The door to the guest bedroom is shut. There isn’t any sign that Shane has been outside the bedroom. I press my ear against the door, and I can almost make out the sound of him breathing deeply. I don’t want to knock or burst in on him. He looked like he could use a good night’s sleep.
I’m being paranoid. Nobody was using my car. Nobody is out there. The garage door is closed.
Of course, there’s one way to verify this for sure. I could go down to the garage and see if there’s snow on my Toyota. If there is, somebody has been driving it very recently.
Except the more I think about it, the crazier it all seems. I don’t think I heard a car engine. It must’ve been part of my dream.
I need to calm down and go back to sleep.
_____
By the time I get out of bed in the morning, I feel truly horrible. My eyelids feel like they’re glued together, and I almost have to pry them open with my fingers. Before I even shower, I stumble down to the living room to grab a cup of coffee.
Shane is already wide awake and in the kitchen. He’s doing something at the stove while he hums to himself. I rub my eyes, watching him for a moment until he finally notices me.
“Good morning!” he says cheerfully.
“Morning.” I yawn loudly. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
“I slept great.” When he turns to look at me, the dark circles under his eyes are almost gone. I feel stupid for thinking he was wandering around town in my Toyota in the middle of the night—he was clearly getting the night of sleep I wish I had. “That bed is so comfortable.”
It’s really not. But I know how awful the mattresses are at the prison.
“I’m used to waking up early,” he explains. “So I made some breakfast if that’s okay. I also brewed coffee if you want some.”
I pour a cup of coffee from the machine. Usually, I put in cream and sugar, but this time I drink it black. “What are you making?”
“Pancakes.”
“Josh loves pancakes. Especially if you throw in a few chocolate chips.”
“Will do.”
I glance over at the pantry. “I thought we were out of pancake mix.”
“I made them from scratch, actually.”
“Really?” I didn’t even entirely know you could do that. “I’m impressed.”
“My mom and I used to make pancakes every Sunday morning,” he says. “I’m making a ton of them if you want to wake Josh up and let him know.”
He says that last part somewhat shyly. He wants more time with Josh. I get it, but he can’t force this.
“After breakfast,” he says, “I’ll go out and shovel the driveway, okay?”
“That would be great.” The snow stopped somewhere during the early hours of the morning, leaving a thick blanket all over the driveway and the street outside the house. I’ve been shoveling it myself—one of the many responsibilities that fall squarely on me as the only adult in the household. It’s nice for Shane to step it up.
“And after,” he adds, “I thought we could drive out to the farmhouse. See how bad it looks and maybe clean up a little.”
I had a mouthful of coffee in my mouth, and I almost spit it out. “Drive out to the farmhouse? Today?”
He flips a pancake, which is now golden brown. “Why not? It’s going to take a while to get it ready for me to move in there. And it’s Saturday. May as well get started.”
“Yes, but…” A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. It’s probably really dirty and maybe even dangerous. It’s been sitting empty for a long time.”