Page 4 of Always Us

“I have to go inside.” I check the area by my feet, making sure there aren’t any snakes around. I’m still clinging to Garret. “I can’t be out here.”

“You need to get out in nature more, Jade,” Garret says as we walk to the door. “I grew up playing in the woods. Snakes won’t bother you if you leave them alone.”

Ryan walks past us with the suitcase. “Huh. So pretty boy’s not afraid of snakes. Interesting.”

“Last time, Ryan.” Garret jabs his shoulder. “Last time.”

He laughs. “Check out the house, then let’s go for a drive.”

When you walk in the house, there’s a small entryway that leads to a big, open space with the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right. Dividing the two rooms is a narrow stone-covered wall that has a see-through fireplace in it. The floors are a reddish-brown cherry wood and the walls are a dark beige color. The back of the house is mostly windows with a view of the woods.

This is exactly where I pictured Frank living. He loves the outdoors so this is perfect for him. He can sit and look out at the trees and the birds and the changing seasons. At the old house, the views were ugly power lines and other houses.

“This is a great house, Frank,” Garret says as he walks into the living room. There’s a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall with built-in bookcases on each side. “I see you upgraded the TV.”

“I talked him into the 60-inch screen,” Ryan says. “He wanted a 36-inch, which is way too small for this big of a room.

“Did you break down and get a satellite dish?” Garret asks Frank.

“Yes. I didn’t want it, but Ryan insisted we have it.”

Ryan hangs his arm off Frank’s shoulder. “We need it for sports, Dad. You can’t get all the games on regular TV.”

“Yeah, you gotta have the sports channels,” Garret says.

“Let me show you the kitchen.” Frank leads us to the other side of the room, past the fireplace.

“I love this wall divider,” I tell him. “We should do that with our house, Garret.”

“Are you guys building a house?” Ryan asks.

“Not yet, but eventually. We have the land.” As soon as I say it, I want to take it back but it’s too late.

“You bought some land?” Frank asks.

“Um, yeah.” I haven’t told Frank or Ryan about the land we got from Grace. And I can’t tell Ryan that Grace gave it to us since he doesn’t know she’s my grandmother.

“Grace sold it to us,” Garret says casually. Sometimes it concerns me how good he is at lying. “She had it up for sale and Jade and I decided to buy it. Since she’s a close friend of the family, she gave us a deal.”

Frank’s eyes are on me. I’m sure he assumes Grace gave us the land for free, but he’s probably wondering why I didn’t tell him. The reason I didn’t is because I try to avoid talking about the Sinclair side of the family with Frank. He still gets angry whenever he thinks about what Royce did to my mom.

“Where’s the land?” Ryan asks me.

“It’s about an north of Santa Barbara, right along the coast.”

“So you’re staying in California after college?” Ryan seems disappointed, but he knew I didn’t want to move back to Iowa.

“Yeah, we really like it out there. And I love living on the ocean.”

Frank smiles. “Well, it sounds like a beautiful location. We’ll have to come out and visit when you get the house built. You think it’ll be after you graduate?”

I look at Garret. “We don’t know yet. It’s only an hour from where we live now so we might build it sooner than that so we can live there in the summers. And you’re definitely coming to visit.”

Garret pulls me into his side. “You guys are welcome any time. We’ll make sure it has plenty of guest rooms.”

“That’s going to be a big house,” Ryan says to me.

“What do you mean?”

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