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Chapter Twenty-Three
LETTIE
“Ohhh, you’re just in time.” Granny throws her arms around me, beating my back. “It’s so lonely without you two here.”
She squeezes Dane around his waist. “I think you’ve grown another few inches since I’ve seen you.” She comes out of the embrace, craning her neck to see him. “And better lookin’ too. Finally growing into that body. Don’t ya think, Lil Bit?”
Yes, I’ll vouch for his body and wow, does he know how to use it.
“He’s okay.” Granny has always called me her Lil Bit. When I sneak a peek at Dane, the smile he gives me sends an avalanche of emotions cascading over my body.
“What’s the matter? Your face looks like I could fry an egg on it,” Granny says to me.
Dane splays his hand across my back and saves me. “What are we just in time for, Grans?”
He’s part of our family. Dane never treated me or my grandparents like we were less than. Never said a word about not having a clothes dryer and having to hang our clothes out back on the clothesline. He’d sit on the floral couch we picked up off the side of a road that was twenty years older than we were. In fact, Dane loved coming to our trailer as much as I loved going to his house, but they were different experiences.
At his house, we played hide and seek, watched movies, and played ping pong in the basement. His mom taught me how to set a proper table. Napkin and fork to the left of the plate, knife, and spoon to the right with the water glass just above the plate on the right. As I got older, I learned to set a table for a more formal dinner party with wine glasses, dessert, bread, and where to line up the forks and spoons for the different courses.
When we were at my house, we fished in the creek, played volleyball and badminton using the clothesline as the net, and helped Granny in the garden and Paps doing handyman stuff. Anything Dane knows about manual labor comes from my grandparents.
“We need to snap some string beans. You’re lucky that Paps already pulled them from the garden.”
We follow her to the back porch, and she motions for us to sit in the two tattered and torn lawn chairs. What will happen when Dane makes millions? Will he still sit in these chairs and snap beans? My stomach sinks just a little.
“Grans, why don’t they call them snapping beans?” he asks.
“Don’t know. My mama called them string beans and if you didn’t snap them fast enough, she was mean as a snake.”
Granny confided in me once, telling me that she had been too lenient on my mother because she didn't want her to feel the same sense of rejection she had felt. And Granny believes my mother's drug addiction was a direct result of her being allowed to come and go as she pleased. We all make decisions out of fear, and I think Granny’s biggest one was that her daughter would despise her if she were strict, the same way she hated her mom.
She kept a much tighter leash on me. Of course, I was with Dane and my grandparents trusted him completely. So even when I made wrong, rash decisions, Dane was there to keep me safe and drive me home.
“You college kids may have forgotten,” she says, showing us once and cackling through a hoarse smoking voice. “I’ve already washed them. Just snap off the edges and pull the string out.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll be inside finishing up Sunday vittles.”
When she says vittles instead of lunch or supper, embarrassment crosses my mind. Why does she have to say that?
“I love me some vittles.” Dane laughs. “We’ll be done in no time. Anything else you need a big, strong man to do?”
“Paps is chopping wood, so ask him when he gets back.”
I throw a bean at him as Granny lets the cheap screen door slam when she walks inside, and he throws one back. Then two. Before we know it, we’re in a green bean fight, laughing like we’re in middle school.
“We better pick these up, or Grans will have our hides,” Dane says. He crouches down and holds his hand together, making a bowl. “Throw them in my hands. For each one that misses, you have to kiss me.”
“Hell no. You have to work for these lips.” I pucker up and tap my lips a few times. A grumble rolls through Dane’s chest. Throwing the beans into Dane’s large palms, I would have had to miss on purpose so when there’s only a few left, I say, “If you can throw them all into my hands from the pinwheel, I’ll let you kiss me goodnight. Deal?”
Giving me a crooked smile, he stands, invading my space. His tongue runs along the seam of his lips before saying, “Deal. You forget I’m a good shot.”
Yes, he is, not just with his hands.
He walks backward, dropping the dirty beans into his seat, and then picks up the remaining. Dane throws the first bean, and it hits off my thumb and lands on the ground. Secretly, I’m disappointed. I wanted a kiss good night.
“One more chance?” Dane begs.
