“Yeah, about that. Do you really need to have that much ketchup? You got two bottles in the fridge and three in your pantry.” Harlyn stood and walked to the front door to help Susan and Christy. “You make ketchup milkshakes or something?”
I cringed at the thought of ketchup and ice cream. God, please don’t let that be why Roc has so much ketchup.
“They had a good deal on it at the wholesale store. Ketchup goes bad in like ten years.” Roc turned the volume back on the TV.
“You have twelve gallons of ketchup, twenty pounds of ground beef, and thirteen containers of lemonade mix,” Harlyn called.
“And?” Roc mumbled.
Harlyn, Susan, and Christy walked into the house with plastic bags hanging from their hands and arms. “We got you some stuff to go with that ketchup and hamburger, Roc,” Susan called. “You really had me thinking about what I could cook with all of that ketchup.”
“It’s for hot dogs and hamburgers,” Roc grumbled. “You don’t need to cook it with anything.”
Susan cackled and dropped the bags she was carrying onto the kitchen counter. “I like a challenge.”
I helped unload all of the groceries and was glad to see they had bought a good variety of everything, though I’m sure my credit card had a pretty good dent in it.
Harlyn stayed with Roc while the rest of us worked on putting everything away and making dinner.
“So how are you feeling?” Delaney asked.
I grabbed the cutting board from under the counter and a knife from the drawer. Susan had put me in charge of cutting onions and garlic. “Uh, I think good.”
I hadn’t been left alone with Roc at all so I couldn’t really say one way or the other.
“I think you’ll be okay. At least you’ll have enough space here that if you want to get away from him, you’ll just need to go upstairs.”
“Cause he can’t follow me there?” I laughed.
“Exactly.”
“So, that’s my plan. Things get crazy, I run upstairs.”
Delaney and I looked at each and burst into laughter.
I guess a crap plan was better than no plan at all.
*
Chapter Six
Roc
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you get him into bed?”
I rolled my eyes and turned up the TV.
“I got it. I need to get used to doing it anyway. You’re not going to be here all of the time, Harlyn.”
I couldn’t hear what Harlyn said, but ten seconds later, the front door shut and the lock clicked into place.
“She actually decided to leave me alone with you?”
Mave walked into the living room and stood next to the couch. “Pretty sure she was going to stay. I basically pushed her out the door and threw the lock.”
“She’s got her own life to deal with right now. She shouldn’t be so worried about me.”
Mave plopped down on the opposite end of the couch. “She’s your daughter. Can you really blame her for worrying about you?”
I scoffed and flipped through the channels. “You can go to bed, if you want. I’m not tired at all right now.”
Basically only sleeping for the past week had caught up to me. At least, for the time being.
“It’s only nine thirty. I’m not quite ready for bed yet either.”
“You get all settled in?” Not like I could help her if she wasn’t.
“Uh, yeah. I took the spare bedroom at the top of the stairs. We also hooked up walkie talkies so if you need me in the middle of the night, all you have to do is holler.”
“Walkie talkies?” Lord.
“Yeah. Susan bought them when she was out getting groceries.”
I shook my head. “That woman is more than I can handle. I need to pay her for all of the food and also the walkie talkies.”
Mave laughed. “You owe me for all of that. Susan had no problem using my credit card.”
“I’ll get you back for it all. Though, I will say, those walkie talkies are probably a waste of money.”
Mave waved her hand at me. “You can keep them around for when you have grandkids. They’ll love to play with them.”
I turned and looked at her. “You know something I don’t know?”
A smile spread across her lips. “No, but you never know what will happen. She and Remy are in love and young.”
“Young is what worries me.”
I knew that Harlyn had a good head on her shoulders, but even smart people make bad decisions.
“You don’t like Remy?” Mave asked. “I only met him once, but he seemed like a good guy.”
“He is a good guy. I just don’t know if he is good enough for my Harlyn.”
“Don’t all dads think no one is good enough for their daughters?” she asked.
I looked over at her. “You tell me. Was your dad that way with you?”
She fidgeted under my gaze and pointed at the TV. “You wanna find a movie or something to watch?”
I’d rather find out why she avoided my question. “We’re watching Godzilla. It’s on commercial right now.”
It wasn’t the greatest thing to watch but there wasn’t anything else good on.
“All these channels and that is the best thing you can find to watch?”
I wanted to ask her about her dad. Why? I didn’t fucking know. I just needed to find any small tidbit of information I could about Mave. It bothered me that she was here and I knew absolutely nothing about her other than she was a doctor and her last name.
“You can try looking if you want. Though, I’m not into chick shit.”
She grabbed the remote and pointed it at the TV. “I have no idea what you mean by chick shit.”
“Sappy crap that makes you cry and regret all of your life choices.”
She flipped through the channels and laughed when she landed on the home shopping network. “Is this classified as chick shit?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. It’s ten times worse than chick shit.”
She kept flipping through the channels. “How is it that the only thing on to watch right now is Godzilla?” she complained. She ended back on Godzilla and tossed the remote on the couch between us. “I surrender. Godzilla it is, then.”
“Figured you would see things my way.”
She huffed and slouched down into the couch. She kicked her feet up onto the coffee table and folded her arms over her chest. “Shh. If we’re going to watch it, then I at least want to be able to hear it.”
We watched the movie for half an hour before the pain pill I had taken earlier in the afternoon started to wear off.
“What’s wrong?” Mave asked. She sat up and turned her body toward me.
I shifted my legs restlessly and grunted. “Fucking legs are hurting.”
It was the first time I had felt a pain like this. I didn’t know if it was because I had sat up for too long or if the hospital really was giving me a stronger pain pill than the ones I had gotten from the pharmacy.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked up at her and growled. “Pretty sure I just did.”
She rolled her eyes and hopped up from the couch. “I mean why didn’t you tell me when you started feeling the pain? Now we’re gonna be chasing the pain away instead of staying in front of it.”