Page 79 of About that Fling
You’re not exactly going to Seattle for a party, she argued to her guilty conscience, and her conscience had to admit she had a point.
She looked over at Adam. The last remnants of sunlight glinted through the windshield, making flashes of cinnamon in his hair. He wore his glasses, which sparked glints of green and gold in his eyes. He’d changed from his suit into jeans and a T-shirt with the words Cornucopia Books printed right above Ballard, Washington in the middle of his chest. She wondered when he’d gotten it and who he’d been with.
He must have felt her eyes on him, because he glanced over and smiled. “What are you looking at?”
“You.” She stretched her legs out, feeling oddly relaxed for someone en route to a death vigil. “You’re lovely to look at.”
He laughed and turned his attention back to the road. “Thanks.”
“Tell me something about your grandmother before she got sick.”
Adam signaled left and passed a semi, then merged back into the middle lane. He looked relaxed behind the wheel, at ease. One hand rested on the edge of the passenger seat, the tips of his fingers grazing her knee. Jenna liked seeing it there.
“My grandma was always a survivor,” he said. “She had triple bypass surgery in her sixties and breast cancer in her seventies.”
“Wow, that’s a lot. She sounds tough.”
“She was. Is. After the double mastectomy, she said she didn’t want to bother with reconstructive surgery or implants. Said she was proud of her scars, and thought one of them looked like a jack-o’-lantern.”
“Sounds like a spirited woman.”
He nodded, his eyes still on the road. “I went to visit her one afternoon around Halloween, and she disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, she’d drawn a full jack-o’-lantern face in eyeliner over one of the mastectomy scars.”
Jenna laughed, trying to picture the old woman in her mind. It wasn’t hard. “That sounds like something Gertie would do.”
“Your aunt reminds me a lot of Nana. My grandfather had to stop her from showing it off to trick-or-treaters at the door.”
Still smiling, Jenna angled a little in her seat, letting her bare forearm brush the tips of Adam’s fingers. They were warm and felt so natural trailing over the bones in her wrists. “Your grandma sounds like someone my mom would have loved.”
Adam glanced over, surprise in his eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the sense you don’t talk about your mother much.”
“You’re right.” She nibbled her lip, considering that. “It’s kinda how Mom was, too. Not real forthcoming with feelings or fears or family stories or anything that might give the impression she didn’t have everything under control.”
Holding the steering wheel loosely, Adam nodded. “She protected you by controlling the narrative.”
“I—yes, I guess so.” This discussion had started to feel like a post-mortem psychoanalysis of her mom. Jenna fought the urge to get defensive, to stick up for her mother. Then she gave up and said what she felt. “My mother loved me completely. I never, ever, for one single minute, doubted that.”
“You must miss her a lot.”
“I do.” Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back hard. “Tell me another story about your grandmother.”
Adam seemed to hesitate, and Jenna held her breath. Then he slid his palm over her knee, rubbing it thoughtfully.
“She never could stand to see anyone mistreated,” he murmured. “One time my grandfather was having the riot act read to him by a woman who got mad at him for leaving his cane propped up against his chair. Nana was in the bathroom at the time, but she came back just in time to hear the woman yelling at him for being careless. She called him a crotchety, clueless old man who didn’t care if people tripped over his cane and broke their necks.”
“What did your grandmother do?”
“She stood there for a second, assessing what was going on. Gramps used to forget his hearing aid sometimes, and he’d try to play along like he knew what people were saying. This woman was yelling all these nasty things at him, he just nodded and smiled and said how nice the weather was that day.”
“The weather?”
“That just made the lady mad, so she tried to grab his cane.”
“Jesus. So then what happened?”
“Nana just cleared her throat and said, ‘excuse me.’ As soon as Gramps’s tormentor turned around, Nana decked her.”
“What?” Jenna laughed, picturing a little old woman smugly sucking a bruised knuckle. “She hit her?”
