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“You don’t have to,” Honor said quickly.
“No, I’d love to,” I said, reaching over and squeezing Honor’s hand. “You always come over to my place. I’d like to see yours.”
Honor’s other hand clenched on the steering wheel.
“I’d love to see your place,” I said in a soft voice. “And visit Lorna’s chickens.”
Honor nodded once. “Fine.”
I bit my tongue so I didn’t make a snarky comment about how excited she looked about the prospect of me coming over.
Once it was over with and she saw that I was not going to judge her living situation and run away screaming, her anxiety would go away.
Hopefully.
* * *
Lark wasa little more subdued on the ride back and I could see that her extreme energy was not an all-the-time thing. She’d just been excited to meet me, and I could understand that.
Honor’s jaw clenched more and more the closer we got to the house. When we finally pulled into the driveway and she turned the car off, there was complete silence.
“I’m going to go inside,” Lark announced, hopping out of the car and slamming the door to give us some privacy.
“I have to tell you something,” I said to Honor. “I drove over here once.”
She turned to face me. “What?”
“Yeah, I mean, everyone knows where Lorna lives, so I figured out this was your house by process of elimination.”
“I couldn’t afford much,” she said in a small voice, looking down at the keys in her hand.
“Hey, babe,” I said, and she looked up at me. “I literally don’t care where you live. I mean, as long as it’s safe and not completely falling apart or dangerous or something.”
Honor shook her head. “No, we got the mold taken care of and fixed the leaky roof before I moved in.”
“Mold?” I asked.
“It was taken care of,” she said.
“Listen, if you ever need someone to take a look at anything, Mark has a great handyman who adores me, and he’d come over and take a look if your landlord is a jerk about it.”
“Lorna is my landlord,” Honor said, laughing under her breath.
“Wait, really?” I hadn’t known that Lorna owned both places.
“Yeah. She’s been really great and gave me a good deal. Is it the house that I imagined myself living in? No, but I’m paying for it all on my own and that’s something.”
I couldn’t miss the pride that shone through her eyes about that. She should be proud. She could have just married some random rich guy. Instead, she got this little place on her own and was putting her sister through college. That was a lot for one person to handle without any support.
A chicken jumped on the hood of Honor’s car and glared at us, as if we were trespassing.
“That happens a lot,” Honor said. “I go to the car wash a lot.”
I wanted to ask her why she put such value in having a fancy car, but I figured Honor was dealing with a lot tonight and I didn’t want to push it.
Lark came through the front door and looked at us, her hands on her hips. “Are you coming in?”
“Let’s go,” I said, opening the door.
