their peace of mind.
If it was Billy or Tina harassing Arden, once they knew Blaze was in her corner, he hoped it’d end.
That if anyone saw them together, they’d know she wasn’t alone.
It was why he was thrilled Arden hadn’t denied their relationship when Maddy brought it up, nor hours later that day when it came up again in conversation and he was asked by Steven.
It hadn’t taken long after that for him to get sly looks, busting comments and congrats from just about everyone on duty that day.
Just another reason he kept his life private. But everyone had wonderful things to say about Arden.
Of course they did. There was no reason they shouldn’t.
“It might look better than it sounds,” he said. “Come in.”
He hadn’t had them over for dinner once. He’d been going to her house where he knew it was easier, but he was off today and used the time to run some errands, pick up food, visit with his mother to get dessert and donuts, then stop in to see Clay.
He wanted to believe no news was good news, but Clay wasn’t buying it.
He’d looked into Tina again, saw she had a gray four door sedan also.
What he hated was that he hadn’t noticed the make or model. Hadn’t caught onto those details like he always did because his mind went to where the noise was coming from.
As Clay reminded him, gray was a popular car color and no reason to assume anything. To just make sure he looked for all details and documented them next.
The fact the car came out of a townhouse driveway when he was looking didn’t alert him, but maybe it was just turning around?
He didn’t know. And it was too late to focus on it now. The noise she’d heard was people at the dumpster.
Then he had let his brother in on the change in his relationship with Arden.
Maybe he had to get it off his chest a little. But once he’d done that, he’d called Ash and met him out for lunch and said the same thing. The last thing he wanted was to get grief that his youngest brother was upset he was the last to know.
He expected to hear from his mother soon since he hadn’t told her. He never thought life could get this complicated.
He’d had the table set. Not something he did often. Didn’t even eat there but rather at the island or on the couch. But he put more effort into this, trying to make it a family-style setting.
The food was all on serving plates, nothing he’d ever done in his life and only had at his parents’ house.
Gracie moved to the table and pulled out a seat; he sat next to Arden.
“Okay, I give up. This looks much different from what you said.”
He winked at her, waiting to see what Gracie did or said.
The chicken tenders were straight out of the meat department, him coming home and seasoning and then breading them. Two layers to make them extra crispy and crunchy and then sticking them in the air fryer.
In his mind, they looked almost like what came out of the bag, only much better. Gracie might not know the difference.
