Page 18 of Back to You
Chapter 7
Since my less-than-friendly run-in with Dane last week, I’d been out of sorts. Grumpy and kind of distant, lost in my own head. Yesterday I’d zoned out while price-changing a rack of dresses and didn’t realize I had the wrong price until after I was already halfway done. Sigh.
I knew Grandma Gin was worried about me, but she didn’t prod. She knew me well enough by now to know that if I needed her opinion on something, I’d ask. Sometimes, a guy just needed to work shit out on his own. Not that I was getting anywhere.
My mind was dead-set on torturing me, replaying that awful, gut-wrenching moment where Dane slapped me. I could still feel the sting as his palm cracked against my cheek, felt the hot burn of tears in my eyes as I stared at him, slack-jawed. Saw the pain that glistened in his eyes, right before he ran off without a goodbye. It hurt, but there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it.
I’d made my choice five years ago. Now I had to deal with it.
Over breakfast, Grandma Gin decided that she needed to make chicken salad. “And not the plain jane, run-of-the-mill chicken salad everyone brings to a barbecue, neither,” she said, puffing out her chest. “My chicken salad is award-winning, I’ll have you know. Chock full of walnuts, celery and grapes. Mmm.”
Which was Gran-speak for, “Get the keys, we’re leaving,” so I drove us to Scott’s Grocery. She always refused to get one of those electric carts, so I didn’t even bother suggesting it. “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” was her motto, which meant I followed her snail’s pace through the entire store, fetching things off the top shelves that she couldn’t quite reach.
Normally, shopping with Gran was an adventure. Today, I just felt tired.
“We should probably get some cheese, while we’re here.” Gran shuffled our cart with the squeaky front wheel towards the refrigerated cheese section.
I came to a stop in the center of the aisle, the exact same place I’d stood nearly a week ago, staring into the angry eyes of my ex-best friend. The store was bustling, people milling about as they browsed the shelves. A knot formed in my throat. Dane wasn’t here now, but that didn’t stop the ache in my chest, the memory still too fresh. Too raw.
By the time I made my way back over to where Grandma Gin stood waiting with our groceries, my mood had soured. My shoulders slumped forwards, a bone-deep tiredness setting in.
Resting a wrinkled hand on my arm, Gran gazed at me with wise eyes. “What’s going on in that head of yours, child?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Don’tnothingme. I haven’t lived on this planet for eighty-four years to be toldnothing. Out with it,” she said, so sternly that I had to smile.
“You remember that boy I used to talk about?”
“I ain’t going senile quite yet. Of course I remember him.”
My smile faded. “I saw him here, the other night. It… It didn’t go over well.”
She tutted. “I see. Not exactly the reunion you were hoping for?”
Damn. She knew me better than I knew myself sometimes, it seemed. I nodded slowly and released a slow breath. “Yeah. He wasn’t happy to see me, but I can’t say that I blame him. I kind of deserve it, after leaving the way that I did.”
“Oh, child.” She sighed. “How many times have I told you, the past is in the past. There ain’t nothing you can do to change it. All you can do is try and make the present-you the best you you can be, you hear me?”
My lip twitched into a half-smile. “Yeah, I hear you. C’mon, Gran, let’s go get those grapes.”
“There’s a good boy,” she said. “Can’t have chicken salad without the grapes.”
Of course, she had to taste-teste a grape from every bag until she found the one she wanted to buy. Smiling smugly, she plopped her selection in the cart. “This’ll be the best damn chicken salad I ever made,” she said, wholly convinced of this.
I chuckled to myself. Only Gran.
We finished shopping and headed for the check-out with way more food than we’d originally planned on buying. I might’ve also snuck a couple of bars of fancy dark chocolate in there when she wasn’t looking, because chocolate cured everything, even the blues.
Our cashier was a ruddy-cheeked guy named Anthony who always went out of his way to be friendly towards me. Maybe it was because I was a regular here, but I got the distinct feeling that it was because he was interested.
The minute he saw me, his face lit up. The corners of his eyes crinkled up with his smile. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Not bad. How about you? Are they working you to death?” Grinning, I began transferring our food from the shopping cart to the conveyor belt.
Anthony’s laugh was soft. “Nah, my boss is pretty great, actually. I like my job.” He checked us out swiftly—one of the reasons I always made a habit to come through his aisle—and had our groceries bagged and in the cart before Grandma Gin managed to pull out her credit card. Anthony offered her a bright smile in return. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Bah!” she retorted. “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me, young man. I might be eighty-four years old, but I ain’t no ma’am.”
