“I just got off the phone with him,” Momma said. “And he’s hoping to get there around two o’clock. As long as you’re there about fifteen minutes before him, you’ll have plenty of time. Libby is going to help too.”
“I’m aware, Momma.” Ty reached to turn over the steak. It came up easily, and he flipped it, the satisfying sizzling meeting his good ear and making his mouth water. “I already talked to Bryan about all of this. Why are you micromanaging this?”
“I just want to make sure everyone’s happy,” she said.
“We’re all just fine,” Ty said. “We’re grown adults.”
“He doesn’t want to cause a problem,” Momma said. “And I know this is already going to be hard for you, and I just want you to be okay.”
Talking to death wasn’t going to make it okay. Ty wanted to tell her that, but that would only spark more conversation. Instead, Ty stepped back from the hot skillet and then reached to turn the flame off underneath it. The steaks could finish in the pan in thenext couple of minutes. Then they’d eat, and with his belly full of really good beef, he could text Winnie and ask for a rain check.
“Momma, I’m okay,” Tyson said.
“Bryan’s worried that you’re going to be upset about the engagement.”
“Well, I don’t know how to fix that,” Ty said. “Am I super jazzed both of my siblings are going to get married this year, and I don’t even have a girlfriend? Of course not. Wouldyoube?”
“No one thinks anything of it,” Momma said.
“Ithink something of it, Momma.”
“Well, maybe you don’t need to,” she fired back at him, and it was no wonder Ty had a grumpy, fiery streak. His daddy had one too, which meant Ty had been doomed from birth.
“Besides, I heard you had a date to the Glover wedding next weekend,” she said, her voice moving into that fakethis-doesn’t-matter-to-me-but-so-doestone.
Ty dang near dropped his tongs. “How in the world did you hear that?”
“Janice Mulberry was at the New Year’s Day brunch today,” she said. “And I guess she overheard something. She didn’t know who it was with, but as I was taking the last of the leaves out to the greenworks bin, she caught me and said something about it.”
Ty pulled the cast iron skillet off the stove and turned to the peninsula behind him. “I’ve forgotten where I live,” he said. “Dear Lord, is there any way to escape the rumor mill in this town?”
Momma laughed, and Ty turned to get down two plates and picked up the phone from beside the stove. “I heard that,” she said. “But you definitely moved away from the phone.”
“That’s because our dinner’s done,” he said. “Do you have more lecturing you need to do, or can I go?”
“I didn’t call to lecture,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I’m going to be fine on Saturday. I will be there. I will be in my best clothes. I will smile, I will be happy, I will cheer the loudest.”
“Oh, you’re not going to make it a show,” Momma said. “Bryan won’t like that either.”
“Momma,” Ty said. “I will act so normal you won’t even know what hit you.”
“I don’t even know what your normal is anymore, Ty,” Momma said with a huff. “All right, go enjoy your steak. If you’re not going to tell me who you’re taking to the wedding….”
Ty thought about it for a moment. As he removed the steaks from the pan and set them on a plate to rest away from the heat, he said, “You know what? No, I don’t want to tell you right now.”
“Well, it’s not that far away,” Momma said. “I’m going to find out.”
“Yeah, everyone’s gonna find out,” Ty said. “And maybe it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Well, if it’s not that big of a deal, why don’t you tell me who it is right now?”
“Because you really seem to want to know,” he said. “And it might just be a friend date or a safe date, so that I don’t have to be by myself, with my sister and her fiancé,andnow my brother and his fiancée, and everyone else in the world who has someone else to be with.”
His chest hurt, and he took a deep breath. “My steak’s done, Momma. I’m fine. Everything’s gonna go amazing on Saturday. Bryan and Ellie are going to be engaged and blissfully in love. We’ll have another wedding on the calendar this year. What could possibly go wrong?”
“I can think of a lot of things,” she said. “And they all start with T-Y-S-O-N.”
