Page 23 of Stuck with Me

“The hell you will. You’re gonna eat one.”

“Whatever you say, Kit-Kat.” I give her a sly grin while I pick up my duffel and sling it over my shoulder. “Before you graced me with your ever-so-pleasant presence, I was planning on taking the main bedroom tonight, but I guess I should be a gentleman and offer it to you.”

“No,” she blurts. “It’s fine. Take the main room.”

My brows draw together. “You sure, because I was teasing. I don’t mind.”

“I can’t. I can’t sleep in there. That was Gigi’s room.”

My gut pinches. We’re quiet for a moment. We make eye contact briefly and I hate that I see the same sadness there that I feel every time I think about my granddad.

“Okay.” I pretend to shrug the feeling off and amble down the hall.

I step into the room across from the bathroom. There’s a glow reflecting against the hardwood floor deriving from the wide-spanned window as the sun slowly sets outside. Some of the wood-paneled walls have been replaced. There’s a mismatched set of night tables on either side of the queen-sized bed. A mound of pillows varying in sizes and shades of color rest on top of the white quilt.

I can’t stop my mind from wandering. From imagining my granddad here. In this bed. With another woman.

During the last few years that he was alive, he was hardly home. He told us he was traveling. He’d said there was so much he still wanted to see and do. Since my grandmother hated to travel and then could hardly leave the ranch after the Alzheimer’s worsened, he never left either.

I hate the idea that my grandfather might’ve felt stuck. Stuck in Texas. Stuck at the ranch. Stuck in a loveless marriage. No one should live their life like that.

As much as I’m here out of family obligations, I’m also here to get answers. I have no fucking clue if Rosalie has the answers or if I’ll find them here, at this cabin. But it feels like the best place to start.

Dropping my duffel onto the floor, I spin around in the room and finish taking it all in. If this cabin was worth throwing away an inheritance over, I want to understand why. Because as I glance around, this place doesn’t look like much. It’s worn. While some repairs have been made, there’s more that needs to be done. The hardwood floor needs refinished, and the rest of the panels on the walls need to be replaced. And that’s just in the bedroom.

But the bed looks inviting. The exhaustion from the trip is setting in and I’m tempted to surround myself with these pillows and stretch out on the bed. I just need to rest my eyes for five minutes. Then I’ll be ready to go to battle with Rosalie again.

Propping one knee on the bed, I hang my cowboy hat from the bedpost and I’m about to do a faceplant onto the mattress when a scream and a loud crash come from the living room. I jump up and spin around, bolting out of the room and heading straight for the noise. When I reach the living room, I find Rosalie lying spread-eagle on the floor, the coffee table flipped on its side and the decorations scattered.

Rosalie groans.

Crouching next to her, I push her hair back from her face and gaze into her glassy brown eyes. “Hey, you okay?”

She mutters a few choice curse words under her breath before finally huffing out, “Never better.”

“Here, let me help you up.” I brace a hand underneath her elbow.

She rolls to her side and pushes me away with a scowl on her face. “I’m fine.”

I hold my palms up in surrender. “Whatever suits your fancy, Kit-Kat.”

“Stop calling me that,” she grunts, pushing herself up before shrieking and collapsing again onto her back, babying her wrist.

“Quit being such a stubborn ass and let me help you.” I shove my arm underneath her back and hoist her up to a sitting position.

“I said I was fine,” she says between gritted teeth.

“Yeah? Then lemme look at that wrist.”

She presses her arm against her chest protectively. “I’m sure it’s just a little bruise. It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothin’, give it here.” I hold my palm out as if I’m gonna wait patiently but instead, tear her arm free from where she had it caged in near her chest.

She acts like she’s gonna fight me on it but relents. Which tells me, she must be in pain. Right away I can already see her wrist is swollen. When I rub my thumb across the pink-tinted skin, she sucks in a breath.

I lift my gaze and find her biting her lower lip. “Might’ve sprained it. Want me to drive you into town? Have a doctor check it out?”

“I’m not a fucking idiot.” She wrenches her arm free from my grip and goes back to babying it against her chest. “I know there isn’t anything they can do for a sprain. I’ll just ice it and take a couple of ibuprofen. I’ll be fine.”

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