Page 97 of Out Of A Fix

He looked so dejected. “Who cooks? Your grandmother or your grandfather?”

“My grandmother.”

“Maybe you can cook with her,” I soothed him. “I’m sure she’d like that.”

He didn’t appear happy. I wasn’t either when I went into the guest room and found their suitcases in the room and the bed stripped. In the bathroom, all the towels were gone as well. It felt invasive. They could have at least waited until I moved all my stuff, but I suspected this was their room whenever they came, so I tried not to be annoyed. It made sense, as the guest room was on the ground floor with Luke’s room and his office, and depending on how old they were, going up and down the stairs to stay in one of the kids’ rooms could prove difficult. As far as I knew, there wasn’t another guest room in the house, so I wasn’t sure, beyond the couch, where I was supposed to go.

Moving around the room, I was packing quickly, when I heard a gasp from behind me. When I turned, Darwin was there staring at me with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No, buddy, but I have to move rooms.” I squinted at him. “How come no one told me your grandparents were coming since you all knew?”

Not a word.

“I understand they visit every year, yeah?”

He coughed softly. “I didn’t want you to think you should leave or something because they would be here. I was worried about that.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

He nodded and then suddenly brightened. “Hey, since you’re changing rooms, you can sleep in mine with me,” he volunteered.

“Are you kidding?” I said and got an instant grin from him. “You sleep with that stupid vent open above your bed. It makes that room a freezer at night.”

He smiled. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“And Griff sleeps with the stupid wave machine.”

“It’s not a stupid machine,” Griff said as he walked into what had been my room. “The whooshing is very calming and is helping with my insomnia.”

“Great, good,” I assured him, walking into the bathroom to grab my toiletries, plus my loofah, which I was quite fond of, and everything out of the drawers. “But that sound would haunt my dreams, buddy.”

Once my duffel was packed and my laptop bag over Darwin’s shoulder, the issue became where I would put my clothes and where I would shower. I would not do any of that in Luke’s room and en suite, so I was thinking it would most likely be Griff’s.

“There’s a bed in the attic,” Griff said with a shiver.

“What’s with that? Are there spiders?”

“No, it’s just, there are things up there, like clothes.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Clothes,” he repeated. “Creepy clothes.”

“Like in bags?”

Quick shake of his head. “Like racks.”

“Racks?” I was stunned. “Why didn’t those come down for the yard sale?”

“You can sell clothes?” Griff was surprised. “Like, unwashed?”

I groaned. “Yeah, ya can. Ask me next time.”

He nodded.