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“Darby! You’re here!” Her grandma sounds as sweet as can be, and I imagine a tiny old lady with a head of fuzzy white curls and an adorable smile.
“I’m here.”
“This is a surprise.” That’s her grandpa. He has a deep, grandfatherly sort of voice. It’s nice. Doesn’t make my head hurt.
“It is.”
“Now that you’re here, we can play a game!” That sweet-old-lady voice just rose at least twelve octaves.
“Definitely.”
“How about the one with the big dice?”
“It’s dark outside,” Darby counters softly. She’s so happy to be here that it’s evident in her every word.
“Hmm. Lawn bowling?”
“Still dark.”
“We could do it inside?” her grandpa suggests.
“How about I help you finish the puzzle?”
Someone must have been able to see me when I wasn’t looking because her grandpa said, “She brought a friend,” in the curious way that one might say she brought in a strange mushroom from the woods and then ask if they could identify it in one of the books. Am I a good-to-eat mushroom, or am I a kill you slowly because you thought I was safe and the book said I was safe, damnit, type?
“What kind of a friend?” her grandma squeals.
“Just a friend,” Darby sighs.
“A friend sounds like a nookie.” That’s said in the sweetest voice but with a little bit of grandmotherly accusation thrown in.
“Nookie? Oh my god, Grandma, no! Not that kind of friend,” Darby yelps plaintively.
Nate gives me one last withering stare and enters the kitchen. That’s probably his cue to stir up all sorts of trouble because he doesn’t like me and enjoys ribbing his sister like any good big brother. “It’s her boss,” I hear him say. Two shocked gasps follow, but I’m not sure who they’re from. It could be Darby bracing for whatever mischief her brother sees fit to wreak. “They’re having a working holiday.” I also imagine that the word working is in air quotes.
“Your boss?” her grandpa gasps. “The asshole who never lets you have time off?”
“Oh my god,” Darby groans. “I’m not going over this again. Time off isn’t for new hires. It was an HR decision, not his. He had nothing to do with it.”
“I beg to differ,” Nate argues, the smug asshole. “He runs the place. He could have stepped in.”
Darby growls. “Don’t be silly. I’m not asking for special treatment. Anyway, I’m getting my holiday this way, so I’m all good.”
“Do I need to castrate him?” That’s cheerfully asked by her grandpa. “I know a good filleting knife that I haven’t sharpened for the past few years. It’s nice and dull and rusty. It will hurt more that way.”
Darby gasps while her brother laughs. “Grandpa, no! I’m fine.” I can practically hear her staring daggers of blazing death at her brother.
I can’t help it. I revert back to my old self, cursing under my breath in Gaelic before I can keep it in.You eejit, thinking this was going to work.Great. I’m beating myself up doubly now. Darby is back in the room, biting down guiltily on her bottom lip like she thinks I’m going to hold that castration comment against her.
“I can show you where the bedroom is.”
My head, with the squishy, painful, soggy brain, thanks her immediately while my body just lets out a grunt that passes for gratitude.
Darby confirms my thoughts about that hallway by quickly ducking through with the bags. I follow her before her grandparents can look our way. I wonder how many minutes it will be before we’re “grandparented” to death.
Probably only one minute.
I don’t know if I can make it that long.
