“Miles makes it easy to be nice to him. He’s a good man.” And I mean it with every fiber of my being.
Felix doesn’t get a chance to respond because the trailer door slams open, and Goldie is standing there in a purple velvet sweatsuit.
“Come in, dear! I’ve made us a drink! Are you coming, Felix?”
“I was going to go finish stacking the firewood first and split some for kindling. You two have fun.”
He walks away, and I turn back to Goldie. “He’s going to chop firewood? Should we be worried?”
She waves a hand through the air. “I’ve given up trying to remind him of his age. Now get in here. I brought some family albums to show you.”
I hesitate, and Goldie notices.
“There are lots of embarrassing pictures of Miles.”
I grin. “Lead the way.”
THIRTY-ONE
Miles
I watch as Grandma leads Lucy all the way into her trailer, and I finally turn back to my FJ Cruiser. Lucy can handle Grandma. And the way Lucy smiled at her, I know she genuinely likes her. Funny how when you get to know someone, you begin recognizing their different smiles. The polite one, the forced one, the genuine one.
Opening the back hatch to get the tent out, I get sidetracked when I hear the crunch of gravel. I turn to see Mom walking toward me. She stops right next to me, a peculiar look plastered on her face. I expect her to start grilling me about Lucy, but she has something else on her mind.
“Hey, honey. I’m really sorry, but Kelly and Ben are here this weekend.”
Ben is my cousin on my mom’s side, who’s slowly integrated with the Granger side. Grandma and Grandpa have claimed him and his family but still want one of the Grangers to get married and give them a grandbaby. It’s greedy if you ask me.
“That’s great. I haven’t seen them in a long time. Why are you sorry?”
Mom grimaces. “Because they have the baby with them and they forgot that their tent was so small.”
“Oh, I forgot they had the baby. She’s pretty young still, isn’t she?”
I haven’t seen Kelly and Ben since Christmas, and she was extremely pregnant by that point.
“Ten months already,” Mom says. “They want to put her in her pack-and-play to sleep at night, but I don’t think it will fit in their tent.”
She points over to a small tent, where I see Kelly and Ben trying to shove a pack-and-play inside. The tent isn’t remotely tall enough to fit the crib.
That’s when I realize what my mom is suggesting. “Mom, do you want my big tent?”
“You don’t have to, but I was just kind of wondering if you would mind swapping with them. That way, they could fit the crib in there.”
I glance back at their tiny, two-person tent and then at my giant one. I mean, Lucy and I would fit in theirs, but that would be awkward. On the other hand, everyone thinks we’re happily married, so it would be even more awkward to make a fuss about it. Especially when my cousin is just trying to hang out with the family for the weekend and it’s their first camping trip with the baby. It’s always a learning curve.
“No problem. That would make the most sense, wouldn’t it?”
Mom reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Thank you so much, sweetie. I was going to offer them our tent, but Dad’s back is still bothering him and needs to be on that cot.”
Right. My stubborn dad, who’s had back issues for a couple years and refuses to get it checked out.
I glance at Ben and Kelly’s little tent. If Mom and Dad put the cot in it, he would have his face pressed up to the top of the fabric.
Switching my tent with theirs is the only logical thing to do.
“Okay, I’ll take care of it,” I tell Mom before I walk over to where Kelly and Ben are staring at the tent in dismay. The baby is sitting in the pack-and-play, chewing on a stuffed animal.
