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“Now,” I tell her. “I want you to come here to me now.” I don’t even pause to think this through. What else is there to think about? I am completely taken with her, and I want her with every fiber in my being. I have never felt like this before toward a girl. It confuses me. It also excites me to no end.
“I…” Hunter hesitates, and I hold my breath to see what she comes up with. “I have to have breakfast with my family. My mom would not be happy if I didn’t do that, then took off for a couple of days.”
I fall back on the bed in complete relief. She’s going to spend the weekend with me. I am not going to let her out of my sight for the entire time. I need to buy us some food, I realize all of a sudden. I don’t want her to go hungry on my watch. Not that I plan on giving her much time to eat, but still.
We agree on noon. That’s when she’ll be at my apartment. As soon as we hang up, I text her my address to make sure she finds her way over without a hitch, then rush to take a shower.
Once I am dry and dressed, I decide to change the sheets. I need to thank Grams for insisting I had three sets, so that I could rotate, she said. She drilled it into my head to always have two clean sets on hand. I stuff the sheets I just took off the bed in my laundry basket so that I can stop at the laundromat and get them done while I’m out.
With exactly three hours until Hunter gets here, I run to my car and drive like a maniac to the grocery store. I run around, unsure of what I should actually buy. I do a quick search for my cell phone, panicking when I don’t locate it in the left back pocket of my jeans where I normally have it, but it seems that I stuck it in the pocket of my shirt in my rush to get out of the apartment.
“Grams,” I holler as soon as she answers the phone. “I need help in a bad way.”
“Zach, that is not how you greet a person,” she chastises me just like she used to when I was a little boy and she’d teach me my manners, as she called it.
“Sorry, Grams,” I give her what she wants so that she could return the favor. “How are you today? I miss you.”
“I’m doing well, Zach. I thought you’d be over today to cut my grass.”
Grams lives closer to the city. I usually stop by on Fridays on my way out from work, but I didn’t do it yesterday because I was taking Amanda out. In turn, I promised Grams that I’d go there today.
“Something came up,” I explain. “And that’s why I need some help.”
“Something or someone?” Grams teases me with a light snort.
“Definitely someone,” I laugh. “And I’ll need to feed her. I have no idea what to get, I am at the store right now. I wish I had time for you to bake us something.”
Grams is an amazing baker, her neighbors line up at her door when she gets in a baking frenzy.
“What does she like to eat?” Good fucking question, I have no idea.
“Pizza with everything on it,” I tell Grams, then laugh. That’s all I got.
“That’s good,” Grams praises, “it means that’s she’s not picky.”
“She’s really not, Grams. She is so great.”
“Zach,” she gushes, “I’ve never heard you talking like this about a girl. Is it serious?”
I have no idea, but I sure hope so, and I tell Grams that.
“We just met. But I do like her a lot, and I hope it turns into something more. She seems to like me a lot, too.” And I am not even lying. If not, why would she ask me to rid her of her you know what that she’s kept a good hold of for the past twenty-two years?
“Okay, let’s focus on the food for now. What are you cooking? Lunch? Dinner? Breakfast?” Her voice goes low when she says the last word, making me laugh. Grams is so nosy, it’ll kill her not knowing all the details, but I decide to give her a morsel of information.
“Hopefully all three, Grams.”
“Zach,” she gasps, then rattles a whole list of things that I need to buy. I start throwing them in my shopping cart as I find them, double checking with her on a few things that confuse me.
“Grams, you’re my hero. Wish me luck, okay?”
“Good luck, my handsome boy. I want to meet this girl, okay? And make sure your sheets are clean!” I let out a big belly laugh, causing a couple of random shoppers to stop and stare at me before they continue doing what they were doing.
Grams has been my biggest supporter since I was basically in diapers, but even more so after my mother decided that being a mother was not her thing. She packed up one day when I was three and just disappeared. My father was angry enough that he refused to look for her much. The only thing he could confirm for me when I was about eight was that my mother was still alive and well.
Shortly after she left me and my father, she got pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. She showed up with her at our house and introduced her as my little sister. All I remember from that time is that Miranda had green eyes just like me. Her hair was red and curly, and she looked at me and my father like we might hurt her.
My heart squeezes a bit at the memory of my sister. Our mother left again after that strange visit, and I never wondered if I’d see Miranda again. And in all honesty, not like she’s looked me up either. But somehow, now, as an adult, I think of things differently. I may do a search of her at some point, just to make sure she is okay if nothing else.
