Page 150 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“You have to do what’s best for you.”

“What’s best for the kids.”

“All of you.”

“What about you?”

Steven shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”

For the first time, Myles believed his confident declaration.

“Although I will keep telling you to sell this heap. It isn’t you.”

“Pat said the same thing.”

“Pat’s wise.”

Myles set his mug on the bedside table. “She’s probably the only thing I’m going to miss about this place.”

Steven remained perfectly still next to him, mug raised to cover half his face.

“Does your house have a guest room?” Myles asked.

“It can.”

“You know why I got the complicated coffee maker? To get coffee as good as Kreed’s, but it never worked right. How do you think he does it? He must put something in it. A secret ingredient.”

“Probably.”

Myles nodded. “Probably.”

“Love, maybe,” Steven suggested, because of course he would go down the schmoopy route.

It did feel like the right answer, though, and Myles agreed. “That seems on point for him.”

“Myles.”

“Yes?”

“Did you just casually drop that you’ve decided to move back⁠—”

“Home? Yes. I think I did.”

“Griffon’s Elbow is home now? You grew up here.”

“I grew up in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. My father helped to pave it over and build these monstrous houses on it that can never be happy.”

“Griffon’s Elbow was also built on farmland.”

“Next to farmland. I looked it up. The closest farm to the town was a horse farm across the street from where the Cabin is now. The soil the town is built on was never going to support thriving farms. The topsoil was too thin and rocky, and too acidic. So that’s where they decided to build the first school and church. After that⁠—”

“Myles?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t care.”

“No. No, I guess it doesn’t matter.”