Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
It is why I find myself slamming back the rest of the milkshake that was meant for her and hurrying across the yard. I climb the deck, skipping all the steps and dodging all the holes—this place really needs a handyman’s touch, so I guess I have my work cut out for me—and burst into the house, wrenching the ancient patio door shut behind me. I head in the direction I just saw Kimmy tugging Remi and find them pacing anxiously in the hallway away from the living room.
Since this isn’t that kind of party, no one has tried to make it back here where the bedrooms are. At least not yet. People are jammed in the kitchen and rather large living room, and they’re now spilling into the backyard. I can hear enough chatter and voices that I think they’ve probably taken up residence in the front yard too. Nanny’s house isn’t huge, and it sure as hell isn’t new. She moved here long before my dad hit it big when his corporation took off, and Nanny being Nanny, she wasn’t going to leave her home, her refuge, and the block of people she knew and loved to move into some soulless bigger house just because it could be afforded.
In the shadows framed by family photos that span back a century, Kimmy and Remi stop with their heads bent, and sure as shit, they start muttering to each other.
At that moment, someone finally pauses the music, or maybe the record is just skipping, and no one’s gotten to it yet, but the place goes so quiet this deep in the house that I can hear everything they’re saying. They haven’t seen me yet. That’s the bonus of hanging back like a total creeper behind the bend between the kitchen and hall.
“Someone needs to find her,” Kimmy whisper-yells, panic threaded through her every word. “I thought she’d be here, in the bathroom region of the house.”
I’m not sure who they’re talking about, but Nanny walks past me, thumping me on the shoulder and winking at me instead of scolding me for listening in. I’m still hidden by the wall that I’m pressed flat against, and luckily, no one has spotted me, which includes cousins, second cousins, and my mother. Remi and Kimmy both look up when they see Nanny coming, and their faces transform into a mix of horror and relief.
“Oh god, Nanny, there you are!” Kimmy rushes over and takes her hand, rubbing it as though Nanny might be in danger of frostbite. In almost summer. In her own home. “Did you drink all of that shake?”
“Yes, dear. Why? It was delicious.”
“Oh shit!” Kimmy twists her hands together anxiously while Remi looks like she’s going to pass out. Her skin has always had this nice golden quality to match her dark hair, and it really set off her incredible blue eyes, but right now, it’s blanched stark white. “Noooooo, Nanny,” Kimmy wails. “That one was laced with enough laxatives to clean out a rather large elephant and then some.”
I freaking knew it. Damn my sister and her plotting. I knew that coming back here was going to make something like this happen. Kimmy would feel threatened, and she’d lash out. I was trying to figure out how to deal with that, and in the meantime, Nanny was planning this wretched surprise welcome home party for me.
Nanny puts her hands on her stomach and grins at both Kimmy and Remi. “Good. I’ve been slacking on the prune juice lately, and it just so happens I’m a little bunged-up.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Kimmy pleads. She whips her cell phone out. “I’m calling an ambulance. We need to get you to the hospital.”
Nanny just chuckles and waves her hand in front of Kimmy’s face. Her gnarled knuckles close over the phone, and she plucks it out of my sister’s grasp. “Let’s put that away. I’m fine. And what were you doing lacing milkshakes with laxative anyway? That wouldn’t have been for your poor brother, would it?”
“N—no,” Kimmy lies through her teeth. “I just accidentally knocked an entire bottle into the blender, and then I got distracted and forgot to tell Remi to throw it down the sink, and she went off with it instead.”
My sister is a shit liar. I expect Nanny to lay into her, but I should know better. Nanny has never had to lay into anyone in her life because she’s a great lady with so much natural charm that the entire world smiles in her wake. We’re all so scared of disappointing her.
“We’ll just wait and see what happens.”
“No, Nanny, we need to go to the hospital. If you don’t let me call anyone, then I need to take you.”
Suddenly, Nanny’s eyes go wide. “Oh, nature calls!” she announces, like getting spiked with a whole bottle of laxative hasn’t bothered her at all. She walks calmly past Kimmy and Remi, goes into the bathroom, and shuts the door.