The corners of Emma’s lips turned up. “You aren’t serious?”
He snorted. “Frankly, I’m a little scared to go to sleep tonight for fear he’ll sneak in my room and whittle my dick off for getting you pregnant.”
“That would be a tragic loss now wouldn’t it?”
“Oh yes, it would.”
Emma giggled. “It’s not just about me being his only daughter’s child or his baby granddaughter or the typical grandfatherly/fatherly protecting me from the Big Bad Wolf aka men stealing my virtue.” Her amused expression turned dark. “He’s taking my pregnancy a little harder than Grammy because he’s old-fashioned. Being a deacon at his church, he’s never going to be able to accept that I’m bringing a ‘bastard’, so to speak, into the world.”
Aidan sucked in a sharp breath and narrowed his eyes. “He actually said that to you?”
“Not in those exact terms, but yes.”
“That’s a hell of a way to think about his great-grandchild.”
“Yeah, well, your father felt the same way. Remember how he wanted to give the baby his name?”
“That’s true,” Aidan relented.
The clanging of a bell interrupted them. Aidan whirled around to see Virginia holding an old cowbell. She grinned. “All right everybody! Dinner time!” she shouted, motioning towards the barn.
“Hungry?” Emma asked.
“Famished.” He grinned and draped his arm over her shoulder. “I worked up quite an appetite this afternoon.”
Her mouth dropped open before she elbowed him in the gut. “You’re terrible!”
“You know you love me,” he teased.
When she stiffened slightly, he knew he had said the wrong thing. His loaded words had a different connotation than what he intended. Quickly, he tried recovering. “I mean, what’s there not to love about a foul mouthed pervert who is always looking for the sexual innuendo in life, right?”
“Exactly,” she replied, with a grin.
Aidan’s couldn’t stop his jaw from dropping when they reached the barn. The outside rustic appearance was quite deceiving when it came to the inside. All the stalls had been cleared out to leave one giant room. There were ten to twenty round tables set up with folding chairs. In the center of the room, a small, wooden stage rose from the ground where several guys were tuning their instruments.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Emma asked.
“I had no idea you guys took it this serious.”
“Yep. There’s even a small kitchen in the back, too.” She giggled at what he assumed was his bewildered expressions. “With as much extended family as I have, we needed a place where we can all get together.”
“Jesus, I don’t think I even know this many people, least of all be related to them,” he mused, as she steered him toward the food table.
“Trust me, by the end of the night, they’ll consider you family. I like to think of us as the family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, except we’re Southern.”
Aidan wasn’t sure if that was really such a bad thing. Everyone had been so welcoming and friendly to him—even with him technically being the asshole who had knocked Emma up and not married her.
After fixing teeming plates of BBQ along with mouthwatering sides, Emma led him to an empty table. When he bit into his sandwich, he moaned. “Oh.My.God. This is delicious!”
Emma smiled. “The sauce is Grammy’s own recipe.”
“Really? She could seriously bottle and sell it. It’s ten times better than most of the BBQ joints in Atlanta.”
“You’ll have to tell her that. It’ll make her day.”
“I’ll be happy to.”
An elderly man shuffled up to the table. “This seat taken, Em?”
“No, Uncle Pete. We were saving it just for you and Aunt Ella.”
Pete smiled broadly at Emma before giving her a hug. Aidan couldn’t help reveling in the effect she seemed to have on everyone up here. She was always charming to everyone back in Atlanta, but there was something almost angelic about her up here.
More people crowded inside the barn, and the band started playing. Aidan had just polished off his second plate of BBQ and was debating a third when Earl sauntered up to him. Aidan warily eyed the Mason jar in Earl’s hand that was filled with clear liquid.
“Ever had any homebrew, City Boy?” he asked.
“Granddaddy, his name is Aidan,” Emma hissed.
“Excuse me. You ever had any homebrew, Aidan?”
“No sir, I don’t believe I have.”
Earl thrust out the Mason jar. “Why don’t you try a little?”
“Is that a trick question, sir?”