Page 6 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
ME: I really did just get here. I need sleep. Can we meet for lunch instead?
HAZEL: Of course. Where?
ME: Here or your place.
HAZEL: I’ll come to you and bring some food. Julian promised to help Gramps finish hanging the rest of his lights.
ME: That’s why they weren’t turned on.
HAZEL: Yeah. Be glad they pay the electric bill on that place, that’s all I’m saying.
ME: Please bring champers and OJ for mimosas.
HAZEL: Done and done. Pls ask Nana to save me a bit of that beef.
ME: Not Julian?
HAZEL: It’s a dog-eat-dog world. What can I say?
“Well?” Nana asked, turning to me as I walked into the kitchen. “What did the lying brat say?”
Gramps shook his head.
I laughed. “She asked if you’d save her some beef for tomorrow. She’s bringing lunch.”
Gramps sniffed. “Is that simp of hers going to finish hanging my lights for me?”
Pausing, I tilted my head to the side. “Do you know what that word means?”
“Simp? No idea. I heard in the café from some of those teens that it’s a euphemism for a ‘little whipped bitch’and thought it was appropriate. I’ve been waiting to use my newfound lingo.”
I wasn’t going to laugh.
“It’s not entirely wrong,” I said slowly. “But best not to use that one in front of Hazel or Julian.”
“So, it’s offensive? God, you kids are offended by everything these days. Back in my day—”
“Where are the peas, Keith?” Nana asked, cutting off what was sure to be a ten-minute tirade aboutthose bloody millennials.“I asked you to bring them in for me!”
“Millennials are perpetually offended, the teenagers can’t tell their left tit from their right toe, and me not bringing peas is the issue. I’m going to move to Mars.” Gramps huffed out a breath and headed for the annexe where the chest freezer was.
“Millennials aren’t the ones always offended,” I helpfully called back. “That’s Gen Z. We’re all too old to be offended now.”
“Too old? You’re barely thirty!” he shouted.
Wrong. I was almost thirty-one, the forgetful old coot.
The sound of a freezer top opening and closing ratherenthusiasticallypunctuated the air, and I frowned in that direction.
“Stop being such a boomer!” I yelled back.
“What did you just call me?”
“A boomer!”
“Ooh, May, sort that girl out!”
Nana frowned. “Sort her out? She’s not a filing cabinet, Keith.”
