I sigh and scrub my hand down my face. “Sorry, I slept the whole drive.”
“It’s okay. You just missed all my gossip about Camden and Juju.” He lifts a shoulder.
“Shut up. What have I missed?”
“Oh, it is on. They are inseparable and in love.”
“It’s about fucking time. Is it wrong that I’m unbelievably happy for them and sad that we won’t get to see Juju berate Camden to smithereens?”
Tully laughs. “If it’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right. At least they didn’t elope like her brother. That was too much, Jackson marrying Dove without even knowing her.”
I laugh. “He must’ve known enough.”
“Oh! Have we covered the Fair brothers flirting outrageously with Grandma Donna and Grandma Nancy yet?”
Juju’s grandpa and uncle are apparently digging on our grandmas.
“Goldie mentioned it in a text, but I haven’t gotten many updates. What’s going on?”
“I haven’t seen it firsthand, so I don’t know if she’s exaggerating or what,” he says. “We’ll have to give them a hard time about it today. Juju says Grandma Nancy is all sass with her Uncle Hal, which sounds true.”
I laugh. “No kidding. Sounds about right.”
The second I step inside the house, I smell Grandma Donna’s ham with brown-sugar glaze and Grandma Nancy’s fancy-pants green bean hotdish—not canned beans, no way, no how—broccoli rice hotdish, and a clash of sweet aromas that I’m hoping are apple pie, coconut pie, and spiced cake.
Grandma Donna spots me first. She cups my cheeks with floury hands. “Oh, thank goodness, your hair is finally long enough to be respectable again.”
“You always did like it floppy,” I say, grinning. “I think it’s cool that you don’t want me to have it above my collar.”
“The longer, the better,” she says, winking.
Dahlia likes it longer too. God, does she ever. She pulled it so many fucking ways last night, I got out of bed with it going every direction.
“Honey, yoo-hoo.” Grandma Donna snaps her fingers, and I come out of my reverie.
Then she produces the sweater—black and fitted, with a brooding rooster on the front whose comb is a streak of electric blue.
“Grandma! I love it! You have outdone yourself. Love his attitude. What’s got him so shook?” I pull it over my head immediately.
There’s loud hooting, and I turn to see everyone else in their hilarious sweaters.
“You’re home!” Goldie says, throwing her arms around me.
I do the rounds, hugging everybody.
“So good,” I swear I say about each sweater. “Grandma Donna, how did you do all this?”
“I’ve had lots of visitors at the Friendship Bench, and I knit while they talk,” she says, smiling sweetly.
Yes, I have the sweetest grandmother in the world. She put a bench out in the garden Goldie and Milo created, and people in town now have to make appointments to come talk to her. It’s free, and she’s a hot commodity. She says everyone wants to be heard, and I think she’s absolutely right. Her busy schedule proves it.
“Well, you have made the most of your time, that’s for sure.” I kiss her cheek, and she beams up at me.
“There you are,” Grandma Nancy says, coming over to squeeze me. “Look at you all handsome again.”
I laugh. “The hair is a hit.”
Grandma Nancy is also wonderful and a lot sassier than Grandma Donna. The woman is a hoot. The two of them together are divine. I can’t wait to be around them all the time.
