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“Thanks for letting me get cleaned up. I don’t know what I got on my hands from those donations, but I’ll check it out when I get home. Oh… hi, Louise! I didn’t hear you come in. Must have been when the water was running.” He stalks past me, tossing the hand towel over his shoulder. “I’ll have Granny give this back to you after I wash it. It’s a mess. See ya!”
And that’s the last thing he says as he hits the door at a dead run and stomps out, slamming it behind him.
Granny’s brows raise and she turns to study me like I’m an interesting new bug specimen she’s never seen. I flush and shuffle my feet, knowing that there’s no way she’s going to buy that pathetic excuse that he came up with.
Her shrewd gaze stays focused on me as she says, “Well, that was interesting. But I hope you don’t expect me to buy that load of horseshit!”
I turn back into my bedroom, hoping to hide long enough to get my emotions under control. I feel out of control and there was so much buried pain lacing Sebastian’s words that I can’t breathe. Feel like I may have screwed things up myself this time.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She stomps in after me, ignoring my muttering, “I’m trying to go to bed, Granny. I just got home and I’m tired.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t believe that either. What the hell happened with you two this time? I swear you two just can’t seem to get out of your own way!”
Flinching, I flush and chew on my lip. “It’s personal, Granny,” I protest.
“Yeah. I can tell how personal it got… considering that you’ve got lipstick smeared all over your face and you’re beet red.” Her eyes narrow and slide down my body like she’s got a built-in lie detector. “Your clothes are all rumpled and your hair is a rat’s nest. Should I go on?”
I shake my head, flushing even redder. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to get into it tonight. I think this time I might have messed up.”
She comes to hug me as tears spurt to my eyes. “Now that can’t be true. He’s probably just upset at getting caught making out by your old Granny. He’s a big boy. He’ll get over it.”
I shake my head and lean into her shoulder, breathing in that soft lily of the valley smell of the perfume that she always wears. Letting it wash over me like a warm cocoon.
“I messed up. I knew it as soon as I said it, but I just didn’t want to get caught… ummm.” I stop and close my eyes.
Granny chuckles. “Did a little more than kissing, huh?”
Now I can’t look her in the eyes for the rest of my damn life. Her old eyes seem able to look right through all my defenses.
“What happened, Mistletoe?” Her voice is softer, gentler than I’ve heard it in a long time. Not since the night she told me my parents had died.
Tears immediately slip down my red cheeks and it feels like I can’t catch a breath. Years and years of pain and sorrow seem to flow over me like a flash flood taking my legs out from under me.
She catches me and helps me sit on the floor. Then, grunting and groaning about achy old legs, she sits beside me and we both lean against the mattress.
“What happened?”
“I— ” I glance down at my twisting hands in my lap and wonder how the hell to say this.
She groans and rolls her eyes. “You were having sex. I get it, Mistletoe. You think I’ve never had sex before. Where the hell do you think your father came from?”
I suck in a breath, strangling on a laugh. “Jesus! Try not to kill me, Granny! I don’t want to think about you having sex. Or my dad. Ugh!”
She flaps her hands. “Finish it.”
“I told him to hide and threw his clothes at him. He said that he didn’t want to be my dirty secret. He told me that he wants to marry me. But he said he wasn’t gonna sit his whole life and wonder when I was gonna decide something like the other shoe dropping.”
She huffs and pulls me in for a hug as I sniffle into her shoulder. “You two are ridiculous. You’ve been in love since you were practically babies. You’ve wasted a shit-ton of time messing around with hurt feelings and you seem like you just can’t stop! If you love him, then you go tell him that.”
“I can’t. What if he says he’s sorry and it was a mistake again? I can’t hear that again. It hurt so much then and if he did it again, it would kill me.”
Her eyes roll again. “I’m gonna get a headache from all these eye rolls. You two need to learn to talk without the past sitting there messing with your heads. Have you even talked about why he said that all those years ago? Because I damn sure know that he was in love with you!”
“No,” I whisper.
“Then that’s where you should start.”
