Page 8 of Make it Real
“It would really make me happy to see you out with a nice man like that.”
Gran didn’t have to look at me to lay on her guilt nice and thick. She did it all with her tone of voice, the mix of pleading and commanding she’d perfected and patented. Maybe all grandmas had this skill, but I’d only ever known the one.
Well. Along with her three closest friends, two of whom watched me with giant puppy dog eyes, waiting for me to cave. Rita waggled the phone again, a hopeful little smile on her face.
I loved them. I wanted to make them happy, and they only wanted to make me happy. What else could I do?
My shoulders slumped, but I managed a smile. “I’ll meet Greg.”
Cheers erupted as though I’d announced our engagement. Gran smiled to herself as she got out bread for their lunch. More often than not, their lunches looked an awful lot like breakfast.
“You want something, too, Callie?”
“No, thanks.” Between my weird coffee date with Jed and this guilt-fueled conversation, I didn’t have much of an appetite. “I’m going to stitch for a while.”
Stabbing something a thousand times sounded like a great idea.
I escaped to my part of the house and shut myself up in my bedroom. I flipped on the ceiling fan to add a little circulation and grabbed the nearly-finished embroidery off my nightstand. Sinking onto the mattress, I got ready to clear my head. Focusing on thread and stitches had become a kind of meditation, and boy, did I need some Zen now.
Greg. Ugh. I wouldn’t judge the guy on just his name and a single photo, but I didn’t have high hopes. Who could say, though? Maybe this time, my granny’s tinkering with my love life would lead to a perfect match.
Seemed more likely I’d wind up with one of those blue aliens.
THREE
jed
Wasit wrong to shoutWhat took you so long?at an engagement party? Probably wrong, yeah.
My sister June and her now-fiancé Ty Hardy had invited a bunch of us to his house to celebrate his recent proposal. I considered it a pretty modest collection of family and friends, but for a guy like Ty, more than a handful of people seemed like a big concession. He wasn’t a recluse, but he kept his social circle small.
Say what you would about the guy, I liked him—always had. He kept his word, didn’t make drama, and treated my sister right. June had lit up like a firefly since they’d reconnected last year, and I loved seeing her so happy. Gave her a hard time about it now and then, but I loved it. Still, even her happiness paled next to our pop’s at the moment.
“You ever seen two people so in love?” He’d joined me where I stood in Ty’s living room, his eyes on the couple at the center of the festivities.
Their grins could have powered the whole county for how they shone. They’d been fielding congratulations snugged up close together, already a package deal. June laughed at something our uncle Joel said, resting her hand on Ty’s chest as she gazed up at him like she was staring at a dream come true. He pulled her even closer, if any space had been left between them, giving her googly-eyes right back.
“Sickening,” I said with a grin.
Pop’s unimpressed look told me my joke hadn’t landed.
“Come on, you know nobody’s more ready to see them walk down the aisle than I am. Frankly, I can’t believe Ty held out this long.”
He’d been so lost over June, I’d expected him to drop down on one knee months ago. The man loved her so much, it almost pained me to watch them interact. Every little moment between them felt like something intimate I really shouldn’t have seen.
Like the way Ty’s hand currently rested just south of my sister’s hip. Didn’t need to see that.
I turned back to Pop. “To answer your question, I haven’t seen two people so in love since a couple of months ago in the courthouse downtown.”
His stern look softened, his eyes automatically finding his new wife Marilyn in the group of well-wishers. A soft smile flashed on his face, and two pale spots of color shone on his cheeks. Seeing my pop blush would have made me laugh if it weren’t so damn earnest. As infatuated with his wife as any twenty-something newlywed, his affections were spelled out in every look and word. After the heartbreak of losing my mom three years ago, he deserved this kind of happiness again.
That turned my thoughts to Callie, and my eyes did the same on reflex. She stood in the dining room with Eliza and Harper in a little yellow sundress as bright as a ray of sunshine. I was glad she’d been invited to join in the celebrations, but couldn’t help noticing she hadn’t so much as looked my way tonight.
Maybe I’d been too blunt when I shot down her suggestion the other day. I hadn’t meant to make her uncomfortable around me, I just couldn’t see my way to agreeing to her plans. Whatever she hoped it might accomplish, fake dating would surely stir up more problems than it solved. Had she had that talk with her grandma yet, or did she have more blind dates on the horizon? Or had she asked someone else to step in and pretend to date her?
That option sat in my gut like I’d swallowed a peach pit.
Slipping past my aunt and uncle, Marilyn joined us. A couple of years younger than Pop, she had a warmth about her that proved hard to resist. “These two aren’t wasting any time, are they?”
