Gram Grams

Savannah

I never knew my grandparents, on either side of my family.

My mom said she was never close to her mother and stepfather, and my dad’s side just never had anything to do with me.

They tried stepping into Morgan’s life when he was first born, but my dad got rid of anything that they would send. Uncle Jonah did the same when they tried for Percy.

Why?

Don’t know, they died about three years ago.

No real truth ever came from it.

But seeing Damon’s grandma threaten to hit him with a wooden spoon makes me want one of my own.

After opening the front of her store up, she told us to get whatever we needed.

The only thing is, it’s all cowboy clothes.

Like wild west type flannels with fringe and tassels. Accompanied with shoulder pads and Bejeweled jeans.

With the help of his grandmother, we turned into rhinestone Cowboys.

I was freaking pumped.

Even tried out a white and pink studded cowgirl hat that I felt the spiritual blessing of Dolly Parton grace me with.

I was gearing up to tell Jolene to keep her hands off my man, and feeling tired as hell from working my nine to five.

Taking our set of clothes, we moved into the changing area.

Hiding behind the blue sheet of a changing curtain, we stuff our asses into our newfound clothing while his Gram grams gave him an earful about not visiting or that his brothers don’t either.

Damon said Dane couldn’t yet since Lucien was not allowed here, which made me want to stay forever. Just to piss him off.

“Thank you, Grams. Yes, I will visit more. I will bring Dane myself, I promise.”

“I’ll help? I could bait Daxon out here and probably get Darrion to lose a bet to come. If that helps at all,” I added, to get all of her grandsons to see her.

If my grandmother was as cool as this lady I would probably live with her.

“Damon Heathcliff Henley! How does she know your brothers? Why would you let them around this poor girl?!”

I fell to my knees laughing, straining not to pass out or puke from hearing her on my side and Damon’s middle name.

“HEATHCLIFF?!” I wheezed.

Falling under the curtain to find a very amused Gram gram with her arms folded.

“Shut it, Gabriele!” he sneered back, but it just made me laugh worse.

“I’ll take Gabriele over HEATHCLIFF any day! Oh my God, my poor Angel. That’s so much worse than little D.”

I sucked in air and found my way back under my curtain and finished getting dressed. Hearing Damon mumble under his breath about how he should have never brought me here, how it was a bad idea.

“You two must have had a long night, must be starving. I’ll give you a minute. Meet me in the kitchen.”

Grams walked away, leaving Damon and me to step into our cowboy boots that matched.

When we stepped out, we did it at the same time coincidentally. The second we laid eyes on each other, we had to hold onto the wall and wipe away tears.

“I’m here to yee your haw, partner.” I added a twang.

Damon held a hand to his side and panted out his laughter. The belt buckle he had on was huge, with white and baby blue rhinestones along the outline and read “Born to Be Wild” in gold.

Sticking my hands into finger guns, the brown-fuzzed holster attached to my pink and white belt, I pretend to holster them and withdraw like some old western stand down.

“Reach for the sky!”

Damon playing along for the fun of it put his hands up in surrender.

“Please don’t shoot, I’m just moseying on through town. Don’t want no trouble, miss.”

Pointing my finger guns, I can’t help but feel more playful.

“Do I scare you, pretty boy?”

Damon’s laugh is muffled with the bite on his bottom lip.

The metal bullring catching the light but somehow doesn’t go unnoticed from all the other glitz and glamour he has caked on.

“No miss, of course not.”

He winked like the fallen angel he is.

“How about now?” I turned my hand sideways, which makes him laugh and snatch my finger, spinning me backwards to his chest. His arm around my neck and my finger gun pointed to my temple, he breathes down my neck.

“Are you scared of me, Shortcake?”

He repeats my line and licks at my ear.

“There’s no way I would ever be scared of someone named Heathcliff.”

Damon groaned and pulled my finger gun away, making a cocking sound and putting it back to my head, but this time behind my ear. I could feel his eye roll.

“Any last words?” His voice deepened.

“Please don’t tell anyone a man called Heathcliff killed me. Lie and say it was Mad Dog or Diesel, anything but the truth.”

