Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(15)

Another sound comes from the hall, a door gently shutting. That man again, I’m sure.

Pushing off the floor, I walk over to the bed, a big queen-sized mattress with a log frame. A smile tugs at my lips. I’d been fourteen and had already gotten bit by the design bug.

I must’ve spent hours watching HGTV. Mom wouldn’t let me design my bedroom in the house we lived in then, but that summer, Gramps let me redo this one.

I said I was too old for the pink and white canopy twin bed I’d had for as long as I could remember. He gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted, short of it needing additions to the house.

I’d been the one to say I’d wanted a budget so I could make it a real project.

He agreed, and I had so much fun printing off pictures from the internet and pasting them on tag boards, showing him everything. I probably made twenty boards before I settled on this rustic cabin theme. Naturally, his favorite. Mine, too.

I’d hated to leave this room that fall for school back in Oregon.

Actually, I hated leaving the ranch every time one of my stays here came to its bitter end.

Drawing in a deep breath, I run my hand across the down comforter, glad the cabin theme was the design we’d picked. I still love it as much as I did back then.

The clean cut log furniture, and the red and green plaid. It may not work in some homes, but in others, it’ll never go out of style.

Oregon has plenty of it too, but out here, miles from a single neighbor? It just seems more real.

During the summers that followed, I redecorated other rooms.

Again, Gramps gave me full rein and a budget.

I’d loved every waking minute of it, and I’d stuck to this theme. Cabins, lodges, blankets comfier than Paul Bunyan’s biggest flannel wet dream.

My mind drifts to the kitchen downstairs. I never had time to fully examine things, but overall, the rustic and modern flowed together there, too, with earthy browns, blacks, and golds.

My cell phone ringing fills me with dread.

Crap, my parents. Has to be. It’s been hours since I left the hotel in a huff.

I consider not answering, but a sense of obligation says I should, if just to tell them I made it out here okay. So I zip open my purse, lifting out the phone.

The second I see the name on the screen, my dread eases.

Alexa Maybee might be the only person on the planet who gets how much Gramps meant to me. I swipe the answer button. “Hey!”

“Hey, girlfriend. You alive? I’ve been worried. I was gonna call you last night, but I figured you were busy with – ya know. How’re you holding up?”

The sound of her eternally chipper voice would’ve made me teary-eyed even if my eyes were as dry as a desert. “Fine, I guess. The funeral was okay.”

“You sure? You don’t exactly sound fine.”

I sigh. There’s no hiding anything. We’ve been roommates since our freshman year of college. And best friends. She knows me like her own reflection. I sit down on the bed and suck in a breath.

“You really want to know? Okay. This flipping sucks.”

“I know it does, Bella babe,” Alexa says. “I just wish I could say something, do something to take the edge off. Can’t bring him back, but...”

“It’s fine. There’s nothing anyone can do, but it’s good to hear your voice. It helps a lot.”

“Are your parents there?” I hear the quiver, the unease in her voice when she asks. She drops to a whisper. “Do I dare ask...Mom-zilla?”

Her goofy nickname for my mother gives me the first real smile all day.

It’s mutual. Alexa doesn’t like my parents any more than they like her.

Not Mom, anyway. Calls her 'unbecoming,' whatever the hell that means. Dad is just Dad, a big empty bag of neutral. “Not here, thankfully. I’m at the ranch. They’re still in town, staying at the hotel. Presidential suite, of course.”

“Ah, goodie! You don’t need their bullshit right now.”

“Well, I’m kinda going to have their bullcrap for the rest of my life. Especially now.” I swallow the lump forming in my throat.

Of course she’s in suspense. Waiting. God, how do I even break this down for a normal person?

“Gramps left everything to me.” I just blurt it out.

“He – holy fuck-a-roo! Everything?! Are you kidding?”

My silence tells her I’m not.

Then she clears her throat loudly. “Let me just take a sec to say, I knew you before you were famous. And partying it up in Hollywood with whatever hot Instagram guy you decide to marry. On second thought, screw it. Just go reverse harem!”

“Lexaaa...” I’m trying so hard not to laugh.

She’s hilarious, but it feels so out of place, considering the rest of today.

Her Mach five squeal and the giddy laughter that follows is so intense I jerk the phone away from my ear.

“God, lady, I wish I’d been there! The look on your mom’s face...it must’ve been priceless.” After another laugh, she says, “I’m sorry if I’m out of line. But I’ve told you before, I can’t believe you two are related.”

Alexa has said that many, many times. Always when Mom’s out of the apartment.

“Believe it,” I say. “Remember? I’m the reason she had to have surgery. Giving birth to me ruined her perfect body.”