Free Hang Tough by Lorelei James

pain about it. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
    Tobin laughed. “That’s true. So what are you suggesting?”
    â€œNothing. This conversation never happened.” She flashed him a grin and left the kitchen.

    Tobin thought everyone was sleeping early the next morning when he walked out the front door, heading to work.
    He’d only reached the top porch step when he heard, “Tobin Hale. I need a word with you. Right now.”
    He faced Miz G and bit back a groan. She hadn’t bothered to take out her curlers or change out of her flannel pajamas and fuzzy flippers. “I’m running late. Can’t it wait?”
    â€œNo. Kitchen. Now. And don’t dawdle, sonny.”
    Shit. She’d already seen the titty and dick cupcakes. He hadn’t figured out a way to fix them last night, so he’d just left them and gone to bed.
    Sure enough, Miz G stood by the counter, her arms crossed over her bony chest, the bunny head on her slipper flopping side to side as she tapped her foot impatiently. She’d peeled back the aluminum foil halfway on each pan. “Care to explain these?”
    Tobin had decided to claim he was drunk—sad when that lie was better than the truth. So when he saw the pans she was pointing to, he did a double take. The dick cupcakes looked like pinwheels with the banana-shaped candies pressed into the frosting. And the titty cupcakes were flowers—flattened pieces of gumdrops shaped to resemble sugared rose petals, arranged around a hole in the center of the cupcake that was filled with strawberry-champagne preserves.
    Jade. That little sneak. She’d come back down here last night and saved his bacon.
    Totally unexpected.
    Totally sweet.
    He laughed with relief and delight because once again, Jade had shocked the hell out of him—in a good way.
    Then Miz G’s bony finger was drilling him in the chest. “I don’t find this funny in the least. Dadgummit, boy, why didn’t you tell me you had a flair for cake decorating?”
    Flair
? Oh hell no. He had to nip this in the bud ASAP. “It was a fluke.”
    â€œHorse puckey. Tell me the truth.”
    It wouldn’t be fair to drag Jade into this so he said, “I used to make cupcakes with my grandma.”
    A beat of silence passed.
    â€œAnd after she passed on . . . you couldn’t do it without thinking of her. Gol-durn it boy, I thought you were getting teary-eyed looking at the frosting last night, but I figured it might’ve been from fear that you’d gotten in over your head.” Her chin wobbled. “I’m sorry. It’ll be our secret.”
    He hadn’t lied, but she’d gone a little farther with the half-truth than he’d expected. “I’d appreciate it.”
    She patted his cheek. “Have a good day at work, dear.”

Chapter Six

    A fter tossing and turning in bed for an hour, Jade got up and slipped her clothes on.
    She opened her bedroom door slowly, unsure if it creaked. Not that she thought it’d wake GG, tucked away in her bedroom on the main floor.
    The hallway light had been turned off. Two plug-in night-lights sent a bluish glow across the wood floor. She closed the door behind her, noticing Tobin’s door was shut.
    As she passed the sitting room, she debated on playing a few hands of solitaire to wind down. She’d had that itchy need-to-do-something feeling from the moment she’d woken up. It hadn’t helped that GG left her to her own devices again, all day, so she’d cleaned the house, scrubbing bathrooms, vacuuming everything, dusting and mopping floors. After lunch she’d talked to her parents and that had been a fruitless endeavor, attempting to explain her continued restlessness. Their advice? To relax.
    Relax. Right. She’d never mastered that particular skill. And people telling her to chill out when she
knew
she couldn’t only increased her feeling of