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That truly seemed to catch him off guard. He held Jake’s jacket by two fingers, even as he caught my left hand in his again. “Worried about me? Babe, I’m fine.”
“No,” I said quietly, meeting his brown-eyed gaze with a little sigh. “You’re not. I saw your face when Mr. Standish and Maddy were at the school on Monday.”
“And I saw yours,” he reminded me.
“And clearly, we know I’m not all right.” He frowned at the comment, but I pressed on, “And you’ve been…kind of distant. I know I’ve been preoccupied but—”
“First,” he cut me off with a firm look. “You have every right to be preoccupied. There’s a lot going on for you, and you come first.”
Yeah. That didn’t work for me, but I pressed my lips together because he wasn’t done.
“Second, I’ve been working on some things that I wanted to tell you aboutafterI lined it up.”
“Lined it up?” Linewhatup?
“I think what my grandson is trying to say, and rather indelicately if I might add, Sprout,” a new voice announced in a gravelly tone a moment ahead of a tall, steel-gray haired man’s approach, “is that he needed to get in touch with me and make sure I could get here. Edward Standish, Sr.” He extended his hand. “But you can call me Ted, or Grandpa like Sprout here does.”
Sprout.
I glanced from Archie to his grandfather and back. The resemblance was definitely there. Just like the resemblance to “Eddie,” but with Ted, at least there was something genial and warm, rather than slick and kind of skeezy. Loosening my grip from Archie’s, I took Ted’s hand. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind shaking my left hand. Some people thought it was weird, even if my right arm sported the splint.
“Frankie Curtis, sir. It’s very nice to meet you.” Stunning really. Archie had called his grandfather? I stared at him as Archie shuffled from one foot to the other and rubbed a hand against the back of his neck.
He looked almost sheepish. “Yeah, Frankie, this is my grandpa. He left me a message yesterday that he would be getting in today.”
The last I’d heard, there’d been some falling out with his grandparents, but I wasn’t going to ask. “Well, it’s really good to meet you,” I reiterated. At least Archie’s distraction was a good one, right?
“And it’s lovely to meet you.” He patted my hand once before he let it go. “Sprout was just telling me about you, though he left out some key details. Like how pretty you are.” With a wink, the older man clapped Archie on the shoulder.
“Grandpa,” Archie groaned. “I told you she was brilliant, funny, and very important to me.”
“You did, didn’t you?” Ted grinned again, then beckoned to me. “Come on, Frankie. Jeremy was just putting together these hot fudge cake things with brownies. It looks absolutely sinful, and I need to see someone eat it, since my doctors would probably all have a coronaries if I ate that much sugar.”
I chuckled.
“Grandpa, if you had a single doctor willing to argue with you, I’d be shocked,” Archie countered.
“I didn’t say they’d argue, Sprout, I said they’d have coronaries.” The older man’s humor proved contagious, because even Archie laughed as we headed for the sitting room rather than the dining room. “And I’d say we go eat in the kitchen, but then Jeremy would have an apoplectic fit.”
“I do not have apoplectic fits, Mr. Ted,” Jeremy said in the primmest tone I’d ever heard out of him. “I do, however, scold quite firmly.”
“That’s what you kids are calling it these days,” Ted said with a smirk so reminiscent of Archie, I had to a hard time not laughing. The older man took a seat in one of the wing-backed chairs while grinning at Jeremy. I got the impression this was not a new argument for them.
“No, sir, it is what you oldsters used to refer to as decorous behavior,” Jeremy corrected him, and I smothered another laugh.
Archie caught my hand and drew me over to the loveseat. He tossed the jacket over another chair before sitting down next to me.
Ted snorted, but Jeremy set a cup of coffee down next to him, even as he skipped his gaze to me. “Miss Frankie, it is lovely to see you. I was very glad when Mr. Archie said you were coming over.”
“Hi, Jeremy, thank you. Thank you for everything the last couple of weeks, you’ve been a lifesaver.”
“Truly, my pleasure,” he insisted. “I have coffee for you, but I could be persuaded to make some hot cocoa. Though the brownies are just out of the oven, and I’ll have the hot fudge cake sundaes you so enjoy ready in a moment.”
Sometimes, I couldn’t get over this man. “The coffee would be great.” It wasn’t like I had school the next day. Or work yet. “You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” He set a cup of coffee down on the low table right in front of me. “I also have the room next to Archie’s all set up should you decide to take us up on our invitation to stay.” The last he said with a firm look at Archie, who raised both of his hands.
“We’ve talked about this, Jeremy.”
