Page 12 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)

Faye

I pull into my grandpa’s driveway and attempt to dodge a giant hole where the gravel needs to be filled in.

I mentally add that to the list of things I need to do this week as I head inside.

He’s lived in this brick ranch house forever, and nothing has changed at all.

I don’t think the two white plastic lawn chairs sitting in the front yard have moved in twenty years.

I guess I consider this my childhood home, but I think I’ve always just thought of it as a place I lived for a short time. If thirteen years could be considered a short time.

The screen door slams shut with a whack as I walk in.

“It’s me!” I shout, otherwise he won’t hear me over the television he’s always blasting.

I dump the grocery bags on the yellow linoleum kitchen counter next to a pile of mail, and peek into the living room to see that he’s in his usual spot—in his brown recliner watching The Walking Dead at full volume. I can see the top of his Teamsters trucker hat over the back of the chair.

“Can you turn that down?” I yell over the sound of a zombie getting its head chopped off. It’s a small house, and I don’t want the sound of zombie brain splatter as my background while I unload the chili I brought.

The volume lowers slightly. “You got the goods?” he asks.

“Yes, but Donna tells me you aren’t taking your blood pressure meds.” Donna is an in-home nurse who comes by twice a week to check in on him. She gives me updates since I’m the one who hired her.

“She narc’d on me, huh?”

I unload a few pre-made salads he may or may not actually eat. “She’s trying to take care of you.”

“Hate those damn pills. Make me have to take a piss every two seconds.”

“I know, but you’ve got to take it. Otherwise, you can’t have these.” I hold up a bag of Reese’s cups. I’m hoping he won’t notice they’re sugar free.

“Alright, alright.”

“I made you some chili to eat this week. I’ll put it in the fridge.”

The older he’s gotten, the more he doesn’t want to cook for himself. I try to make it as easy as possible for him, but he’s stubborn about accepting the food I bring him for some reason.

“I’ve been eating down at Roy’s.”

Roy’s Restaurant , known for healthy fare such as the Big Belly Burger and something called “Fried Gravy.” I don’t ask because I don’t want to know.

“Well, if you want to give Roy a break, you can heat this up.” I place the chili container in the fridge and toss out some expired milk and the container of soup I brought him last week.

“You didn’t like the soup?” I ask, as I sort through the mail stack.

“Hmm? Oh, I forgot it was in there.”

His mail is mostly junk, from real estate agents or lawn care companies.

But then, I come across something that gives me pause.

The envelope has already been opened, so I take out the wedding invitation, its swirling embossed calligraphy inviting my grandpa to a celebration of love between Marsha Lee Clifton and Michael Bowers at a church in Charlotte on September 28 th .

That would be my mom and her latest.

I slide the invitation back into the envelope and head into the living room to take my usual spot on the love seat adjacent to his recliner.

He glances at me through the aviator glasses he’s always worn. “You’re looking a little green in the gills there, Bambi.”

He’s called me Bambi ever since I was a toddler because he said I walked like a baby deer.

“I’m fine,” I say, although I feel a little unsteady today. “Met some tequila the other night that didn’t like me very much.”

“Could never stand the stuff. If you want a little hair of the dog, I’ve got some Jim Beam in there somewhere.”

My stomach lurches. “I’m good. Played some pool though, which was fun. It’s been forever.”

“Oh yeah?” He sits up, interested in where I’ve taken the conversation. “You still any good?”

“I was surprised how fast it came back to me.”

“Who’d you play with?”

“My friend Eli.”

“Eli, huh?”

I curl my legs up under me. “Yep.” I keep my voice distracted, wishing I hadn’t brought up the pool game. I wonder if it’s one of those things where you secretly want someone to ask you about something, but you don’t want to make it obvious.

“Were you on a date?”

“No!”

“I hope he’s not like Andrew.”

“I thought you liked Andrew.”

He shrugs. “He was a good guy. Not for you.”

“So, he was too good for me?” I say this in a joking way, but I’m curious because we’ve never really talked about Andrew. He’s always been tight-lipped about his opinions on my love life. And if he doesn’t ask, I don’t tell.

