Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
T he annoying shrill of my cell phone wakes me from my slumbering state. Shifting my eyes to the alarm clock, a disgruntled groan rumbles from my parched lips.
Who the fuck is calling me at eight in the morning on a Monday?
Sundays and Mondays are the days Inked’s doors remain closed. Although we could trade seven days a week, from the beginning, Ryder scheduled his staff on a five-day roster to ensure a good work-life balance.
After running my hand over my newly clipped hair, I snag my phone off the bedside table. My sleepy eyes pop open when I discover who was calling me.
Fuck, what has she done now?
I dial a number I know by heart before pressing my cell close to my ear.
“Caramine Care, Daniel Beckett speaking.”
“Daniel, it’s Brax Anderson. I just missed your call. Is everything okay? ”
He sighs down the line. “We had a few issues occur this week that I’d like to discuss with you in person.”
Great.
“All right.” I swing my legs off the bed. “I’ll be there in around forty minutes.”
After disconnecting the call, I enter the bathroom to get ready while my brain tracks the events that transpired since the last time I received this same phone call.
T wo hours later, I’m walking out of Daniel’s office.
“I’ll have a word with her before I leave, but I assure you the incident that occurred earlier this week won’t happen again.”
Daniel curtly nods before offering me his hand to shake. “She certainly keeps us on our toes. No one could ever accuse your grandmother of not having enough spirit.”
Laughing, I spin on my heels and stride down the hall. A lack of spirit isn’t something my grandma could ever be accused of having.
I’m not at all surprised when I walk into my grandma’s room at the assisted living home she’s a resident of to find her going toe-to-toe with an orderly unpacking her recently packed suitcase.
“You better not steal any of my panties. I’ve had those panties for four years and don’t want some young grub like you stealing them.”
She’s aiming for her voice to be vicious, but I hear slight laughter in her words. The orderly—who would be in his mid-thirties—cranks his neck to my grandma. Shock and a slight bit of horror are marring his face.
“Don’t look at me like that, young man. I know all about men and their weird fetishes these days. My navy-blue striped sailor boy legs vanished last month. Poof. Gone. Not seen hide nor hair of them in over a month.” Her words come out with a husky lisp since she doesn’t have her full set of dentures in place.
“Grandma, stop giving the staff a hard time. You know as well as I do that you’ve never owned a pair of boyleg panties.”
She huffs, crosses her heavily wrinkled arms under her chest, then strays her rheumy gaze to the gardens outside her window. “I’d own a pair if they let me out of this hellhole,” she mumbles under her breath.
Today has been my grandmother’s fourth attempt to break out of her assisted living facility the past three months. She only moved into this facility as the staircase in my apartment became too much for her to handle. Although we considered moving to a more suitable location, with me buying a share in Inked and the housing market rocketing in this area, we both agreed there was no viable option other than her moving into an assisted living facility.
We visited numerous aged care facilities the four weeks following our decision. Caramine Care was the last facility we visited. With its approach on free living, a bustling social calendar, and the fact it isn’t referred to as a facility for seniors, it seemed like the ideal residence for my grandma.
Obviously, we were wrong.
After gesturing to the orderly that I will finish unpacking the suitcase, I span the distance between my grandma and me. “What am I going to do with you, Grandma? Mr. Beckett said you nearly gave some of the other residents a coronary.” I crouch in front of her and peer into her shimmering blue eyes. “He said it took over two hours to get Mr. Peter’s heart rate back under control after the stunt you pulled earlier this week.”
She rolls her eyes but maintains her resilient stance, her lips as tight as her silver ringlet hair .
“Mr. Beckett would like me to inform you that although the hydrotherapy pool is set to a warm eighty-two-degree setting, it is not a bath.” I cough, clearing my throat. “Grandma, if you wish to remain living at Caramine Care, you must wear swimwear at all times while using the facilities.”
I try to keep my voice serious, but when the corners of my grandma’s red-painted lips curl into a cheeky smirk, any chances of me keeping this situation within chiding territory falters.
“If they don’t want their residents using the bathing facilities for their intended design, they should have clear signs displayed throughout the premises for old girls like me.”
Quirking my lips, I glare into her mischief-filled eyes. She tries to use her age as an excuse for her erratic behavior, but I know her better than that. She might have Daniel believing her seventy-eight-year-old brain thought the hydrotherapy pool was a bath, but I’m not at all convinced. Why? Because much to the horror of my neighbors, my grandma skinny-dipped in the pool in my apartment building in January last year. Her excuse was “If the twenty-something-year-old residents of your apartment building can do it, why can’t I?”
