Laney
Your karma’s already balanced, but if this is what you need, I’m here for you.
21
Grey
Who’s a creeper who heard the neighbor’s front door shut and is now peering out between the blinds of his living room to watch Sabrina stride across the parking area with longer steps than should be possible given her height, her dog trotting happily beside her, as they head for her car?
Me.
That’s who.
I’m the creeper.
Worse?
Watching her is distracting me from the one phone call from a family member that I was willing to return when I finally looked at my voicemails from the past two days.
“Grey?” Mimi says on the other end of the phone.
I make myself step away from the window as Sabrina bends and hugs Jitter before opening the back car door for him. They look so right. And I want to be out there with them.
“Yes,” I say too strongly. “Yes, I think Miami this time of year would be perfect for you.”
“I don’t know,” she says slowly, which is how she does everything these days.
Slowly.
It’s been horrible to watch. Ever since her sister passed away a year ago, she’s gotten slower and quieter, like she’s retreating from life. She visited me a time or two in California—I actively hate being anywhere near the rest of my family and she’s always loved to travel, so I usually pay for her to come see me instead of going to her—but I was always so focused on chasing the next big data point with my bees at work that I didn’t do much good for her.
“Seems like there might be too many old people there,” she finally says.
“Plenty of young people too though. Almost spring break.”
“Oh, that’s too wild.”
“What about the Outer Banks? The Carolinas? Warm. Younger old people. Older young people. Bet you could get your shuffleboard on.”
She laughs a little, and the tightness in my chest eases.
I worry about Mimi.
She and Zen are the only two family members I have who appreciate me for me, and I do my damned best to return the favor. My father is the only child she had, much to my grandfather’s disappointment. The old bastard made sure everyone knew nothing was enough for him.
One kid? He should’ve had six, and they would’ve all been his property. Three houses? His acquaintance had four, all with pools and gardens. Mimi went gray before his friends’ wives and needed to dye her hair. His lawyer’s kid went to boarding school, so his son and his grandchildren needed to go to a better boarding school. Those Vanderbilts had that mansion down in North Carolina, so the Cartwrights needed a mansion on their original apple fields in upstate New York, which is eventually what drained the family trust fund.
But that wasn’t my grandfather’s fault.
It was lazy contractors doing shitty work and asking for too much pay.
Mimi did her best, but my old man turned out just like his old man.
I used to ask her regularly, when I was younger, why she married him.
Because life isn’t always what you hoped it would be was the only response she’d ever give me. But you, young man, have a pure heart, quick brains, and a good soul. Don’t settle for anything less than what you deserve.
I realized after Felicia that she didn’t say I had good judgment when it comes to women.
“I’ll figure out where to go,” Mimi says. “Enough about this old lady. Tell me about you.”
I turn the corner from the living room into the kitchen and nearly jump out of my skin.
Zen’s leaning in the doorway to the mudroom, watching me with the kind of suspicion in their eyes that you’d expect of someone who probably saw me spying on the neighbor and decided to hang out quietly to scare the shit out of me instead of calling me on my stalker behavior.
They’re probably hoping—again—that I pull my head out of my ass, give up on this plan to change the café, and ask Sabrina out.
We can find another building to have a kombucha bar, they’ve said more than once.
And I’ve replied every time with why would any smart businessman give up the best real estate in town?
“I’m alive and well,” I report to my grandmother.
She makes a noise like she doesn’t believe me.
So does Zen.
“How’s work?” Mimi asks.
Heat creeps up my neck. “Fine.”
“Zen told me you haven’t even started thinking about building another lab or looking for loopholes to get you back to working with bees.”
“That’s why it’s fine.”