Chapter 22 Miles
TWENTY-TWO
Miles
Grandma loves Lucy. I should have anticipated this. Grandma shows her love by how much wine she pours. And by the healthy glow in Lucy’s cheeks, Grandma’s been pouring with a heavy hand. I pick up the wine bottle and see it’s from a local Oregon winery. Grandma always has good taste in wine.
Grandma takes the bottle from my hand and fills her glass, then fills Lucy’s again.
“Grandma, I hope you’re not planning on driving anywhere.”
Lucy looks at me in alarm, and I agree with her. She and Grandma are both having too much fun giggling over a glass of wine to even consider picking up a set of keys.
“I know I didn’t call ahead, but I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I stayed in your guest room.”
Lucy’s shaking her head at me from behind Grandma, and I don’t know why.
“Are you sure you’ll be comfortable here? That mattress isn’t very soft,” I attempt to dissuade her.
“It’s just perfect. I need a firm mattress for my back.”
By now, Lucy’s eyes are huge, and she’s sliding a finger across her throat. I’m not sure what I’ve done to make her mad.
“Okay, I’m going to go call your grandpa and let him know I’m staying here instead of a hotel. He’ll be glad. He still worries that someone will kidnap me,” she laughs. “At my age.”
She picks up her purse and steps outside to the porch to make the call. Lucy’s up and out of her seat in half a second flat and poking me in the chest with her index finger. “Why did you invite her to stay?”
“Because I don’t want her driving late at night on two glasses of wine. Besides, I thought you liked her.”
Lucy glances over her shoulder at the front door before she turns back to me and whispers, “Of course I like her. She’s fantastic. But she’s going to expect us to do married things. Like sleep in the same room.”
Lucy’s eyes are flashing at me, and with every jerk of her head, her hair swings around her shoulders. That’s when her words register.
I mutter a curse. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“Yes. We have to start asking ourselves, What would newlyweds do?”
“That’s kind of a long thing to ask ourselves, don’t you think?” I whisper back.
“Of course it is! But it’s the only practical question. And if she stays here, she’s going to expect us to share a room.” Her eyes are wide.
“It’ll be fine. We’ll both fit in my room,” I say.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I hope that’s because you have bunk beds…”
We can’t continue the conversation because Grandma walks back inside. “All settled. He’s building a new picnic table for the store.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize your husband was a woodworker,” Lucy says, stepping away from me.
I reach out and rest an arm around her shoulders. She glances up at me in surprise.
I mouth, What would newlyweds do?
She forces a smile on her face as she reaches an arm around me and leans into the embrace.
There’s a sharp pinch to my side that says I might live to regret this later.
“Thank you for letting me stay even though I didn’t give you a warning. It’s not fair of me to do that to newlyweds,” Grandma says with a frown.
I recognize it for what it is—her usual conniving—but Lucy falls for it hook, line, and sinker.
She steps out of my arms and stands next to Grandma, patting her shoulder.
“Oh, but I’m so glad you came. Miles forgot to tell me how fun you are, and I’m happy to get to know you.
Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll put clean sheets on my—” She clears her throat.
“Our guest bed. Ainsley slept there recently.”
Ainsley did not sleep there recently—she slept on the couch. But I have to admire Lucy’s quick thinking that will buy us time to hide the evidence that Lucy lives in that room.
“You don’t need to bother for me,” Grandma starts to say.
Lucy cuts her off, her voice a little squeaky. “It’s no bother! I want to make sure the room is cozy for you. I hardly go in there anymore.”
Shoot. Now I get what Lucy’s trying to say. She has all of her stuff in the room. Like she lives in there.
Because she does.
“Why don’t I help you, honey?” I try out the term of endearment, and by Lucy’s eye twitch, I can tell that one won’t get to stay.
“That would be great. Thanks, pumpkin,” she fires back, and I have to fight the urge to burst out laughing.
“You two don’t worry about me. I need to run down to the grocery store for some Advil for my back. The older you get, the more your body hates riding in cars,” she advises us.
I have a huge stash of Advil, but I’m not about to tell her that. If she leaves the house for a few minutes, we might have a chance to pull this off.
She grabs her keys and purse and walks to the door. “Now don’t go to too much trouble for me. I don’t want to be a pest of a guest.” She giggles at her rhyme and walks out the door.