He makes a brushing off motion. “No one is. He was too . . . preppy.”

“Preppy?” I hear the word preppy and think of polo shirts and mint juleps. Andrew’s parents are preppy, but he’s not. I think this word is my grandpa’s shorthand for saying that Andrew was a little too formal for him.

We watch the show for a couple of minutes and when it goes to a commercial break, I finally get up the nerve to ask what I’ve wanted to ask since I saw that invitation.

“She’s living in Charlotte now?”

He hums in assent. “Moved out there last year, I think.”

“Are you going to the wedding?”

“Yeah, guess I’ll go.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s my daughter.”

Is it that simple? If I was engaged to Andrew right now and sent my mom an invite, would she come to the wedding simply because I’m her daughter? Good thing I won’t have to find out the answer to that one.

“You could come with me,” he says. “She told me she sent you one, too.”

“I haven’t gotten anything.” She probably doesn’t even know I moved or that Andrew and I broke up.

We don’t exactly talk that much. She sends me a Happy Birthday, honey text every year and occasionally, she’ll call me to ask how things are going.

Superficial conversations that are easy and don’t involve getting into anything that might stir up unwanted memories or feelings.

“I didn’t go to the last two. Why would I go to this one?” I hate the way my voice wavers a little bit when say this. I’m being stubborn and more than a little resentful. Is it completely her fault we have a strained relationship?

Or if I hate that I felt myself falling into the same pattern she fell into? She’s always been so afraid of being alone that she’d marry any man who asked her. And I felt the draw of that when Andrew asked me.

But Andrew didn’t deserve a proposal acceptance brought on by platonic feelings of love or, even worse, avoiding loneliness.

Neither did Alan or Steve. I always felt sorry for them.

But the more I’ve thought about this since my own breakup, I realized that I really felt sorry for her , because for the first time in my life I think I finally understood her decisions.

“I brought an activity for us to do today,” I say, swiftly changing the subject.

“I just want to watch my show.”

I pull out the two paint by numbers I bought at the grocery store on the way here. Maybe painting can be my new hobby. “You want the sunflower or the city skyline?”

“I want to catch up on my show,” he repeats.

“Sunflower it is.”

I set up our painting stations on the TV trays he keeps by his recliner.

“What’s with the arts and crafts?”

“We need to broaden our horizons. Try new hobbies.”

“I’m too old for new hobbies.”

“It’ll be good for you. Keep the mind sharp.”

He just sits there and doesn’t move to paint at all.

“Fine, we can have the show on in the background.”

By the end of the episode, I’ve almost finished my painting, although the city skyline ends up looking more like a city oil spill because I barely pay attention to the where the numbers are telling me the paint should go. I’m distracted, thinking about my mom. Thinking about Andrew.

Thinking about Eli.

My phone lights up with a text.

Eli: How you feeling today?

I guess he has the same phone number he had in school. This makes me happy for some reason, knowing I could text him if I wanted to.

I snap a photo of the murky brown paint water and send it to him.

Faye: Like this. Safe to say my liver and I would like to forget Friday night ever happened.

Eli: That hurts. My heart and I thought our pretend flirting meant more to you than that.

I snort and it startles my grandpa awake. He fell asleep somewhere between zombie attacks.

“Did they kill him?” he asks.

“Yeah, they got him with the barbed wire baseball bat thingy.” I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he seems to take this as a good thing.

Faye: Tell your heart I’m so sorry. I’ll be better next time.

I catch myself smiling at my phone and put a stop to any giddy feelings this might be stirring up. I turn my phone over to keep myself from watching it for his response.

We watch another episode together before I do my usual weekly cleaning routine for him. This week it’s a quick vacuum and hitting the high spots in the bathroom and kitchen before I decide I need to head home and nap away the afternoon.

I give my grandpa a hug. “I’ll talk to you later this week. Don’t forget your chili.”

“Have a good week,” he tells me before switching over to watch something else. I hear the X-Files theme song start to play as I leave his house.

When I get inside my car, I finally allow myself to look at my phone to see if Eli texted me back.

Eli: My heart says thanks and it’s looking forward to it.