Page 23 of From Best Friend to Bride
It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
Why were we having afternoon tea at eleven in the morning?
And how the heck had I let myself get roped into this trap?
“Doesn’t this defy the point of the afternoon tea?” I said, pointing to the clock on my phone. “It’s late morning.”
“It’s always a good time for cucumber sandwiches and cake,” Nana said, plucking one of said sandwiches off the stand. “How else will I get you to stop avoiding me if not with food?”
“I’m not avoiding you,” I lied.
“You’re avoiding me,” she argued. “Are you still upset with me, Lala? Or are you ashamed to introduce your new boyfriendto this old woman? You can be honest, dear. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
I know what you’re doing, you hooligan.
Granny smiled from behind the rim of her teacup. “Don’t be so dramatic, Judy. You know what kids are like these days.”
“Kids? I’m twenty-nine!” I said, reaching for one of the sandwiches. “I’m not a kid!”
“You act like one every time you and Fred are together.” She eyed me, her gaze far too bright and sparkly for my liking. “Is that how you act with your boyfriend, Delilah, dear?”
Yep.
That was it.
That right there was the trap.
Nana was trying to get me to either admit I didn’t have a boyfriend or tell her who he was, and Granny was angling for me to say it was Fred so she could make me her granddaughter-in-law and convince me to fall in love with him.
Why did nobody understand that wasn’t going to happen?
“I’m not discussing that,” I replied after a moment. “I was told that this was a meeting to discuss Lucy’s baby shower since you two are hosting it, but you haven’t mentioned herorthe baby at all.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss your love life, too,” Nana said. “Why won’t you just tell me about your boyfriend? Is it not serious? Does he treat you badly? Would you like me to hire some ruffians to beat him up?”
“You want to do what?” I held up my hands, my sandwich dangling from between my finger and thumb. “Nana, no. You can’t just hire ruffians to beat someone up. Where would you even find ruffians?”
She tapped her short, neon yellow nail against her saucer. “Do teenage boys still hang out in car parks doing little circles with cars and squeaky tyres that are older than me?”
Where the hell was this conversation even going? “I can’t say that I’m up to date on the comings and goings of teenage boys.”
“Generally, that’s a good stance to have,” Granny said, nodding sagely. “They’re absolute ruffians.”
Good God, what was their obsession with that word?
“Stinky ruffians, actually,” she continued.
Seriously. If I heard that word one more time, I was going to pour my green tea over my head and wear the slice of lemon as a hat.
“My God, from the age of about eleven, getting Fred to do anything was a nightmare for both me and his mother. If we made him shower, he acted as if the world was on fire. And the dishes in his room? Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was a budding scientist trying to create his own micro-colonies.”
That was true.
I’d borne witness to Fred’s questionable creation of life more than once.
“Thank goodness for girls,” Nana said, shaking her head. “Although Lala did always lose her socks. She always used to complain they never came out of the washing machine, but the problem was that she wasn’t putting them in there in the first place. Mind you, I think she still has that problem.”
“I wash my socks just fine, thank you. Stop spreading lies, Nana.” I cut a scone in half and put it on her plate. “Granted, I had a few issues when I was a teen, but that was because Lucy kept stealing them. That doesn’t happen anymore.”
