Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“He wouldn’t dare lie.” I turn and smile at her. “I love it. Lauren’s coming in tonight.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Did you get her room ready?”
“I’ve been busy, haven’t I?”
I simply stare at her in horror. “Annabelle Snow. I offered to do it myself days ago, and you said you’d handle it. I believed you.”
“I’ll do it.”
I shake my head and stomp up the stairs and into the room Lauren used to sleep in that’s across the hall from mine. It’s being used as a catchall for things that we mean to donate or just don’t have a home for yet, and it absolutely is not ready for my sister’s arrival.
“This is a mess,” I mutter, shaking my head. “What am I going to do with all this junk?”
“What are you calling junk?” Grandma asks as she reaches the door. “None of this is junk.”
“Pretty much all of it is,” I disagree as I move boxes off the bed so I can strip it. “I can’t believe I didn’t ask you about this days ago. If I wasn’t distracted by a million other things, I would have. I wonder if Luna has any space at the inn. We could put Lauren there for the week.”
“Nonsense. There’s plenty of room here.”
I strip the bed and toss the linens into the hallway. “We would have if we’d taken the time to clean it. Never mind, I’ll do it. She won’t be here for a couple of hours. I can do it.”
“I don’t know why you’re carrying on like you are,” she says as she grabs a pile of clothes and stuffs them into an empty tote. “It won’t take long. There’s hardly anything here.”
I glance at her, at the pile of stuff, and then back to her. “Right. Nothing at all.”
With a roll of my eyes, I carry the linens to the laundry, pop the sheets into the washer first, and then hurry back to Lauren’s room, where I find Grandma paging through an old photo album.
“You were the cutest baby.”
“I don’t have time to walk down memory lane with you, Grandma. Not today.”
“Fine.” She snaps it shut and sets it on a shelf. Then, to my surprise, she digs in and helps me clear the stuff off the floor. “There’s space for all of this in the attic.”
“Great,” I mutter and set the first box in the hallway before I pull down the drop ladder that leads to the attic. “I’m going to climb up here. Can you pass me stuff so I’m not going up and down?”
“I can do that,” she confirms. “Unless it’s heavy.”
I sigh again and close my eyes, but Grandma can’t see me because I’m already upstairs.
Without giving it another thought, I call Cullen.
“Yo,” he says when he answers.
“Can you come to Grandma’s and help me with a few things, or are you working?”
“Just got off. I can come over there now. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just need your muscles.”
“It’s so tough on a guy, being stereotyped all the time.”
“Ha ha. See you soon.”
I hang up and poke my head over the hole to let her know it’s okay, but she’s already scowling up at me.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Why did you ask Cullen to come over?”
“Because some of this stuff is heavy, and I’ll need the extra hands. Can you pass me that one?”
When Grandma tries to lift the tote, I can see that it’s too heavy, and I shake my head.
“No, don’t do it. It’s okay, Cullen will be here in a few minutes.”
“I guess I forgot about Lauren’s room,” she admits after a minute of silence. “I was so caught up in transforming the house for the party, I just forgot.”
“I should have asked about it sooner,” I reply and sit in the opening, letting my feet dangle.
When something rustles behind me, I freeze.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Are there mice up here?”
“Shouldn’t be.” She scowls. “Might be a squirrel or two.”
“Oh, shit.” I scramble down the ladder and shiver at the thought of a rodent running up my back. “We need to call an exterminator.”
“That is on my list, too, but—”
“But you forgot,” I finish for her as the front door opens.
“I’m here,” Cullen calls out.
“Upstairs in the hallway,” I call back. And when my brother’s foot hits the top step, I tell him, “There is something crawling up there, so I’m not going back up. Can you put all this stuff up there for us?”
“With whatever’s crawling around,” he says slowly.
“Yes.”
“Mice will chew right through that box.”
“Squirrel,” Grandma oh-so-helpfully corrects.
I rub the area between my eyes with my thumbs. “We don’t have a choice, Cullen. Lauren will be here in a couple of hours, and we have to get that stuff out of her room.”
“Okay.” He shrugs and starts up the ladder, but when he can see into the attic, he pauses. “There might be squirrels, but there are also mice—plural. There are a bunch of nests up here.”