Page 99 of The Grief We Hold

Fen bounces on his toes. “Okay, I’ll go tell Momma.”

“What have you loaded into here?” Catfish asks.

“Just some of the furniture out of the garage, that Hallie was gonna flip. No point in it sitting there when the apartment is as bare bones as you can get. Smoke helped me load it up before Butcher needed him.”

“Hey,” Raven says, stepping out of the entrance hall. “Fen said you brought something.” Her eyes go to the truck that’s loaded up, and the items held in place with cords crisscrossed over to keep everything still while I was driving.

Meanwhile, I check out the way those jeans hug her hips and that T-shirt fits her tits to perfection.

I pull her to me, tip her chin, and kiss her.

Catfish and Grudge both look on, shocked.

“Well, that’s something I haven’t seen in a while,” Grudge says.

“Better get used to it,” I say. I look at Raven. “Old furniture. Hallie used to flip shit. This was stuff sitting in the garage. It’s a mishmash. Nothing matches, but?—”

“It’s perfect,” Raven says, clapping her hands. “Thank you.”

It’s such a small thing that has brought out her brilliant smile. I should have to work harder to impress her, but she just makes it easy. Hopefully, she likes some of the other shit I picked up this morning.

Catfish and Grudge begin unloading the wardrobe, and I carry three big bags upstairs. Fen is bouncing around, trying to guess what’s in the bags.

“Is it pasta?” he asks.

I lift one of the large bags. “Must be the world’s biggest bag of pasta if it is,” I reply.

His laughter makes me grin. “Not onebigbag, Wraith. Lots of little bags.”

“It’s not pasta. I had an idea,” I say to the two of them.

“What? What?” Fen asks.

I look at Raven. “This is a pretty big space. Thought we could cut off the end of this room using furniture to give you and your mom your own rooms.”

Raven’s eyes go wide. “You brought that much stuff?”

I start to empty the bags. “I got a large blow-up mattress for Fen. Figured we could drag the one out of your room and put it on the floor over there using the bedroom wall as your headboard. Set Fen up with the inflatable. Then there’s one of those open cubby shelf units. Thought we could put it at the bottom of the bed to kind of cut off the space. And then?—”

“Thank you.” Raven throws her arms around me.

Then Fen hurries over and copies his mom.

And I wrap my arm around Raven and pet Fen on the head.

“Pretty family,” Catfish says as he appears at the top of the stairs.

“Yeah,” I say. “It really fucking is.”

It takes ten hours to fix up the room, take Fen to the park, eat dinner, and wait for Fen to fall into a deep sleep. But as soon as Raven is happy he’s down for the night, I drag her to the bedroom area we set up for her.

She yawns as we move. “Sorry.”

I keep my voice low. “For being tired? You don’t need to be. You need a good night’s sleep. And I know just how to make that happen.”

“You do?” Her cheeks go pink as we step behind the curtain we hung.

“I think it’s time I gave you a goodnight special for being such a productive girl today.”

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