“You don’t need to bother for me,” Grandma starts to say.
Lucy cuts her off, her voice a little squeaky. “It’s no bother! I want to make sure the room is cozy for you. I hardly go in there anymore.”
Shoot. Now I get what Lucy’s trying to say. She has all of her stuff in the room. Like she lives in there.
Because she does.
“Why don’t I help you, honey?” I try out the term of endearment, and by Lucy’s eye twitch, I can tell that one won’t get to stay.
“That would be great. Thanks, pumpkin,” she fires back, and I have to fight the urge to burst out laughing.
“You two don’t worry about me. I need to run down to the grocery store for some Advil for my back. The older you get, the more your body hates riding in cars,” she advises us.
I have a huge stash of Advil, but I’m not about to tell her that. If she leaves the house for a few minutes, we might have a chance to pull this off.
She grabs her keys and purse and walks to the door. “Now don’t go to too much trouble for me. I don’t want to be a pest of a guest.” She giggles at her rhyme and walks out the door.
“Grandma! You shouldn’t be driving after wine.”
“It was half a glass. I’m not the one who drank that whole bottle,” she says with a wink.
“You were the one pouring,” I remind her. And I can’t believe she only drank half a glass. Then again, she was pouring heavily into Lucy’s and my glasses.
She chuckles and walks out the door.
Lucy and I spin on our heels and sprint down the hall, stumbling into each other. I wrap an arm around her, catching her before she crashes her head into the floating shelf in the hall.
“Thanks, that was close,” she says as she dodges around the shelf.
“How much stuff do we need to hide?” I ask as she flings the door open, and I see inside her room for the first time. “Oh my gosh, I think you’ve been robbed. Someone’s gone through every drawer.”
Lucy doesn’t say anything, simply grabs a laundry basket and starts scooping debris off the floor. Books, shoes, sweatshirts…it’s all going in the basket.
She shoves the basket toward me. “I don’t have time for your commentary.”
Her panicked tone urges me into motion. I grab the basket and run down the hall toward my room. I set it inside my walk-in closet and grab an empty basket. I pause in the hallway to grab some clean sheets and blankets before returning to Lucy.
I don’t know how, but in the two minutes I was gone, she managed to get everything picked up and put away in the closet. Next, she yanks the blankets and sheets off the bed, tossing them to me.
“How will we explain my clothes in the closet?” she asks.
“You can tell her I had too many clothes in mine, and we haven’t gotten around to reorganizing yet.”
“Perfect,” she mutters and tosses a pillow at me, catching me in the face.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think that was on purpose,” I warn her.
She grabs the second pillow off the bed and walks toward me, confusion on her face. “Really? I guess that’s good. Because I would want you to know if I meant it.”
There’s something devious about sweet people. They have the ability to catch you by surprise in ways other people can’t.
I didn’t even see her move. My whole body whips to the side after Lucy smashes me with the pillow.
She packs a punch for someone so tiny.
“You didn’t,” I say.
She grins happily at me. “Of course I didn’t.”
