52. 52
Iwalk Miles back to Grandma’s place. While it isn’t far from Mom, she won’t come back here. At least, she won’t venture inside Grandma’s house. I don’t knock on my grandmother’s door, I just open it up. Like always.
“Gram?” I call, with Miles’ hand tucked in my own.
Grandma’s steps echo from the short hall of her small suite. Her pink top goes from neck to wrist. Leave it to Grandma Judy to wear a turtleneck in June. Her long hair sweeps over her shoulders. Her cheeks and eyes wrinkle with a smile when she sees Miles.
“Hello,” he says, holding out a hand to her. “You must be Judy.”
Her grin turns to a beam. She shoves past his outstretched hand and wraps her arms around him, leaving him with a grandmotherly hug.
“I love this,” she says upon releasing him. She points to her painting hung on the wall. “It’s insightful and lovely.”
“Oh.” Miles’ eyes light when he sees his painting there. “I didn’t realize…” He looks at me. “You sent her something.”
I nod.
“And I love it.” She tilts her head, examining Miles. “You even look like Miles Howard a little.”
I knew she hadn’t forgotten her crush from that old soap opera.
“I didn’t realize you were coming, Miles.”
“He wasn’t,” I say before Miles has a chance.
Her brow wrinkles. “What brought you, then?”
“Mom,” I say.
“Oh goodness.” Grandma’s lips purse. “Come sit, you’re going to need some tea.”
“Okay,” Miles says.
Grandma takes him by the hand and leads him to her small kitchen. He passes by the green doily hanging on her wall—the one that Eryn and I like to fight over—and a light goes off in his eyes. He remembers. I see it.
It’s strange how that warms my heart.
“Delaney, did you want to explain what’s happening?” Grandma says, showing Miles to a seat at her small, round table.
“Well, I don’t know. I was too busy yelling at Mom to ask her how she got him to come.”
“She said you needed help, that you’d told her about our situation. She said you wouldn’t ask, but you needed me to uphold my part of the bargain.”
I plop into a seat next to Miles. Holy crap balls. She does know.
“What bargain?” Grandma says.
“But Laney, do you need help? You know I want to do my part—”
“Excuse me, young people. Old woman here in need of answers. What bargain?” Grandma says, refusing to be ignored.
“You told your mom but not your grandma?” Miles furrows his brows. He doesn’t understand how or why I’d do that.
“I didn’t tell her!” I bark. And then I cringe. “But I might have told Eryn.”
Miles’ eyes turn to slits. “I may have slipped to Coco.”
“May have?” I say, and it’s so unfair for me to be mad at him; I can’t be. I told Eryn. And somehow my mother, apparently.
“Okay.” His head rolls with the word. “I told her.”
“Wonderful,” Grandma says, setting her glass pitcher of tea onto the middle of the table. “Now someone can tell me.”
Miles and I go quiet.
“Go for it,” he tells me.
“The press took a photo of Miles bending down in front of me and construed it to sound like he was proposing.”
Her brows raise. “He wasn’t?”
I swallow—it’s difficult; my mouth is as dry as the desert. How many things does a girl have to confess to her beloved grandmother in one month? “No,” I say. “We didn’t really know each other at that point in time.”
Grandma’s green eyes widen. “I see. Go on.”
“I was never right for that TV show, Gram. But this—this was sort of perfect. Miles and I needed each other. We could help each other. So, we made a business deal.”
“Oh, goodness.” Grandma looks at Miles, then presses fingers to each of her temples. “Your building—” she says, putting two and two together. “But what for you, Laney?”
I shut my eyes. “My image. I needed to be seen as wanted, as progressing, and Ash thought marriage fit that bill. That’s the entire reason I did Celebrity Wife. I never wanted that.”
“Oh dear.” Grandma’s hands fall to her sides. She’s going to need vitamin C and Coke—the only two things that help when one of her headaches comes on.
“She gave me one stipulation,” Miles says, his soft hazel eyes drinking me in. “I wasn’t allowed to fall for her.”
“Yeah.” I screw my lips up. “We both messed that up.”
Grandma pulls in a breath through her nose. “You’ve been married to my granddaughter for four weeks, correct?”
“Correct,” Miles says, turning his focus to Grandma.
“And you’ve known her for—”
“Four weeks,” Miles says. Why does he always have to be so darn honest?
“Heaven help this nana’s heart.”
“Grandma, it’s fine. It’s no different than any other couple meeting and starting something up.”
“Except that you’re married,” she says.
“Except that we’re married,” Miles agrees.
“That makes it quite different, my dear.”