Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
What love is depends on the scenario. Is it chocolate cake or a person?
Love is when you really like something.
“Thanks for letting me stay here tonight,” Aggie said as she pulled her hair up into a messy bun. “I know you like your privacy.”
“Oh, right. And that stopped you when you were younger?” I gave her a pointed look as I climbed into bed next to her. “You were so careful not to invade my privacy. Unless it was to borrow my clothes, get into my makeup, and read my diary.”
“You were so bad at hiding things,” she said primly. “It was just my way of teaching you a lesson.”
I hit her with a pillow. “Such a humanitarian.”
She grinned and flipped on her side to face me. It was fun to share a bed with her and bicker and argue and gossip. Since there were seven years between us, we hadn’t had much of that growing up.
Aggie had an early morning flight back to Oklahoma City for work.
At the auction house she worked at, they were preparing for one of their biggest events of the year.
Besides, Aggie was never good at staying still for too long and that’s what would happen over the next few days.
A whole lot of, “let me sit quietly and hold the baby,” or “let me stand here and stare at the baby.”
“I like Gil,” she said. “He’s cute in a…well, a…”
“Accountant slash principal slash knows how to knock down a wall kind of way?”
She laughed. “Yes, actually. Exactly that. You would make cute babies.”
I sighed. “We aren’t going to have cute babies. It isn’t like that.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“It’s true.”
“El, I watched him all dinner. He does that thing where he leans close to you even when you’re not talking. And he kept glancing at you like he wanted to make sure you were real. It’s adorable.”
“He did not,” I said. Had he? A flutter of excitement twisted in my stomach.
“Yes, he did,” she said in the sing-song voice that only little sisters use to irritate their older sisters. “He likes you.”
“Even if he did, it’s…complicated. You know how Ollie left half of everything to me and the other half to Gil?
” I couldn’t believe I was about to tell her this; even my parents didn’t know.
“The other part of that is that we have to live on the property for six months for our claim to be valid. That’s why he moved in.
At the end of the six months, he’s determined to sell everything and leave. ”
“And you don’t want to?”
“Of course not. I love it here.”
Aggie propped her head up on her hand. “You’re happy here. It suits you.”
“That was nice of you to say.” Aggie was not known for her sentimentality. I put a hand on her forehead. “No fever. Are you dying?”
With a laugh, she flopped over on her side facing away from me. “Excuse me. I’ll never say anything nice about you again.”
“There’s the sister I know and love.” I pulled the project I’d been working on each night before bed. Well, most nights. Okay, some nights. “Will the light bother you if I keep it on for a little while?”
“Nah. I was going to read a little anyway.” She looked over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re crocheting again. Yay. I need another scarf. To add to the four others you’ve given me.”
I scowled. “I’ll have you know those scarves were made with love. And I’m just crocheting until I finish this.” I held up an unidentifiable shape made of bright-pink yarn. “It’s a slipper for Mom for Mother’s Day.”
“Let me guess. It’ll match the one you gave her for Mother’s Day, what, two years ago? You know most people think slippers should come in pairs.”
I looked down my nose at her. “This kind of quality takes time. It will be worth the wait.” Having an attention span only slightly longer than a gnat, I could only get one finished before Mother’s Day that year.
But I wrapped it up with a note that said the second one would be coming soon. Two years was soon, right?
Aggie cackled. “I love you.”
“Same.”
“Question.” Aggie sat up and plunked Fred the Sad Bicycle Clown from the nightstand. “Can we talk about this?”
“That’s Fred. Keeps me company at night.” He still gave me the creeps, but I was getting used to him.
“Boy, do we need to get you a man.”
“Ha. Ha. Someone in Ollie’s family was really into them. There’s a lot of these in Gil’s room. Fred isn’t the creepiest. By far.”
Aggie studied the figurine for a while, even flipped it over like she was looking for a maker’s mark. She pulled her phone out and began to scroll around on it. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What?”
She held up the phone to my face. “Fred had some aging on him, and if you look at it closely, it’s really well done. Definitely hand-painted. It reminded me of something I’d seen at work. It turns out Fred is by a famous artist.”
“No way.” I took the phone from her. An online auction site was pulled up to a page of figurines similar in style to Fred, all by the same artist.
“Every one of his figures are one-offs.” She leaned over to look at the phone with me. “Look how much his other ones are worth.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “Does that say three thousand dollars?” I scrolled further. “That one sold for fifty-five hundred.”
Aggie held Fred up. “This dude is a gold mine.”
“No way.” I stared into Fred’s soulless eyes. “But he’s so…creepy.”
“You said there’s a whole room of them.”
I nodded.
She bumped me with her shoulder. “Not so creepy now, huh?”