“Besides. It wasn’t Mr. Peter’s heart that took two hours to control,” my grandma mumbles under her breath.
Ignoring her snide comment for fear of it giving me nightmares, I say, “Even if you didn’t realize the hydrotherapy pool required a swimsuit, what’s the deal with packing your bags? I thought your escapee days were over?”
Although she’s tried to escape three times previously, those attempts were during her first two weeks of incarceration at Caramine Care. For the past two months, she seemed to have settled in nicely, so I’m somewhat surprised by her sudden attempt to flee.
Before my grandma gets the chance to answer my questions, a commotion at the door secures my attention. A pretty nurse in a tight white uniform and sheer black stockings stands in the entryway of my grandmother’s room. She has platinum-blonde hair, peachy painted lips, and an enticingly curvy body.
The more the nurse’s eyes wander over my face, the more her pupils dilate. A smirk tugs at my lips when her eyes lower to assess the entirety of my package.
The routine never alters.
Well, except that one time.
After the nurse finishes her avid assessment of my body, she aligns her green eyes with my grandmother. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Anderson, I didn’t realize you had company. I’ll come back later,” she says before spinning on her heels.
Her quick departure is halted when my grandma says, “No. It’s fine, Penny, come in and meet my grandson, Brax.”
My brow arches, surprised at the chirpiness in my grandma’s voice. She is an entirely different lady compared to the one sparring against the orderly mere minutes ago.
When Penny hesitates for several seconds, unsure if she’s coming or going, my grandma kicks me in the shins and nudges her head Penny’s way.
“Hi, I’m Brax, Grace’s grandson,” I greet before offering her my hand to shake.
Heat creeps across Penny’s cheeks as she accepts my gesture. “Hi, Brax. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your grandmother has been telling me a lot about you the past two weeks.”
“I’m sure she has.”
I turn my gaze back to my grandma. Her excited eyes are bouncing between Penny and me. Air escapes my nostrils when the reasoning behind my grandma’s sudden interest in escaping smacks into me.
For the past year, she’s made it her mission to see me shacked up and married. I lost count of the number of times I arrived home from a shift at Inked to find a female in my living room lying in wait, ready to pounce.
My grandmother’s tactics were so convincing, most of my dates believed I had personally invited them over.
No matter how often I tell my grandmother that it’s not true in this day and age, she’s convinced if I’m not married by the time I’m thirty, I’ll live the remainder of my life as a childless bachelor.
Although she means well, her matchmaking is driving me crazy. It isn’t her lack of taste that has my appreciation waning. The quality of the women she finds is excellent. It’s the fact she lures my dates into my home with the promise of matrimony and a family. Considering neither of those items are on my agenda anytime soon, my newly acquired friends don’t hang around for long after the initial greeting.
After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Penny checks my grandmother’s blood pressure and temperature before excusing herself from the room.
The instant she slips into the corridor, I drift my eyes back to my grandma. “Stop trying to set me up with the nurses and doctors.”
“Why? Penny seems lovely, and you need a smart girl in your life,” she replies in the same tone she uses whenever we argue about her poor matchmaking techniques.
I arch my brow. “You’re setting me up to fail.”
“ Pfft . I’m doing no such thing. Penny is single. You’re single. How could that turn into failure?”
With a shake of my head to hide my smile, I say, “Grandma, you know as well as I do. Penny might be good for a bit of fun, but even if I were interested in something more than a few nights between the sheets, she will never take me home to meet her parents. ”
Grandma waves her hand in front of her face like she’s shooing away a fly. “We’re in the twenty-first century, Brax. Parental permission is no longer a necessity.”
I shake my head to loosen the invisible noose she slung around my neck, but since I’m not willing to roll over without a fight, I say, “So when the fun is over with Penny, and she ends up brokenhearted, what do you think will happen to your secret candy stash the nursing staff knows about but ignores?”
Panic floods my grandma’s eyes when she locks them with the top drawer, which is full to the brim with every candy bar you could imagine.
“Is meddling in your grandson’s love life worth the risk of losing your beloved chocolate binge?”
Without hesitation, she shakes her head.
I crouch down so my eyes are level with hers. “I appreciate your effort, but my love life is fine as it is. Especially since I can take my dates to my place now that my grandmother isn’t sleeping in the room next door.”
My grandma tries to hold in her laughter, but the littlest giggle topples from her lips. She may be seventy-eight, but she has the dirty mind of a twenty-year-old male.