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When it’s convenient for him.
Gran
I love you, honey. I’d like to see you both.
I’ll try to bring you here. I don’t want to go back there until we’re settled.
Gran
Keep me posted.
I love you, Gran.
My body is tense, and my muscles areweak from the adrenaline rush. I don’t like knowing my dad is sniffing around trying to cause problems.
“Why does he even care?” I hiss under my breath, and my fingers tremble.
He only shows up when he wants something.
“Everything okay?” Zane’s voice draws my attention, and I look up to see him holding the reins with the horse and my brother behind him.
“Yes—all good!” I shove my hand in my pocket, quickly unwrapping a Jolly Rancher and popping it into my mouth. “Gran says hello, Edward, and you look like a real horseman!”
“I like riding horses.” He says it like he’s reading a menu.
Still, it makes me smile. His face is free of all tension, and it’s clear he really does like it.
“I’m so glad I was here to witness your very first ride.”
Zane is still watching me like he’s worried, which is a switch. “We’d better take Shiloh back. Miss Gina will wonder where we are.”
“Don’t want her to think we’ve abandoned her!” I know my voice is overly cheerful, and I’m not helping myall goodcase.
They turn, and I hang out as they slowly walk the horse to the stables. I’ve got to talk to Dylan and get my shit sorted out now, before something goes wrong.
9
Zane
“I’ve decided I want a Christmas tree this year.” Miss Gina’s hand is on my forearm as we walk through her Italian-style mansion.
The entire place is beige marble and wrought iron. It’s all hard edges and slippery surfaces only softened by the sofas and Persian rugs expertly arranged in each well-appointed room.
You’d think it would be a nightmare for a blind person, but she navigates it with ease having grown up here.
I’m pretty sure it’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen. Dylan’s been in love with it all her life, and we actually met Miss Gina because my little sister was so obsessed with this place, she insisted we bring whoever lived here some cookies when she was briefly a Girl Scout, before she started dancing twenty-four-seven.
I drove her here, where we met the sunniest, most optimistic blind lady who was thrilled to have the company of “two nice young people with cookies.”
Back then, she lived here alone with her elderly gardenerStephen and a nurse from Birmingham, where her niece lives, but after that day, everything changed. We’ve been dropping by, visiting, and now caring for her ever since.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to move anything.” Whenever I tease her about not really being blind, she says she can see it all in her mind—and never,everrearrange the furniture.
I pause, and she continues ahead of me, crossing the massive living room to the twelve-foot windows facing the front of the house.
“We could put it here, so it can be seen from the road.” She turns in my direction, sweeping her hand around the vacant space. “I’d like it to be big, and get one that fills the house with scent.”
“I’ll get you the stinkiest tree on the lot.”
