Don't Hate the Player...Hate the Game(17)

“So whatta you doin’ in the neighborhood? I was expectin’ you’d be at school or at the funeral home.”

“I was over at Jake’s…”

Grammy whirled around from the cake batter she was stirring. Tears eyes welled in her eyes. “Lord almighty, I don’t believe I’ve evah heard anythang so sad and so tragic as what happened to Jake—to be killed like that...”

I shifted on my stool. “Yeah.”

Grammy eyed me. “How you doin’, dahlin? I mean, how you holdin’ up?”

“I’m fine, Grammy.” At her pointed look, I sighed. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Umm, hmm,” she harrumphed. She continued eyeing me over her shoulder as she snapped on the antique mixer. Its archaic hum echoed through the kitchen. “You still runnin’ from your emotions, Noah?”

Grammy was another one who could always see through my bullshit. “I’m not running from my emotions.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Grammy pointed her chocolaty spoon at me. “Don’t say ‘yeah’, young man. You sound completely common!” Her worst fear was for me to sound vulgar or common. The poor woman would have probably had a heart attack if she’d heard the way I talked sometimes.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

I eyed the clock over the sink. “I’ve got to be at the funeral home at six. You think I could get ready here?”

“Of course, sugah. You go right on upstairs and get ready. I’ll just be fixin’ you somethin’ to eat while you’re getting ready.”

I grinned. I could always count on Grammy. “Okay.”

After heading up the familiar staircase, I went into my old bedroom. Grammy had basically kept it the same way I’d left it. Mom had bought us all new furniture—a symbolic gesture for our fresh start at the new house. I still kept a few pants and shirts in the closet.

I took a quick shower and then put on a pair of black dress pants and black shirt. I’d talked to the guys, and we’d all decided to wear black pants, black shirts, and a silver ties. Yeah, we sounded like a bunch of silly girls coordinating what to wear, but at the same time, we wanted to show our unity—the same way the football team was all going to wear their jerseys in honor of Jake being a four year letterman.

Grammy was just taking up the fried chicken—my all-time favorite—when I came back into the kitchen. She’d fixed all my favorites vegetables too with green beans and creamed potatoes. Since I wanted to enjoy my meal, I knew I needed to mention the unmentionable.

When she and I sat down at the table, I held up a hand. “Can we not talk about Jake anymore?”

“Sure honey.”

Relief momentarily flooded me as I took a giant bite of chicken. My elevated mood was only short lived when Grammy went for the throat with another question. “So, whatcha think about Greg?”

I kept my eyes firmly on my plate. Greg was my mom’s new boyfriend. Well, he wasn’t actually new. They’d been dating for almost a year—she’d waited several months before she sprang him on me. Her excuse was she wanted to make sure they were serious first, but I didn’t buy it. He was an anesthesiologist at the hospital. In all honesty, he was one of the few boyfriends Mom had had in the almost eighteen years since my dad. I guess the old Sperm Donor had left a bad taste in her mouth for quite a while when it came to men and dating.

“Didn’t you hear me, Noah?”

I fought the urge to snap at Grammy. The last thing I wanted to do before Jake’s visitation was to talk about my mom’s boyfriend. “Yes, I heard you.”

“And?”

“He’s fine,” I grumbled.

Grammy harrumphed. “By the way you’re actin’, you’d think your mama was datin’ the devil himself. Greg seems like a pretty nice fella.”

“Yeah, he’s a real peach.” I glanced up from cornbread to see Grammy giving me the stare down. I sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve probably been with Greg six or seven times since Mom introduced us at Christmas. Whenever I’ve been with him, he seems nice. Okay?”

She responded by tapping her fork on her plate. “What if they were serious?”

I furrowed my brows. “Serious?” I pondered. “You mean like marriage serious?”

“Yeah, that kinda serious.”

Suddenly, Grammy’s usually mouth-watering chicken wedged in my throat, and I had to take a long gulp of iced tea not to choke. The thought of my mom getting married to Greg or anyone else for that matter wigged me out completely. It’d always been just the two of us against the world, and after all this time, I couldn’t imagine her being anyone’s wife. Now that I thought about it, she did seem to be spending more and more time with Greg. Whenever he was over, Greg seemed crazy about her. Well, I could have lived without the fact he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of her. That was pretty disgusting.

Grammy stared expectantly at me for an answer. After I swigged some of her sugary sweet tea, I shrugged. “I guess it would be fine.”

She slowly shook her head. “Noah Andrew Sullivan, when are you goin’ to stop lyin’ to me—better yet when are you going to stop lyin’ to yourself?”