“The big guns?” I asked, surprised by this Evil Genius version of my mother, even though I shouldn’t have been.
“Oh, yes. I have an idea of where we can start, but it would require you to share a bed with your dear old mom. And a screwdriver.”
Chapter 21
The screwdriver, as it turned out, was not the orange juice and vodka kind but rather the tool for changing doorknobs. Why change the doorknobs? Because then you could also change the locks. Luck was on my side the next morning. Mitch had a few Saturday-morning appointments, which gave us plenty of time to change the locks on the primary bedroom door, Dylan’s bedroom door, and the one that led to the upstairs bonus room.
We also moved Mom’s things from Dylan’s room to the primary bedroom, then all Mitch’s things from the primary bedroom to the guest room.
Basically, we wanted Mitch to have only one option for where to sleep and keep his clothing.
For reasons.
We thought about putting shrimp in the curtain rod but decided that was too cliché. Besides, I had a bag of potatoes that had just started to turn. We put that bag in the closet of the guest room—on top of an unfolded trash bag because I didn’t want rotten potato juice to seep into the carpet and be there forever.
I wasn’t a complete monster.
But I did change the Wi-Fi password.
Okay, so I was at least partially a monster.
“Let’s see,” Mom said. “What else?”
“A jigsaw puzzle spread out on each table?” I suggested.
“Can’t be one you actually like, because you know the cat’s going to bat the pieces around.”
“Sure, sure. Oh, and I’ve been thinking about taking up the trumpet again.”
Mom shuddered. “All sixth grade, it sounded like a dying cow lived in your room.”
“Exactly! Oh, hey! Do you remember that recipe for sauerkraut?”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you liked it,” Mom said.
“I don’t, but Mitchhatesthe smell of cooked cabbage.”
“Done. I know what we’re having for supper each night this week.”
Not bad for a couple of hours’ work on a Saturday morning, if I did say so myself.
But I felt restless. “I think I’m going for a run.”
“Better you than me,” Mom said. “I’ll go to the store and get plenty of cabbage, maybe some sketchy potatoes in case the ones we have don’t want to rot in a timely manner.”
“Thanks, Mom.” An odd response to any sentence that included the phrase “sketchy potatoes,” but such was my new life.
Out the door I went. I ran through the subdivision and down the road, past familiar landmarks. Then my knee almost gave way, so I walked home, shivering a little from the cooler air hitting the sweat I’d worked up.
I made it as far as the clubhouse, but I didn’t want to go home. Mitch would be arriving there any minute—assuming that he didn’t go for a fling with Tabitha first—and I wasn’t ready. Between the clubhouse and the pool was a little bower with a swing. That seemed like the perfect place to be, especially since the pool had already closed for the winter. I could sit there by myself and gather my thoughts.
Only, Parker had apparently had the same thought. He sat on one end of the bench, checking his phone. He wore running gear, too. I started to back away, but the movement caught his eye. “Don’t leave on my account.”
What could I do then? The polite thing would be to have a seat beside my neighbor. My very hot—both literally and figuratively—neighbor.
“Er, nice running weather today, huh?” I couldn’t think of what to say, so I fell back on that classic conversation topic: the weather.
“Pretty crisp. I’m hoping for snow this year.”
