Cement Heart(69)
My eyebrows shot up. “Teach you to cook?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Hell yeah. I would love to.”
“Really?” Hope filled her eyes and made them sparkle like I’d never seen before.
“Yeah, really. I’ll be back tomorrow after I run my errands, at like two o’clock, and we’ll work on dinner, okay?”
“I’ll be ready,” she said confidently.
UP EARLY WITH a bounce in my step, I ran my errands in record time and grabbed a few things from the grocery store that I was pretty certain Michelle didn’t have stocked in her kitchen. I had a little extra time to kill before heading to Michelle’s, so I stopped by Gam’s and brought her a box of almond crescent cookies, her favorite.
She put the cookies on a plate and set them down in the middle of the table before she grabbed a root beer and handed it to me.
“What?” I laughed, suddenly defensive as I noticed her staring at me with narrow eyes.
She leaned her chin on her hand and kept staring, her eyes moving all over my face as I tossed a cookie in my mouth. “You. Something. What’s going on?”
I shrugged. “Nothing’s going on. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint it, but you seem… giddy.”
“I don’t do giddy,” I argued as I opened my root beer and took a huge gulp.
“I know. That’s my point.”
“Anyway, what’s new on your end?”
“Lawrence, I’m nearly ninety years old. Just waking up is exciting.” She sighed and grabbed a cookie off of the plate.
“That’s right. Someone has a birthday coming up.” I grinned at her as I wiggled my eyebrows up and down.
“Yes, and I want a big damn party. This will probably be my last birthday.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You’ve been saying that about every birthday for the last ten years.”
“Well, I really mean it this time, so you better go all out. I want a huge cake and some of those Chippendales dancers, okay?”
I frowned at her and shook my head. “You’re out of your damn mind. I am not ordering you a stripper.”
“Really?” She let her hand fall hard against the table and glared at me. “You’re not gonna grant a dying old lady her last wish?”
“Have you always been this dramatic?” I laughed as I ate another cookie.
“Pretty much, yes.”
Wiping the powdered sugar off my hands onto my jeans, I stood up. “All right, sorry to cut the visit short, but I have to be somewhere. I’ll stop by when we get back into town, okay?”
I bent down and kissed her wrinkly forehead.
“Where do you have to be? What’s better than me?”
“Uh…” I stammered. “I’m teaching a friend to cook today. Just something easy for dinner. No big deal.”
Her eyes sparkled and she hit the table with her hand again. “I knew it!” she yelled.
“Knew what?”
“Is this little someone a woman?”
I sighed, not wanting to answer her question. She stared at me pointedly, tapping her fingers on the table.
“Yes,” I finally admitted. “It’s a woman, but it’s not what you think. It’s Mike’s wife.”
“Oh.” Her head jerked back a little in surprise. “That’s not at all what I was expecting.”
“Exactly. It’s just a cooking lesson. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
“Okay,” she said unconvincingly. I gave her a wave and turned toward the front door. “Most men wouldn’t put cologne on for a cooking lesson, though!”
I shook my head and reached for the doorknob as she yelled out one more time. “And don’t forget about my party. And the strippers. Maybe they can jump out of the cake!”
“Good-bye!” I waved as I shook my head and closed the door.
THE BEST SOUND ever greeted me as I walked through the front door of Michelle’s house.
“Yay! Viper!” I heard the thud of Matthew’s footsteps running toward me.
“My man!” I set the grocery bags down so I could catch him when he jumped into my arms like he always did.
“How are you feeling today?” I scanned his face. Nice pink color. No dark circles. “You look great.”
“I feel better.” He smiled as he wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed so hard he made me cough. “You were right, the electricity worked!”
I frowned at him. “Electricity?”
“In the Gatorade.”
“Oh! The electrolytes!” I laughed. “Yep, they seemed to work. I’m so glad. Want to help me carry these bags?” I lowered him gently to the ground, and he immediately grabbed two of the bags and dragged them along behind him on the wood floor. He dropped the bags in the doorway, almost making me trip on them, and ran off to the family room to watch TV.