Chapter Thirty-Three
Matteo
Ryker never came back to Brynne’s house until this morning. I had promised to go visit my grandfather today so that conversation never happened yesterday. I don’t know how Brynne is going to react when she hears our plan to eradicate as many pricks as possible. After having another piece of her in the shower yesterday, I don’t think it would matter how she reacted as long as she still let me fuck her.
I pull into the driveway of my grandfather’s house. He moved into a smaller place once my grandmother went into the nursing home. It's much easier to maintain, but I come and help him when I can.
“Matteo?” he calls from the kitchen when I open the squeaky front door.
“It's me, Gramps,” I call out. “You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked all the time,” I rant.
“If people are going to break into my house, they will find a way regardless of if the front door is locked or not,” he explains.
I shake my head. “Maybe, but you should at least make it hard for them. ”
My grandfather brings two cups of coffee over to the folding table in the middle of the kitchen. He hands one to me and tilts his head to the side assessing me like he always does. “You look tired,” he says.
I laugh. “I always am tired.” Brynne flashes through my head. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep with her around. Just the way her body moves when she is simply walking has me hard. “What have you been doing?” I ask.
“Going through your grandmother’s things,” he says slowly. I stop my mug halfway to my mouth and look at him.
“I thought we were going to do that together?” I ask.
“It's just taking up space Matteo.” He sips his coffee
like he didn’t just tell me that he is doing the hardest thing ever.
“I understand that, but I told you I would help,” I push. “How far have you gotten?” I ask. He stands up and I follow him down the hallway to his bedroom. There are boxes all over the bedroom floor. I didn’t realize we had kept this many of her things after we moved him into this place.
“I can’t quite bring myself to go through the things
inside. I just opened them all and stared at it all,” my gramps explains.
“Here,” I walk over to a box and drag it over to the bed.
“Matteo you don’t have to spend your day doing this
with me. Don’t you have more important things to do?” I think about Brynne back home with the boys and the long list of fucks we still have to kill. Of course, there will always be shit to do, but I’ll never be too busy to help my grandfather. My grandparents were the only people in my life who stuck by my side until I found Damon in the bar. Ever since that bar fight we all have been inseparable .
“I’ve got time,” I half-lie. He tries to hide his smile, but I notice it immediately. I open the box and notice a bunch of fabric. This must have been my grandmother's clothes. I pluck out a few pieces and hold them up before laying them in piles on the bed. “What should we do with her clothes?” I ask.
He picks up a shirt of hers and holds it in his lap. My grandmother has been gone for years, but it still feels like
yesterday. He smiles and places it back in the pile. “We can donate her clothes. Do you think you could drop them off when you leave today?” he asks.
I nod and grab another box. We go through three more and sort through everything with ease. Then I realize we’re on the last box. I open the box and there is a bag inside. I pull it out and realize it’s the personal belongings she had at the nursing home when she passed. Before opening the bag, I pause and look at my gramps. The things inside this bag are what she kept until the very end.
As I open the bag, I get a whiff of her awful perfume. I almost laugh but suppress it. Of course, I was a good grandson and lied to tell her the perfume smelled amazing. She was the closest thing I had to a mother. I still don’t know how Damon and Sawyer survived without parents. I don’t think I would have been able to make it past my fifth birthday without my grandparents.
I stop pulling things out of the bag when I spot
something familiar. I had no idea that she had it at the nursing home. I pull out the knitted scarf I made for her after I had finally mastered knitting. I look over the scarf and laugh. Maybe I hadn’t mastered it, but she made it seem like the best thing in the world .
“She would want you to keep that,” my Gramps says. I place it on top of the box I’m taking with me when I leave. I'll drop off the clothes on the way back to Brynne’s house. I don’t know when we plan on going back to the motel, but I don’t have many belongings there anyway.
We clean up the mess we made and I help him break down the boxes. He grabs my hand to stop me. I tower over his hunched stature. “Matteo,” he says my name with concern. “What are you getting yourself into?” he asks. I want to tell him the truth, but I don’t want to worry him. He always knew when I was about to do something dangerous. He either would talk me out of it or make sure my grandmother never found out about it afterward.
I place my other hand over his and pat it. “You don’t have to worry about anything Gramps,” I reassure him.
He narrows his eyes. “Who is she?”
I laugh. “How do you know there even is a she?” I ask.
“As soon as you got here I knew something was off
about you. It was either you're in danger or you met someone who makes you feel alive,” he explains. I think about Brynne and how she makes me feel. I’m not a big feelings kind of guy, but Brynne excites me. That should scare any normal person since we have just got her, but it makes me eager for more. Brynne makes me feel alive.