I faked a sob and yelled, “Goodbye cruel world!” At which Damon faked a yawn and yelled BANG to kill me off.

I went limp and stuck my tongue out.

“If you got shot in the head, your mouth would not open like that.”

“Would you hush and let me die the way I want?” I snap back into my death position and make him carry all my weight, dragging me down the hall and into the kitchen where the most heavenly aroma filled the air.

“How many waffles do you two want?”

With that, I magically come back to life and eagerly take a seat at her tiny kitchen table at the mention of food.

Kicking Damon’s seat out, I give a simple answer of two, please, which she scoffs at and tells me to be honest.

“Five, please.”

“Just like Ellie. Always trying not to bother people. I can’t tell you how many times Nina had to sneak back in to make Ellie something when she got sick of hearing her stomach growl.”

My body fills with a bittersweetness at my mom’s nickname. My dad always called her Ellie too.

“You knew my mom?”

Gram gram turned around from her full countertop with a death glare at Damon that made him hang his head in shame.

“No, you did not bring this girl here without the truth! Damon, I should make you pick a switch for this.”

Turning her head towards me, I shrunk in my seat. I didn’t know what to do or what this truth was.

~What did Damon know that I was missing?~

How did Damon’s grandmother know both my parents? If Gram gram wasn’t Lucien’s mom, then she’s Nina’s, so my mom and Damon’s mom were friends?

How the fuck did that happen when my mom didn’t meet my dad till they were in college and my mom didn’t go to school here.

Dad did. This was his hometown—Uncle Jonah never moved past the water tower.

“Yes, sweetheart, I knew your mother and your father. It’s not my place to tell you anything you should ~already know~. You should talk to Jonah about that. Now, eat up.”

Tossing a stack of freshly made waffles on a plate and dropping it in front of me, she tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear and smiles like all grandmothers must do on television.

“Share?” I stab one with my fork and dangle it out for Damon to take.

“No, he can wait for his own. You eat, sweetheart.”

Grams goes from death glare to a sweet granny smile that makes me think she has the Henley boys down pat and I want to know her secrets.

After three plates of waffles and some chatting off and on about how I’m doing and what my Uncle Jonah has been up to, she even tells me she likes me and I’m a good fit for her Bunny.

Damon remaining quiet and eating in a silent brooding fit while we talked.

Come to find out all the boys have some type of pet name gifted to them by the Gram grams. Damon’s being Bunny, since he was always on the go.

Darrion’s being Teddy, Daxton’s being Ducky, and Dane’s being Dovey.

“Oh, I can’t wait to go back to the bar.”

I chuckled and looked down the table to Damon, who had a knowing smile on his face. Gram gram let me help with clean up as long as Damon did the dishes.

Gram told me different stories of kid shit Damon and his brothers did or got into, from the potty training fail and Damon asking if he can say vagina when he was five years old, then how he screamed it at the top of his lungs for ten minutes straight.

Damon didn’t say anything. Just groaning or huffing when she told a story about him he didn’t want anyone to ever hear.

When everything was cleaned up, we stood around her kitchen until it was time to open her store.

“I promise I will come back, Grams. This weekend, okay?” Damon hugged this older woman who I don’t think looked at all like any of the Henley men.

“Bunny, bring her back to see me. Put a moon on her before she smartens up and turns tail.”

Damon nodded, Grams turning to me and giving me the same type of hug she gave him. It felt like a mother’s hug and it molded to me like it was clinging to my mom’s shadow.

I felt a burn in my eye and I clamped them shut so I didn’t make it weird.

Pulling away, she kisses my forehead and smiled. “I miss her too, sweetheart.”

And she pulled right back in for another hug that irked a string of defiant tears from my heart.

“Thank you.”

She patted my back and let me go.

I cleaned my face of the evidence and waved goodbye, turning away to get to Damon’s bike. I had the helmet on and waiting when he got to me.

Lifting the glass shield, he kissed me and laid his forehead against the black plastic that covered most of my face.

We looked into each other’s eyes and felt that same knowing feeling lingering on our unspoken lips.

His ~I love you, Savannah~.

And my, ~I love you too, Damon~.

Not heard by our ears or spoken from our mouths. But still there.

Coming out loud and clear.