Chapter 41
Karla
That following Monday, I showed up to Dad and Ellie’s for our weekly spaghetti dinner. The whole family was over, including Grandma Claire, Uncle Landon and Shay, and their two kids. Everyone’s eyes were on me as Grandma Claire updated them on how Ash was, indeed, the boy who saved her life.
“Ashish Banks?” Ellie asked, with widened eyes and the biggest smile. Oh, Ellie . . . you and your sensitive heart. “That was him?”
“The boy you were in love with as a kid?” Lorelai asked with narrowed eyes.
I huffed. “I wasn’t in love with him,” I argued, knowing it was a lie. The dust-covered butterflies that hadn’t fluttered in years began to swirl inside of me from the simple thought of Ash.
I didn’t know those butterflies still existed.
Lorelai paused as if collecting clues. Then she slammed her hands against the table.
“Wait! Ash was the super-hot paramedic with the perfectly trimmed beard who also smelled like oak wood?” Everyone turned toward my sister, stunned by her very descriptive memory of Ash.
She narrowed her eyes and shrugged. “What? I’m a teenager and he was hot. I noticed.”
I laughed. “Well, yes. That’s him.”
“Ash Banks . . .” Dad sat back in his chair. “He was a nice boy.”
I agreed, “Yeah, he was.” Until he ghosted me. Sometimes I hated my heart for understanding why he ghosted me. I hated that I understood grief deeper than most.
“But I don’t like the idea that he was in your apartment,” Dad said.
Uncle Landon was pouting, too. “Yeah, I don’t even know this guy.”
It was clear the men of the family had very differing feelings about Ash and me reconnecting than the women. While the girls were smiling ear to ear, Dad and Uncle Landon wore the sourest looks I’d ever witnessed.
Dad grumbled. “He was a nice boy. I don’t know what kind of man he grew into, and—”
“He’s the kind of man who saved my life, that’s the kind of man he is,” Grandma Claire said, winking in my direction.
Dad grumbled some more. “That doesn’t give him a free pass to—”
“Yes, it does!” all us women said in unison.
Uncle Landon patted Dad’s back. “We’re outnumbered, buddy.”
“Figures.”
They both continued to pout, but the girls drowned them out.
“So when are you two hanging out again?” Ellie asked.
“This coming Saturday, we are having dessert,” I replied.
Lorelai swooned and wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “I bet you two are having the sweetest dessert,” she said suggestively.
“Lorelai!” Dad and Landon barked.
I giggled to myself as Lorelai tossed her hands up in confusion. “What?! He’s hot!” she argued. “I don’t remember him being that hot before!”
Lorelai wasn’t wrong. Ash had grown in many ways. His once wild hair was tamed and groomed. His body was rock solid. The veins in his arms were very apparent when he raked his hands through his hair. His biceps looked as if they were ready to burst out of the seams of his T-shirt.
Not that I noticed.
Nope. Not at all.
The remainder of the night went on with a lot of laughter and joy, just like every Spaghetti Monday had. I smiled as I put on one of Mom’s favorite records and we continued the conversation that evening.
I hoped there was a heaven, solely so Mom could look down on us to see how we missed her every single day. And I hoped that when she heard the records, she danced, too.