chuck rocks at her and had a stutter. How was that fair?
He wanted to have his shit together for the wedding. He had to. After all, appearances and money… Really, those were the only two things he had. He knew he didn’t deserve anyone’s love and he never really asked for it. He just hoped that his false security lasted long enough to get him through the next two weeks and to his best man duties.
Shit. Now he needed to start over and find a girl willing to be his date for the wedding. By the looks of Aileen’s colorful text messages, she would be out. The girl before Aileen had reminded him of Kacey so she was out as well.
He felt a headache coming on, but ignored it as the taxi took the next exit. His exit. The exit toward Lake Washington. He shrugged; maybe Grandma was getting dropped off after him.
Once the taxi pulled up to Jake’s house on the lake, he hopped out and grabbed his bags and turned toward the door. It wouldn’t be nice to wake up Grandma. After all, she was in a dead sleep.
Did that make him a bad person? It wasn’t as if the taxi driver was going to kill her or anything. After all, who would kill a sweet old lady with drool running down her—
“Ta, ta! Thank you!” Grandma yelled.
Praying for the first time in years, Jake turned to see his grandmother, bags in tow, waving to the disappearing taxi.
Just as Jake was getting ready to open his mouth she announced. “Get my bags! I’m fatigued. Where’s my phone? Have you seen my phone, Jake?” She dug around in her giant purse and finally pulled out the zebra covered iPhone.
No. Hell no. She was staying with him? For how long? Please God not up until the wedding not—
“Oh my heavens! The wedding is in two weeks. That gives us plenty of time!”
“Time?” God was punishing him; either that or Grandma was possessed. Truly it was a tossup.
“Yes.” Grandma’s smile softened as she reached for Jake’s hand and kissed the top of it. “Time to ruin you.”
“Ruin?” Jake chuckled as he pulled his hand back. “I’d rather stay… um, un-ruined. Thanks, though.”
“Have it your way.” Grandma shrugged. “Oh, and Jake?”
“What?” He grunted as he lifted her heavy suitcase toward the stairs.
“You’re fired.”
The suitcase dropped out of his hands. Black spots appeared in his line of vision as he repeated, “Fired?”
Chapter Six
“I need a drink,” Char announced once she and Beth were safely at their shared apartment on Queen Anne Hill. “Scratch that. I need ten drinks and a sedative.”
“So what?” Beth opened the wine bottle and pulled out two glasses. “You were arrested and zip-tied to some hot man candy. Really, there are worse things in the world.”
“You mean like going into anaphylactic shock and having your grandmother stab a needle next to your man parts?” Char chuckled and took a sip of merlot. “That part, I enjoyed.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully Grandma has good aim and Jake can still sire children after that little escapade. How the heck did I sleep through it?”
Char shrugged. “No idea. At any rate, I’m glad it’s over.”
“Right.” Beth snorted. “And I don’t stalk Damon Salvatore on Twitter.”
“Not his real name, Beth.”
“Don’t kill the dream, Char.”
Char sighed and leaned against the table. “I was totally fine; seeing him again, I mean. No flashbacks of that crazy night we shared, no lustful thoughts or feelings, or—”
Beth’s eyebrows arched. “Oh, do continue. It was just getting good.”
“It wasn’t good. It was awful.”
Smirking, Beth tipped back her glass and swallowed. “So you’ve said, over and over and over—”
“Can we just…” Char waved into the air. “Drop it? It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.” Then again he’d probably be in Kacey’s wedding, not that it mattered. He’d be lucky to see past the whiskey haze and the women hanging all over his arms. Right; like he’d pry himself away from skank long enough to make her life a living hell. It wouldn’t be a problem, because she wasn’t going to let it be a problem. So what? If they were both in the wedding, she’d just avoid him at all costs. Hell, she’d drug him if she had to. No way was she letting him near her.
“You’d better hope that’s the case, because next time it’s not gonna be Grandma I’m worried about, but you.”
“Please, he’s like the opposite of sexy.”
“Careful, Pinocchio; wouldn’t want your overly large nose getting in the way of your wine glass.” With that, Beth left the kitchen.
Please. Like Jake mattered at all. So what if he was attractive? He knew it, and that was the problem. He’d always known it. He was a selfish bastard and she wasn’t going to fall for him again. She wouldn’t let herself, because that tragic story always ended badly. With a pint of Rocky Road and a bottle of wine, watching
Chapter Seven
The madness had to stop. Grandma had only been staying with him a day—a DAY—and in the course of 24 hours she had thrown his life so off balance that he’d probably be in a mental institution come Friday.
Grandma woke him up at two a.m.
Her reason? She thought she’d seen a Huntsman’s spider. Right. A spider that, according to his Internet search, was native only to Australia. But when Jake brought that little bit of information up, Grandma had shouted that she’d been to Australia a few months ago and it was possible that a spider had crawled into her bag and hatched eggs.
Truly, it was Jake’s fault that he even engaged his grandma. His question had been simple—why the hell would a spider choose her bag? Out of all the bags in the world, it had chosen hers? Not likely.
Her response?
By four a.m., Jake was ready to cut off his own ears. Apparently, Grandma had a snoring problem.
Six a.m. was even worse. Grandma did yoga. Jake was given the opportunity to discover this firsthand, when Grandma proceeded to put on her yoga DVD, blaring it throughout the surround sound in the house. Which really wouldn’t have been so bad had she told him it was a type of stripper yoga for elderly woman, aka Cougars.
Her workout shirt had the picture of a cougar on it. Big shock there.
Finally. Jake locked his door.
But Grandma was relentless. After some banging and a loud clang, his door came off the hinges. “Jake? Oh goodness! I thought you’d died!”
“God isn’t that just. Believe me. I’ve begged.”
“Oh, Jake.” Grandma plopped on his bed. “Chin up! Think of me firing you as an extended vacation.”
“Except…” Jake growled. “It’s not. I’m jobless. I have no career, no money, I have nothing, and you’re downstairs doing damn cougar yoga as if the sun is still shining!”
Grandma paused and then went over to the window and thrust open the curtains. “But the sun is shining… and it’s a beautiful day. I think if you just go outside for a run, you’ll realize how nice it is to be on vacation.”
