Page 20 of Until You

Payton: Mimz wouldn’t give that room to just anyone. Once, I asked for that room for Christmas, and she said it was “for company.“

Kelsie: Payton, focus.

Payton: I’m just saying! That room has the rain showerhead!

Henry: Can we stay on topic?

Addison: I don’t like this. Two elderly people hiring a stranger to live in their home without telling any of their five grandchildren? That doesn’t sit right with me.

Kelsie: Agreed. That’s not like them.

Henry: Unless they didn’t want us to worry.

Me: Or unless they didn’t think it was our business.

Kelsie: It is absolutely our business. They are our grandparents. What if this woman is taking advantage of them?

Payton: Kels, we don’t know that. No reason to assume towel girl is a villain.

Kelsie: We don’t know ANYTHING. That’s the problem.

Addison: Oliver. What’s your read on her?

I stare at the message.

My read on her.

My read on her is that she stood in front of me in a bath towel with wet hair and no makeup and still managed to be the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. My read on her is that she looked me dead in the eye and didn’t flinch. My read on her is that my grandparents clearly adore her, because Mimz’s kitchen smells like the lavender soap she keeps on every counter, and there’s a mug in the drying rack that says WORLD’S OKAYEST EMPLOYEE, and I know that’s not Pops’.

Me: She seems legit. She knows the house. Knows their routines. She’s comfortable here.

Addison: “Comfortable” isn’t the same as “trustworthy.“

Henry: Addison has a point. But so does Oliver. If Mimz and Pops hired her and left her in the house while they traveled, they clearly trust her.

Kelsie: Mimz also trusts the psychic at the flea market who told her she was Cleopatra in a past life.

Payton: To be fair, Mimz does have Cleopatra energy.

Me: Can we focus?

Kelsie: I AM focused. I’m focused on the fact that a stranger is living with our grandparents, and none of us knew about it. How did she even find them? Where did she come from?

Me: She said she moved here a few months ago. She’s from a small town north of here. She moved around a lot growing up.

I realize, as I type it, that I know more about this woman than my siblings think I should. I edit before sending.

Me: That’s what she told me. I didn’t interrogate her.

Addison: Maybe you should have.

Payton: Or maybe we should just call Mimz and Pops and ask?

Henry: They’re in the middle of the ocean.

Payton: They have wifi. Mimz posted a selfie with the captain yesterday.

Kelsie: She WHAT?