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“I’ll be there,” he tells me.
“I know.” I smile. “Because you’re going to stop doing stupid shit and listen to me.”
He cracks open an eye, peering down at me.
I just about catch the corner of his mouth twitch before he turns and looks out the window.
“Where’s my dad?”
“He’s gone upstairs for a lie-down.” I turn to look at Waverley, her mousy hair pulled back from her face in two French braids. “He’ll be down for dinner later.”
She comes to stand next to me at the counter, carefully picking up a mason jar to examine the dried flowers inside. “Is he okay?”
“Not really. He’s been doing a little too much too soon.”
“Is it his leg?”
I nod, smoothing over her braids. “He wants to spend lots of time with you, and like you, doesn’t know when to stop.”
“You tell me it’s my superpower.”
“It is.” I smile, then kiss her forehead as I step around her. “But your dad was recently hit by a car.”
“Is there anything that could harm a bird in this?”
“Harm a bird?” I frown, turning to find her peering into the mason jar.
She nods, fingering through the jar and destroying the flowers.
“Why would it harm a bird? It’s flowers.”
“So… nothing’s poisonous?”
“No.” I chuckle. “But they won’t eat dried flowers. There’s bread in the bread bin if you want to feed them.”
“Bread?” she retorts. “What kind of diet is bread for a bird?”
I place my hands on my hips and tilt my head as I watch her. “Coming from the girl who’d live off pizza and chips if I let her.”
“Can I go see my dad?”
“No.” I shake my head, narrowing my gaze on her. “What are you up to, Waverley Sullivan?”
She empties two mason jars of dried flowers into the pockets in her dress and then walks backward from the room. “Nothing.”
Before dinner, I told Lance, Mason as my witness, that taking two of his new pain medication tablets along with the beer Nina slid across the worktop toward him was a bad idea. I didn’t tell him not to. He’s a fully grown man and doesn’t need to be mothered. But I used my knowledge from the last eight years learning medicine to warn him against the idea.
“I really like that doctor friend of yours.”
“You said that already,” I tell him, following him up the last few steps with extra caution. He makes his way down the landing toward his room. “Are you okay getting into bed?”
“I need a shower.”
I shake my head and chuckle.
“What?” he asks, turning to face me, his smile slow and relaxed. “I feel high as fuck.”
“I did warn you.”
