Page 59 of Babydaddy To Go
Gramps grunts. “I’ll be the judge of that. What do you know about cards, boy?”
“Enough to beat an old man,” Nate replies. Less than five minutes with my grandparents and he’s already figured out how to talk to them. Gramps has a sarcastic sense of humor and he loves people who can match him wit for wit. I think Nate might be that guy.
“While the two of you play, we’re going to make lunch.”
“But you just had breakfast!” I respond. “We can watch cards for a bit.”
“Your grandfather will take good care of your boy. We’ll prepare lunch nice and slow so it’s closer to eleven when we eat. How’s that?”
Nate catches my eye and shrugs. “You go on. We’ll be fine out here.”
My grandfather and my boyfriend settle down at the kitchen table with a deck of cards. Before Grams can whisk me away, the two are already trash talking each other. Judging by the smile on Gramps’ face, he’s loving every second of it.
Once we’re in private, Grams squeezes my arm. “How are you feeling, Alyssa? This is the same guy who sent you packing from New York. What’s he doing here?”
I explain everything that Nate told me, from the texts to Samantha’s involvement in our breakup. I do leave out the sex behind the barn, though Grams’ smile implies she already knows.
“I could hurt that girl,” Grams says. We both know it’s not true. Grams rescues the spiders that get into the house before Gramps and I can stomp on them.
“It’s fine, Grams. It sounds like Nate took care of her.”
“I’m still mad at her. And you didn’t answer my other question. How are you feeling about all this?”
I had hoped she would forget about that part of the interrogation. “I’m not sure,” I reply honestly. “I know that I love Nate with all my heart, but it still hurts that he believed so easily that I would cheat on him.”
Grams nods. “Jealousy is not an easy thing. It’s called the green-eyed monster for a reason. There have been plenty of times when jealousy threatened my marriage.”
My eyes widen. “What do you mean? You and grandpa never fight.”
Grams smiles knowingly. “Oh, but we do. Every couple has their spats, but the key is to never go to bed angry. If you can make up at the end of the night, nothing will ever tear you apart.”
“That sounds like a cliché.”
“It is, girly,” she admits. “But clichés exist because they’re true. Take it from a woman who has been married for over sixty years.”
She has a point. If anyone is the authority on marriage, it’s my grandmother. She would have to be to put up with Gramps’s sarcasm and gossip. From the outside, my grandparents seem so different. They must be doing something right if they’ve stayed together this long, and I pin her advice in my brain for future use.
But today is a new day, and I’m determined to make the most of it. After breaking up with Nate, getting back in the kitchen has been impossible. It’s not just the restaurant jobs I’ve been avoiding, it’s been cooking in general. Now that Nate is here, I’m desperate to cook again. Seeing him, touching him, and kissing him brought my mojo back.
Grams and I spend the next hour preparing lunch while Nate and Gramps yell at each other over poker. Based on the swearing, I’d guess Nate is winning.
“Put the cards away,” Grams calls into the small dining room when we’ve finished the meal. “And one of you set the table.”
“The winner always sets the table,” Gramps informs Nate.
Nate doesn’t argue. He asks where the plates and silverware are and gets to work setting our meager table. We have to pull out a folding chair from the basement for everyone to have a seat.
Gramps takes the folding chair, saying that the loser should get the loser seat. He hands Nate a beer from the fridge and they tap their bottles together. Even after a hardcore game of cards, they seem to be getting along well.
“If your boy can cook as well as he plays poker, he’ll have a long future ahead of him,” Gramps informs me before filling his plate with the linguine alfredo Grams and I prepared. We even made the pasta from scratch, which I’m hoping will impress Nate.
My heart races. What does our reconciliation mean for my future? Can I come back to class? I’ve only missed a week…
That’s something I can figure out later. Right now, I want to enjoy lunch with the three most important people at the table.
“Hey, did you hear about the chef that backed into the oven?” Grams asks. Before anyone can respond, she finishes the joke. “His goose got cooked!”
The three of us laugh politely at her joke even though it doesn’t make much sense. While Gramps can be funny accidentally, Grams tries too hard to get a laugh and it usually falls flat. Gramps and I learned long ago to laugh when it seems like Grams is joking, otherwise she gets kind of grumpy.