Page 106 of The Renegade Billionaire

The older woman blushes. “Yes, and we wouldn’t want him any other way, now would we, dear?”

Ugh. Gag. Gross. Rose was friends with my grandmother, but that has never stopped her from flirting.

“I’ll see you on Thanksgiving. Have a good day,” I say, actively dismissing her.

“What’s happening on Thanksgiving?” Okay, so he was paying attention.

“It’s a lot of work to make Thanksgiving dinner for only me and Pops, so we volunteer at the church, cooking and serving meals to those in need.”

He stares at me as if I confuse him. “What about your friends? You don’t spend it with them?”

I shake my head. “Sometimes Clover will join us at the church, but she didn’t grow up with holidays, and any kind of organized religion makes her jumpy, so she really only goes to be with me, otherwise she likes to spend the day scaring herself silly with horror movies.”

Those lines between his brows could rival Grey’s. Speaking of Grey, I glance around the room and find him having an animated whisper-yell conversation with Savvy at the sound booth.

What the heck is wrong with those two?

Spinning back to Braxton, I suddenly understand his earlier confusion. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll still make y’all a Thanksgiving dinner. That’s no problem.”

His nose crinkles. “You just y’all’d me.”

“Huh?”

“You just said y’all. I think a little Southern sweetness has seeped into your bones, Miss Madison.”

Why does that fluster me so much?

“But we don’t exactly have a traditional Thanksgiving either.”

“What do you do?” I ask.

His eyes soften, and the right side of his upper lip tilts up. “We order enough Mexican food to feed a family of ten, then gorge ourselves all day long while watching football. Well, that’s if we weren’t playing football.”

“Mexican food, huh?” I cross my arms over my chest, drawing his gaze to my neckline.

He licks his lips, and I take a step forward.

“It sounds like we’ll have a full house tonight.” The worry creeps back into his features. “Do you think any of them will actually come? What college kid wants to hang out with a seventeen-year-old?”

“I do think so, yes,” I say with conviction. “Those boys take their Friday night lights seriously, and they truly believe Sage can help. But also, I think a lot of those boys are only a year older than Sage. It’s a young team, and from what I could tell, they were really having fun with him.”

“He was…different,” he admits. “With them.”

“Kids do that when they’re around their peers, I think. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“I think you’re right. It was just such a shock.”

We’re close enough to touch, but I don’t reach out even though everything in my body is screaming at me to make a connection. “Doesn’t he have any friends?” I ask to keep from throwing myself at him again.

Braxton drops his gaze to the floor, hiding his features from me. “He graduated high school so early, it’s been difficult.”

“I get that. Let’s see how tonight plays out, huh?”

“And tomorrow, I’m taking you for that date.”

That elicits heat to rise high in my cheeks. It’s as though just the thought of a date with Braxton presses on all my pleasure buttons.

“Is that so?”