“And I presume you’re Janice.”
She had chin-length white hair with butterfly bangs and glacier-blue eyes. She was older than Tim, Carly and Jay, with smile lines around her lips and creases at the corner of her eyes, but she looked at him in the same way they had, like he was a wonder.
It was nothing to with his looks, and all to do with why he was there.
Thomas had let him stay.
That seemed to be an abnormality.
It made him appear special to the people closest to Thomas.
“Doesn’t Thomas have a vacuum cleaner up there?” Scott asked.
Janice nodded. “He does, but this is my lucky cleaner.”
“What makes it lucky?”
“Oooo…” Janice chuckled. “The messes this has cleaned up, the bad spills it’s got me out of…” She patted it affectionately.“My grandson put a new motor in it, and now it would pull the flesh from your bones.”
Scott grimaced. “That’s…impressive.”
Janice gestured him closer. Scott frowned, leaning into her, and found his face squished between her hands. “Let’s take a look at you…”
Scott blinked. Janice’s nose brushed his as she stared into his eyes, then she turned his head left and right, up and down.
“Open your mouth.”
“Why?” Scott asked as her fingers tried to pry his lips apart.
“Just do it.”
Scott opened up like he was at the dentist.
“Lovely teeth,” Janice said. “No split tongue, no piercings all over your face.” She released him and stepped back. “Are there piercings anywhere else?”
“No piercings,” Scott confirmed.
Janice pointed both her forefingers at Scott’s chest. “You sure there isn’t any on your nipples?”
“There wasn’t this morning, but who knows what might have happened as I was walking around the gardens.”
“Fancy flashing them so I can make sure.”
Scott frowned. “I’m not flashing you my nipples.”
Janice held her hands up. “Maybe if you just rub them through your T-shirt. I’ll be able to tell from the shape of the peaks.”
“I won’t be doing that,” Scott said politely.
“You’re right. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”
“Age is just a number.”
Her mouth twisted with a coy smile. “Exactly, and my number is around three times higher than yours.”
“You don’t look a day over thirty.”
Janice pushed his shoulder. “Save your talk for Thomas. He’s as bristly as a hedgehog and needs all the smoothing he canget.” She looked up at the house. “I take it he’s not outside with you?”
