Second Chances

Chapter 11: Memories

Kenna

       "Cupcake, could you come into the kitchen for a moment? I need your help." Gran yelled from the kitchen. "Oh and Jack dear, make yourself at home!"
       I showed Jack to the living room and went to the kitchen.
       "What's up Gran?" I asked.
       "Well you can take these snacks into the living room." She said, as she prepared a tray of food. "But first, let's talk about the hottie."
       "Gran!" I gasped as I looked at her devilish smile.
       "Oh don't do that." She waved her hand around. "I mean, have you seen him?"
       "Of course I've seen him!" I said. Lord knows I've seen him.
       "Well why don't you go after him?" She demanded. Putting her hands on her hips.
       "Gran, we were both rejected. We're trying to work through that. At this point, we're just enjoying being here and being friends." I told her.
       "Well I saw the way he looked at you. You better snatch him up eventually." She said, rolling her eyes. How had he looked at me? Before I could ask, she shoved the tray into my hands. "Go ahead and go into the living room. I have to get some stuff for you." She shooed me away and took off down the hall.
       I stopped in the doorway of the living room and just watched Jack for a moment. His hands were in his pocket and he walked around slowly. Looking at all the pictures. There were a lot of family photos up and most were of me as a child. I saw as he reached and picked a picture up off the table. It was of me in an astronauts costume. I was six at the time. He smiled at the picture and my heart fluttered.
      "I was convinced that I was going to be an astronaut one day." I said as I walked all the way into the living room and set the tray down. "The first werewolf in space. That was until I found there was already a werewolf astronaut." He smiled at that and put the picture down.
      "I'm sure that broke your little heart." He chuckled. He picked up a picture of me and my parents. "What happened to them? If you don't mind me asking."
      "They died in a plane crash years ago. Nobody survived it. It was hard to go through. But Lisa and Matt were there for me. They took me in."
       "Chef?" He asked. I nodded. "He's a cool guy. I've seen the way he looks at his mate. He's utterly in love with her." He smiled at that.
       "Oh yeah. He'd do anything just to see her smile." I said, returning his smile.
       "Yeah I know what he means." He mumbled. We stood there looking at each other for a moment. I could feel my face redden and looked down. Just then, Gran came in with some boxes.
       "I found these the other day and thought you would want them." She said, placing the boxes an the table. When she opened I saw all kinds of things. Photo albums, old school folders, letters from my parents.
      "Oh my god! Look at all this stuff." I said with a smile. We all started digging around and pulling stuff out. I went straight for the photo albums while gran pulled out some old school shirts. Jack chuckled and pulled out my old stuffed animal.
       "I forgot about Mr. Rabbit!" I said with a laugh. That made Jack laugh even harder and put the toy in his lap. We sat around for hours just looking through stuff and laughing too hard. Jack talked about my pigtails in most of the pictures and I smacked him on his shoulder. He promised to show me embarrassing photos from his childhood when we got back home.
       Mid afternoon, we started to leave. Promising we'd be back in a couple days to pick up some stuff for the animal shelter. I let Jack drive us back to the house to drop off the stuff. I was lost in thought, thinking about Gran and admiring the view as it went by. This was my home. Something brushed my hand and I looked down to see Jack interlocking our fingers.
       "I had fun today with Gran. I can tell you miss her." He said, squeezing my hand.
       "I do. I miss this place. It was my second home." I said, smiling at him. When he smiled back, I thought my heart would jump out of my chest.
       "Thank you for sharing this with me." He said. I nodded and went back to looking out the window, feeling like I was floating in the clouds.