From where Ace stood, he could hear Chris and Hallie talking.
    “You going?” Chris asked.
    “Yeah. Are you?”
    “I’ll be there.” Chris hesitated. “You don’t think Natalie is going to do weird crap, do you? That pink flamingo t-shirt shit was horrifying.”
    Hallie laughed. “No. Doubt it. And her kids will be with their dad this weekend.”
    “Ah, well there’s a silver lining.”
    Hallie sighed. “Are we horrible people?”
    Chris laughed. “Because we don’t get overly-involved in their lives? No. We know what they don’t.”
    “Yeah, give it a couple years…”
    “Exactly. We’ll likely never see them again.”
    “What if she’s the one that sticks?” Hallie asked.
    “Then we get more involved. No need to do that now.”
    Their family dynamic was a weird one, and Ace knew Natalie was just another soon-to-be stepmom in the long line of stepmoms they’d had. It was a small town. Most people knew all about it. But Ace couldn’t pass judgment on strange family dynamics. He’d had his own.
    “Listen, Hal… Anna met a guy—”
    “Oooo, don’t tell me you’re not enough man for her these days,” Hallie said, laughing.
    “Ha. Ha,” Chris deadpanned. “No, she thinks that maybe you and he would hit it off and—”
    Hallie groaned. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. You’re not match-making for me.”
    “Ya never know, Hal. You might like him.”
    She laughed. “Yeah. What’s he like?”
    “Well, he’s a lawyer—”
    “Strike one.”
    Chris laughed. “What’s wrong with a lawyer?”
    “I don’t want one.”
    “They make good money.”
    “I make good money. Try again.”
    Chris laughed harder, and Ace found himself smiling. Atta girl.
    “Well, Anna said he’s blonde, blue-eyed, and gorgeous. Whatever the hell that means,” Chris muttered.
    Hallie laughed. “Jelly, are you?”   
    “No.”
    “Strike two.”
    “You kidding me?” Chris sounded taken aback. “Isn’t that like… everything women dream of?”
    “Not this one.”
    Just what do you dream of, Hallie?
    He sighed, exasperated. “Alright, well, apparently he doesn’t drink, he’s never been married, he’s thirty-one, and he just moved here.”
    “Strikes three, four, five, and six.”
    Ace nearly laughed out loud.
    A pause, and then, “You kidding me?”
    “Any tattoos?”
    Ace thought he heard Chris growl. “Hallie, I told you… stay the hell away from Ace.”