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After everyone is done eating, I help Torryn clear the table and start cleaning up. As soon as she drops off the dishes in the sink she spins on her heel, her hand already out. “Let me see them.”
Impatient little brat.
I deposit the dishes I carried before grabbing the stack of photos from my pocket and hand them to her with a smile. The guys trickle in a minute later as she’s flipping through them. She pauses at just the right moment and Beau leans over her shoulder to see what she’s looking at.
“Oh, that one’s for Grandma.”
Torryn stares at him dumbfounded just as her grandma walks into the room. “What’s for me?”
“These photos,” Beau answers, grabbing them from Torryn, separating out five or six photos and handing them to her. I cover my mouth with my hand. He actually had the balls to give them to her. I did not think he did.
Tor’s grandma flips through them, her smile growing wider and wider with each one as the poses get wilder and wilder, until she throws her head back in laughter.
“What did you guys do?” Tor whispers, horrified but unable to hide her amusement. The only photo she saw was the most tame by far. One of James and Beau holding up the turkey and posing shirtless.
“She couldn’t just have shirtless pics of those two idiots.”
She looks up at me with disbelief before shaking her head and moving to her grandma’s side to look at them over her shoulder. “This one’s my favorite,” her grandma says, showing one of the photos to Torryn. When Torryn snorts and gives me a look of disbelief, I have a feeling I know which one it is.
She turns it around to show me and Beau and we both grin proudly. It’s one of all four of us, shirtless of course, nothingless for Grandma, all flexing in different dramatic poses like something you’d see out of a muscle man competition.
“We thought about taking our pants off,” Beau adds, “but then we thought what would happen if Rayne or Kanyon walked in.”
“Whoa,” I argue. “You thought about taking your pants off. Don’t include me in that.” Some of us have at least a little social awareness.
“Thank you for not taking nudes in my kitchen for my grandmother,” Torryn deadpans.
Her grandma smacks Torryn on the arm. “When did you become such a prude?”
Beau winks at her and promises to bring a new photo next time he comes over, making Tor put her face in her hands while her grandma beams. The two of them could not be any more different. It makes me wonder what her grandpa was like. Is he where Torryn got her more serious demeanor?
Girl knows how to have a good time, but nothing seems to hold her grandma back. I bet she was a riot when she was younger. I can’t ever imagine Torryn being as outgoing and loud as her grandma. But I prefer her exactly how she is. It makes each and every smile that much more special because she doesn’t hand them out to just anyone. When she teases or taunts me, I know I’m special to her. She doesn’t waste words on the people who don’t matter.
“I’m going to put these in the book,” her grandma declares, holding the shirtless photos to her chest.
“Of course you are,” Torryn sighs, but leads us back out to the living room. Her grandma takes a seat on the couch while Torryn moves to a bookshelf and pulls out a thick book before walking back to her grandma. As soon as I realize it’s a photo album, I snag a seat next to her before Tor has even handed her the book.Beau is quick to take the other side and the other two stand behind the couch.
Her grandma beams at our interest while Isla and Torryn exchange looks. Oh, I just know, there’s going to be some good pictures of them in here. She flips through pages, stopping to tell stories about some of her favorite pictures.
Isla is in almost as many pictures as Torryn is and we all get a good laugh at some of their more awkward phases. It’s also weird to see more than a couple familiar faces and realize just how small the world really is.
Her grandma points to one photo with a young Tor and Isla where they have their hair in matching braids and missing front teeth, holding up blue first place ribbons. “This is one of my favorites,” her grandma says fondly. “They were so proud of their science experiment that won the fair.”
“You guys were so cute.” James leans over the couch to point at the experiment behind them in the photo. “Was this colored water to dye white flowers?”
Isla nods, but Beau pushes his hand out of the way. “Look at those smiles. You guys were little babies,” he coos, obviously not caring about the fair.
Isla blushes but Torryn just flips him off. “We didn’t come out of the womb as adults, dumbass.”
Her grandma laughs, handing us the book and getting up off the couch. “You guys can finish going through this while Torryn and I get the pies.” They walk out of the room and we go through a couple more photos, stopping for Isla to explain some of them. As she stops on another page, I point out another familiar face from someone in the background. We started counting how many people we recognized as soon as we realized there were so many.
“Do you know this guy?” I ask Isla, but she shakes her head. He’s not really in the photo with Torryn, rather just in the background, so I’m not surprised.
“Who is he?” Beau asks.
I wrack my brain but I can’t actually place his face, but he feels so familiar to me. “Not sure, but I swear I know him. Maybe we’ve played against his son.”
James and Wells look closer. “I think you’re right,” Wells agrees and James nods. “Maybe one of the Fairview players. I feel like we played someone who looks like him recently.”