“Grandma! You shouldn’t be driving after wine.”
“It was half a glass. I’m not the one who drank that whole bottle,” she says with a wink.
“You were the one pouring,” I remind her. And I can’t believe she only drank half a glass. Then again, she was pouring heavily into Lucy’s and my glasses.
She chuckles and walks out the door.
Lucy and I spin on our heels and sprint down the hall, stumbling into each other. I wrap an arm around her, catching her before she crashes her head into the floating shelf in the hall.
“Thanks, that was close,” she says as she dodges around the shelf.
“How much stuff do we need to hide?” I ask as she flings the door open, and I see inside her room for the first time. “Oh my gosh, I think you’ve been robbed. Someone’s gone through every drawer.”
Lucy doesn’t say anything, simply grabs a laundry basket and starts scooping debris off the floor. Books, shoes, sweatshirts…it’s all going in the basket.
She shoves the basket toward me. “I don’t have time for your commentary.”
Her panicked tone urges me into motion. I grab the basket and run down the hall toward my room. I set it inside my walk-in closet and grab an empty basket. I pause in the hallway to grab some clean sheets and blankets before returning to Lucy.
I don’t know how, but in the two minutes I was gone, she managed to get everything picked up and put away in the closet. Next, she yanks the blankets and sheets off the bed, tossing them to me.
“How will we explain my clothes in the closet?” she asks.
“You can tell her I had too many clothes in mine, and we haven’t gotten around to reorganizing yet.”
“Perfect,” she mutters and tosses a pillow at me, catching me in the face.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think that was on purpose,” I warn her.
She grabs the second pillow off the bed and walks toward me, confusion on her face. “Really? I guess that’s good. Because I would want you to know if I meant it.”
There’s something devious about sweet people. They have the ability to catch you by surprise in ways other people can’t.
I didn’t even see her move. My whole body whips to the side after Lucy smashes me with the pillow.
She packs a punch for someone so tiny.
“You didn’t,” I say.
She grins happily at me. “Of course I didn’t.”
She swings the pillow again with the force of a lumberjack.
I retaliate by picking up the first pillow she threw at me, and soon, I’m chasing her around the room, trying to land a good blow. I make sure to avoid any headshots, but I manage a smack against her butt that sends her flying onto the bed.
“You have an unfair advantage of being bigger!” she shrieks as she flips onto her back and starts furiously swinging the pillow at me. She can’t even see anything she’s laughing so hard.
“I think you have the advantage. You’re scrappier.”
I climb onto the bed, intending to bring the pillow down on her stomach, but she reaches up and tickles my ribs before I can do anything about it.
I fall to my side next to her, and she jumps on top of me. She’s a no-holds-barred pillow fighter.
“I can’t breathe I’m laughing so hard,” she gasps as her beating slows down.
She pins the pillow to my chest. And I stare up at her. Her eyes are bright, and her cheeks are flushed. Her hair is everywhere, and she’s breathing rapidly, an adorable, silly grin on her face.
And she’s sitting on my stomach.
I reach for her, grasping her hips. She giggles when my fingers dig into the sensitive curve, and I pull her forward to sit a little more comfortably.
“Oh dear, I guess I should have knocked,” a voice says.
Lucy gasps and attempts to leap off me, except I’m still holding on to her and too surprised to let go. We end up in an awkward tangle of limbs, and I get a knee to the inner thigh.
“Oomph.”
Lucy pats my back awkwardly and stands up. “I’m so sorry, Goldie—I—we, uh…we were making the bed, and I, er…”
Grandma laughs. “You don’t have to say anything.
Felix and I had our fair share of pillow fights when we were young too.
” She winks, and I do my best to scrub that idea from my mind.
“I’m so glad to see you two having fun together.
So many people get married and forget that the whole point is to enjoy each other.
I know you two will last because of this. ”
My stomach drops as I glance between Lucy and Grandma.
Well, shoot. Now I’m going to have to pretend to be married to her for the rest of my life.
I didn’t think of the ramifications of Grandma loving Lucy.
I wanted her to like her, sure. But now she’s rooting for us to reach a fiftieth anniversary.
“Here, let’s make the bed real quick, Lucy,” I croak out.
She looks at me gratefully and scoops up the clean sheets that fell to the floor in our tussle. We both do our best to ignore Grandma watching us with a loving gaze.