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Brad didn’t seem to like it, given his squawk of indignation some seconds later.
Shea was spreading out sheets and blankets in the center of Brad’s bedroom. “Grab his desk chair for me, please?”
“I have clothespins,” Brittany stated. “And do be careful around that ficus. I only just rescued it.”
Teagan turned to see the rather large specimen that had come in on their last order from Aster Hills. A misplaced rubber tree that hadn’t been ready for a long shipment from the south. Last she’d seen, it’d been a few twigs and dying leaves, but it seemed to have made a comeback. Not that she had any doubts about that, but the surprising part was its new home in front of Brad’s window.
She hadn’t been in Brad’s room in ages, but she was certain all the hanging plants in his windows were new. And mostly, if not completely, taken care of by Britt.
Maybe things with them were a bit more serious than she thought.
They gathered the furniture from each of the rooms upstairs, even pulling out the folding card table from behind Dave’s door and opening it in the hallway to use as a central support.
It took less time than Teagan was expecting to complete the monolith out of blankets and all of her spare sheets.
Jaxon was the only man upstairs, but he proved to be very helpful with his ideas for structural support and using the corners of the sheets as doors between ‘rooms’ of the blanket fort. They gathered all the pillows from the beds and the ones that had been brought along to create a sort of lounging area on the floor of Brad’s room. They didn’t continue the forts into any of the bathrooms for obvious reasons, but soon, the entire fort spanned mostly the entire upstairs. Dave’s room, Brad’s room, the hallway, the spare bedroom with Jaxon’s furniture inside, and even the stairwell.
Upon completion, the four of them sort of melted into the floor with the pillows.
“Are you finished?” Brad called from downstairs. “It sounds like a stampede of elephants up there.”
“We could have elephants up here,” Shea called back down. “Too bad you’ll never know!”
Teagan could just hear Brad rolling his eyes before he countered. “Don’t want to know. I’ll be down here making certain you’re all safe.”
“Isn’t that Dave’s responsibility?” Teagan called.
“Both of you shut up now. And stay out of my room!”
That only got Teagan and Shea giggling. Shea was sorting through a box she found beneath Brad’s bed. There wasn’t much in it, other than stacks of photographs, a few folded-up loose-leaf papers, and Storm, his favorite stuffed animal from childhood.
He was a ratty old wolf their mom had knit for him when he was a baby.
“Put that away, Shea…” Teagan hissed, kicking the box back under Brad’s bed and glancing over at Brittany. She didn’t know what was all in that box, but she didn’t want to cause any problems.
“I’ve already seen it all, Teags,” Brittany giggled, but she did replace the lid and push it back under the bed. She kept Storm out, though, tucking him under her arm and laying back on the pillows.
“Right well, if you’re not going to let me snoop, we might as well play truth or dare until Frank gets here,” Shea said.
“I don’t want to play that,” Jaxon groaned. “I’ve told enough truths for one day.”
“Frank’s coming?” Teagan asked, hoping to shift Shea’s focus.
“Of course. He’s my boyfriend, isn’t he?” Shea asked with a smirk. “All of you have got yours here. I can’t have mine?”
“You can have whatever you want, Shea. I just figured you weren’t ready to make it official,” Teagan said with a smirk.
“Oh come off it, Teagan. You and Jaxon did things out of order. Let’s talk about that.”
“Out of order?” Jaxon asked, snorting.
“Yes, out of order. What with your moving in before you’d even gotten together?” she scoffed.
“Hey, keep that hush-hush.” Teagan kicked Shea in the shin. “Everyone doesn’t know about that yet.”
“Britt does,” Shea said with a sniff. “You’re sure she hasn’t told Brad?”
Teagan and Brittany laughed aloud in unison. “No, I’m sure,” Teagan replied. “Look how Brad’s been acting.”
