Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The B and B looked just as Myles imagined a B and B should look.
Which made perfect sense, and also no sense, since the floral prints, cozy wing-back chairs, overstuffed sofas, and window seats made for a fussy, almost Victorian image that in no way jived with Kreed’s red-and-black flannel or Lucky’s frayed jean shorts and sweatshirt.
Lucky laughed and punched his arm, obviously reacting to something on Myles’s face. “Not what you expected?”
“To be honest, I guess I don’t know what I expected.”
“We don’t make all the design choices,” Kreed gruffed. “Mildred has her own ideas.”
Myles drew his brows together. “Who’s Mildred?”
“The house, silly!” This from Shelly, who skipped up to him and slipped her tiny hand into his. “Come on, Uncle My-my. There’s a cat!”
“Uncle My-my?” Lucky snickered.
“She’s six. Been calling me that since the first day I met her.”
“And a half!” Shelly tugged his hand. “Come see Emma.”
He had no choice but to follow, and there came that hearty laugh again as she hauled him around the registration desk and the foot of the stairs.
The passage opened up into a dining area as floral and vintage as the sitting room had been, with a pass-through counter to the right.
A purple-haired employee leaned over the counter, lips locked on those of the one person Myles still wasn’t sure he was prepared to face.
Ozzy stood on the customer side of the counter, elbows braced on the stone surface, completely preoccupied with the kiss.
“Highly professional,” Kreed deadpanned.
His employee squeaked and dropped to the floor, purple hair flopping over eyes with even more make-up than Jet habitually wore.
Almost, Myles turned to bolt, but Shelly’s grip kept him in place. Barely.
“Ozzy.” Lucky grabbed Myles’s free hand, like he’d read the aborted intention. “You busy?”
“I was.” Ozzy swung around to face them. “Oh. Micky.” His face went still, his gaze deep. Unreadable.
“Oh!” Purple Hair’s sharp exclamation caught Myles’s attention. “Micky? The Micky?”
“Myles,” Myles corrected automatically. “I go by Myles now.”
Ozzy nodded. “Sure.”
“How are you, Oz?”
Ozzy nodded. His lips moved, and maybe in the shape of the word “good” but it was hard to say, since there was no accompanying sound.
“My-my!” Shelly all but shrieked as she yanked on his arm. “The ca-at!”
“Shells!” Jet darted forward, freeing Myles from her grip and sweeping her off her feet. “Show me the cat, eh? I like cats.”
“She’s bea-u-tiful.”
Their voices dwindled as Jet carried her back the way they had come to a window seat in the front room.
“So.” Ozzy straightened, hooking a thumb into a belt loop and running his hand over the top of his head. His hair, longer—though to be fair, he’d always kept it buzzed in the army and while on the street—and greyer than Myles remembered, stuck up between his fingers. “How was the drive?”
His purple-haired kissing partner smacked his bicep.
“What?” Ozzy rubbed the arm, as though the blow had stung.
“‘How was the drive?’ It was three days longer than it should have been. How do you think it was?”
“I don’t—what do you want me to say?”
“Hi.” Purple Hair leaned over the counter again and held out a hand to Myles. “I’m Tris.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowed. “But you probably already figured that out.”
“I guess I had, yeah,” Myles admitted, though he was glad of the introduction, because Ozzy’s partner’s name had momentarily escaped him. Something he didn’t really want to think too hard about.
Tris’s grip was firm. He didn’t flinch at the smear of grass and dirt stain on Myles’s palm.
“Sorry about that.” He snapped his hand away to wipe on his jeans.
Tris’s smile was kind. “No worries. I’ve heard a lot about you. From both these guys.” He indicated Lucky and Ozzy with a flip of one hand. “And from my brother, too.”
“Your brother?”
He nodded. “Rod. He never met you, but you were legend, apparently.”
“Tris.” Ozzy placed a hand over his boyfriend’s.
“I never set out to be.” Myles shifted his feet, scrubbed his hand over his jeans, and waited for the floor to swallow him.
“Come on.” Lucky squeezed his fingers. “I’ll show you where you guys will be staying, and you can get cleaned up.
Oh, don’t worry about them.” Lucky waved at the window seat where Shelly sat with a calico cat in her lap and Jet slouched next to her, a small sketchbook open in front of him.
“Kreed will feed them, and Tris will bring them up after.”
“Sure.” Tris waved and disappeared into the kitchen.
Kreed clapped a hand on Myles’s shoulder. “No rush, yeah. I’ll send something up, if you like.”
“No need. I’ll get cleaned up and come back down.” He didn’t look at Ozzy again as he followed Lucky up the stairs. Every step deepened his regret at the bravado that had convinced him to agree to the third-floor suite when Lucky had asked.
