“You okay?” Valencia asks. She looks at me with concern, which only makes me feel worse. I know she’s not a mind reader, but there should still be some kind of hesitancy from her. I can see it with Marcus, and with Easton, so why doesn’t she have that?
I nod and fake a smile. Pulling on the imaginary Nate mask I’ve worn since I got here. Trying to look the part.
“Okay.” But Valencia doesn’t buy it. Still, she nods toward the cabinets next to the fridge. “Grab some plates, napkins, and silverware and take it out to the table. There’s gonna be six of us.”
I do as she says, moving quickly so I can get out of the kitchen and onto the deck. Away from her eyes, which question every part of me while ignoring the seams between who I am and who Nate was.
Thirteen
While Valencia finishes making dinner and Marcus goes upstairs to change out of his work clothes, I stay on the deck with JT and Easton. Since I got here, I’ve seen Easton the least out of everyone in the Beaumont household. Is it because he feels awkward and doesn’t know where to pick up with the brother he last saw ten years ago?
Or because he knows I’m not really Nate?
JT is in the middle of a story he seems to have been waiting all day to tell. Easton is listening intently, so I watch him. Trying to figure him out.
“What’s your deal?” Easton turns to look at me.
Shit. How long was I staring at him? And how long did he realize I was staring at him? I shake my head. “Sorry. Thinking about Mom sending me to a shrink.”
JT’s hand goes right up for another high five. “Nate the Great taking care of his mental health.”
I just stare at JT, leaving his hand in the air. How can someone be so obsessed with high fives?
“Up top!”
I don’t break my gaze, daring him to realize how ridiculous he looks.
“It’s not going to happen,” Easton says, as if he can read my mind. “He’ll keep it there until you do it, so you might as well humor him.”
I lean back in the chair and side-eye JT. “How goodisyour upper-arm strength, JT?”
He leans forward, his arm steady in the air. “I hand-trim weed for a living. I can do this all day.”
Sothat’sthe kind of farming he does. I take out my phone and start the timer, then place it face up on the table.
“Hello!” A woman’s voice carries around the corner of the house.
Easton turns in that direction and then looks back at me. “Oh boy. Gramma Sharon is here. Can’t wait for you to meet her.”
A short, round white woman with a mess of curly gray hair waddles around the corner of the deck. In her hands she holds two pie plates covered in tinfoil. She looks to be in her late seventies or early eighties and is wearing a blue floral sundress.
“Easton, be a peach and take these inside for me,” Gramma Sharon says, holding them out to him. He takes them and she turns her attention to me. Pursing her lips, she gives me a judgment-filled up-and-down. “Nate. Well, you’re not how I remembered you.”
I’m not sure if it’s a joke or if she knows deep down that I’m not Nate. But before I can dig too much into what she said, she holds out a hand. I take it and steady her as she slowly moves up the steps onto the deck.
She stops and looks at JT, who is still staring into the distance with his hand up. She sighs. “You’re exactly how I remember you.” Then she waddles around him, swatting his hand down. I pick up my phone, shutting off the stopwatch.
Gramma Sharon lets out a loud groan as she takes off the orange leather purse slung across her body and lowers herself into one of the chairs. Then she reaches into the neck of her dress and pulls out a fan. I almost laugh because the image is so ridiculous. Was she... keeping that fan tucked away under her boobs?
“JT, go get me a glass of water. And have Marcus bring me out a drink.”
“You got it, Gramma.” He jumps up and goes inside. She shakes her head, then turns to look at me as she unfurls the fan.
“Well, sit down.” She kicks out the chair I was sitting in, and I do as she says. While she fans herself with one hand, she reaches into the orange purse with the other and takes out a pad of paper and a deck of cards. “Do you know how to play gin rummy?”
“No.”
She nods toward the phone in my hand. “Then look it up. I’m not going to teach you.”
