Somewhere in the Middle

I Know

"That's not what I said!" Evie exclaimed, staring at her mother with wide eyes where she sat across the table.

Brenda Porter only smiled. "Well... it was something along those lines."

They were at a diner not too far from the venue—Evie, Luke, her mother, and her Aunt Charlene. And had Evie expected the conversation to take this turn, she would've made sure to keep Luke from coming with them.

"Oh yeah?" Luke asked, and Evie didn't have to look to know he was giving her a shit-eating grin.

"No," she said, trying to sound firm even as his warm hand started rubbing her back. "What I said was, that you were... an attractive guy, who... knows how to, talk to women."

"Mhm," her mother said, lips pressed together as she turned her attention from Evie to Luke. "Right before she said that she didn't know how long she'd be able to fend you off before she'd end up giving in."

Aunt Charlene burst out laughing.

"Mom," Evie exclaimed again, sure that the woman who'd birthed her was breaking some kind of code in telling her love interest that she'd been so invested in him all along.

Luke just laughed, his hand keeping up its movement on Evie's back.

"What?" her mother asked, matching her daughter's heated stare. "It's what you said."

"Yeah, but I didn't say it thinking you'd tell him when you met him!"

"Don't worry," Luke said, enjoying this all too much. He grabbed her hand under the table and winked at Evie. "Your mom's not telling me anything I didn't already know."

"See?" her mother asked, just as Evie rolled her eyes, causing Luke to laugh even more. And her cheeks heated impossibly more when he leaned over to press a kiss to the side of her head. Evie tried not to see the way her mother's eyes went all soft and fond as she stared at the two of them.

"Luke understands," Brenda said, smiling at Luke from across the table. "I can already tell he's ten times the gentleman that Jeffrey ever was."

"Mom," Evie warned.

"I'll never forgive what he did to you," she said, shaking her head.

"Mom!" Evie was almost shouting now, her stomach in knots. Luke's hand had gone still in hers.

Her mother stared at her, reading the silent plea in her daughter's eyes. "Well, anyway... Genevieve is in need of a good guy. And I think we all can already tell you're a good guy, Luke."

It took a lot for Evie not to start banging her head against the table. She settled for hanging it in her free hand instead, already softening because Luke's thumb was running the length of the back of her hand once more.

"Brenda, you're bad," Aunt Charlene said, slicing through the wall of tension Evie and her mother had built between them. Charlene was still laughing as she shook her head and sipped her water.

"Thank you!" Evie said.

They'd finished eating several minutes ago, and she wished their waiter would hurry it up with the check. Between Luke's consistent attention with his hands, and her mother's big mouth, she didn't know how much more of this she could take.

"I could be much worse," Brenda said, winking at Evie and smiling at her sister. She took a sip of her diet coke.

"Yeah, and before that happens, let's get out of here. What's the plan?" Evie asked, needing to change the subject before her mother spewed any more information that Luke would never let her forget.