To be fair, though, that conversation had happened weeks ago, and he hadn’t anticipated the brutality of the long-ass drive.
Lucky took one look at him once they reached the top and swore.
“What?” The word came out covered in burrs, which didn’t seem to stick to Lucky at all.
“You look like day old fish left out in the sun.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Get in the tub. Have a soak. I’m telling Jet to put your things in the back room downstairs. Marcus moved out last fall, so it’s free now, and you are not doing these stairs every day.”
“It’s the drive. It’s not normally this bad.”
“Well, if it gets better, we can revisit.”
“Yes, mom.”
“You’re in pain, Myles.”
“And it will pass. It’s not that bad.”
“Do you have something for it?”
Myles glared at him. “Backbone.”
Lucky made a face right back. “It’s a legit question. And you don’t have to suffer in silence. Not here.”
“I don’t have meds. Nothing worked that was safe for me to take, so yeah. I suffer.”
“You tell me when you’re hurting so I can help. That is why you came here, isn’t it? For help? So let me help.”
“Can’t make it hurt less.” Myles dropped onto the edge of the nearest bed with a groan, then dug fingers into the offending hip.
“A hot soak will help, won’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Then do that.”
“Shelly—”
“Is just fine with her brother. And there are three of us down there besides him. We can keep an eye on her. If we lose one six-year-old on the first day, we’re in trouble.”
“Six-and-a-half.”
Lucky grinned at him. “Six-and-a-half. She’ll be fine. Take a moment for you.”
“Jet will have an absolute cow when he realizes he’s been abandoned to look after his sister. He’s already pissed I dragged him all the way out here.”
“So let him. He’s a teenager. He’s going to think the entire world is about him and also hates him for a few years still.”
“Lucky, he just lost his mom. Be gentle with him.”
“And you just lost your sister. Who’s being gentle with you? Not a sixteen-year-old emo brat.”
“He’s not a brat. He’s scared and angry. He and Natalie were close. It hurt him, her not telling him she was dying. That wasn’t fair of her.”
“No, it wasn’t. And it wasn’t fair of her to make you promise to keep her secret. It wasn’t fair of her not to tell them what would happen to them after she was gone. And it wasn’t fair of her to leave you to look after them.”
“I’m the only one she had. I don’t mind. I would have offered if she hadn’t asked. I probably would have fought to be their guardian if she’d left them to someone else. They’re my family. Of course I’m going to look after them.”
“Of course you are. Tomorrow. Right now, let us fill in the gap and look after you for one minute.”
“You are relentless.”
Lucky grinned.
God, Myles had missed that grin. Familiar tightness wrapped around his chest. That grin was trouble. It always ended with Myles freaking out and Lucky laughing at him while they both bled.
“Don’t do that,” he warned, shaking a finger at Lucky.
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is. Don’t. I don’t have the energy to fix whatever you wreck.”
“Oh!” If anything, the grin got bigger. “I don’t break things anymore.”
Myles raised an eyebrow—an expression he’d mastered for this exact purpose.
“No, really. I mostly fix things. You’ll see.” He scampered to the door. “Bath.”
“I’m not okay with this!” Myles called after him as the door slowly swung shut.
Behind him, another door opened.
That wasn’t sinister at all. Slowly, Myles shuffled around to gaze at the bathroom door, standing ajar across the room. It swung gently on its hinges, yawning a few centimetres wider.
“Lucky told me about you,” he said. “Mildred, is it?”
Overhead lights flickered, though with broad daylight streaming in the windows, no one had ever turned them on.
“So. Would it be weird to ask you to run me a bath?”
Pipes rattled, like the plumbing was laughing at him.
“Fair enough.” He gazed around the attic room, taking in the rustic wood beams, sanded but bare floor planks with layered throw rugs scattered here and there, and three alcoves with various sizes of beds.
The largest one, king sized at the least, tucked under the eaves at the far end of the long room, with one bed on each side under dormers—one single and one double—on the long walls.
The bathroom occupied one arm of the “T” at the near end, while a breakfast nook, complete with kettle, coffee maker, microwave, toaster, and a mini fridge, occupied the other.
Sitting and lounging areas dominated the middle of the room.
All in all, it had a cozy cottage feel. Movable screens stood at the entrance to each bed alcove, offering the illusion of privacy.
“No flowers up here,” he noted. “Interesting. You finally let the guys have an opinion, then?”
That got him another pipe rattle, and he had to wonder if it was as friendly as the first.
“Look, don’t tell him I said so, but Lucky is probably right. A bath would help.” He glanced around, not sure what he was expecting, but there was no immediate response. “And don’t take this personally, but a room without all the stairs is probably better for me.”