Page 122 of Always Us

“You. Worrying about having room for everyone. They don’t have to all stay at our house, Jade.”

“But I like having everyone around. And I don’t want your dad to not feel welcome.”

She’s so sweet. I don’t know how she ever forgave my dad for the way he treated her last year, but she has, and now she cares about him and worries about him almost as much as she worries about me.

“Then we’ll add another guest room for my dad. That’s six bedrooms plus the master. That’s plenty. If we add any more, the house will get too big and we agreed we didn’t want a huge house.”

“But what about Grace? What if all the rooms are full? She’ll have no place to stay.”

I laugh and lean down to kiss her. “Jade, chances are these people will never all be at our house at the same time. And if they are, then my dad can sleep on the couch. Or he can sleep in the same room as his grandkid. We’ll put an extra bed in there. Same with Lilly. She can bunk with one of her nieces or nephews.”

Jade bolts up. “I forgot about Lilly! We don’t have enough rooms.”

“Seven rooms. That’s it. No more.” I toss her bra and shirt at her. “Now get dressed in case someone drives by.”

She starts putting her clothes on under the blanket. “As long as we’re out this way, we should drive down to Santa Barbara and see Grace. I know we just saw her, but we’ve only been to her house once since she moved here.”

“Call her up and see if she’s around. Tell her we could be there later today.”

Jade finishes getting dressed, then calls Grace and makes plans to have dinner with her. I set up our lunch while she’s talking.

When she’s done on the phone, she says, “Too bad Grace doesn’t live closer to here. When we finally move here, I want to have her over a lot, especially since she loves this location so much.”

I hand Jade her sandwich and grab us each a soda. “You know what we should do?”

“What?” She takes the soda from me.

“Never mind. She’d never go for it.” I take the potato chip bag and set it between us.

“Go for what? Tell me what you were going to say.”

“A while back we talked about building a guest house here and I was just thinking it might be good to have Grace live in it, so she wouldn’t be living alone. I mean, she’d have her own place so technically she’d be living alone, but she’d have us right next door in the main house.” I take a bite of my sandwich.

Jade grabs my arm. “Garret, are you serious? Would you really do that?”

“Sure, why not? Grace gave us the land and she said she always wanted to live here. She could make a flower garden with that map she drew up.”

“That’s a great idea! I could have my grandma right next door.” Jade drops her sandwich and reaches over and hugs me. “I love you! You’re the best husband ever!”

I set my sandwich down and hug her back. “Guess I should’ve suggested this sooner. But do you think Grace would go for it? She likes being independent.”

“Which is why the guest house idea is perfect. She’ll have her own separate living space. She can spend time alone or she can hang out with us. But if she needs us, we’ll be right next door. I know she’s in good health now, but in a few years, she may not be. She needs to have family close by.” Jade sits back on her knees. “Before I say anything to her, are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Jade, I suggested it, so yes. Grace is more like a grandmother to me than my own grandmother. I’d be happy to have her live here with us.”

Jade hugs me again. “I’ll say it again. You’re the best husband ever! I love you.”

“I love you, too. Let’s finish lunch.” I whisper by her ear, “And then let’s have dessert.”

We do exactly that, except we wait an hour before having that dessert. We just lie there and enjoy the sun and then move on to dessert, which is code for Halloween sex. It’s not as hot out today as it was last time, so I put the chocolate bar on her bare stomach and then warm it with my mouth before licking it off. She likes that. A lot. I think we need to have Halloween sex more often. We’ll do it at home next time and I’ll have her wear her cheerleader costume.

Later, we drive down to Grace’s house. We probably should’ve given her more notice before coming over, but I knew she wouldn’t say no. She loves having us visit.

She takes us to dinner, and as we’re having dessert, Jade brings up the idea we discussed. “So, Grace, I wanted to ask you something. You don’t have to answer right away but I hope your answer is yes.”

Grace was eating her ice cream, but she sets her spoon down. “Go ahead, dear.”

Jade looks at me, then back at Grace. “As you know, Garret and I are going to build a house on that land you gave us and we’ve been talking about what the house would look like, how many bedrooms it would have—stuff like that. Anyway, we decided to also build a separate smaller house next to the main house.”

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