Page 20 of A Very Miller-Cooper Life

“Of course I don’t mind.” Mrs. Miller held her hand out toward Olivia. “Do you want to come with me?”

Of course, Olivia agreed, and she pretty much dragged her grandma up the stairs. I looked at my watch after what felt like forever and noticed that it had been over five minutes since they went up.

“How long does it take to grab a pair of shoes?” I asked as the seconds ticked by on my watch.

“Not this long. We shouldn’t have trusted my mother to go up there.”

“I mean, what’s she going to do? It’s not like she’s going to go through our stuff.” I laughed, but when I saw the look on Charlie’s face, the laughter immediately faded. “Shit.”

“Shit is right.” Charlie looked toward the stairs and cleared her throat, her voice going up in both volume and tone the next time she spoke. “Mom? Everything okay up there?

“Coming, Charlotte.” Her mom’s voice didn’t sound guilty, as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Instead, she sounded almost annoyed.

When she came down the stairs, she shook her head. “I have a bone to pick with you two.” She waved a finger at both me and Charlie, but the smallest smirk parted her lips. “Why would you hide brownies in your closet so no one else in the family could have them? Especially your kids. That’s just mean.”

“You didn’t give Olivia one, did you?” Charlie asked, the panic in her voice matching the intense thudding of my heart. We would never risk our children getting into our special treats, hence why they were hidden in the closet, high enough for them never to be able to reach, and under a pile of clothes. You would have to search to find them, which Charlie’s mom clearly did.

“Of course not, sweetie,” Mrs. Miller said with a laugh. “I would never do that without your permission.”

Thank god.My heart rate slowed down, and I felt like I could breathe again.

“Of course, I did take one for myself, and let me tell you. It was amazing.”

Holy shit.

Chapter 5

Charlie

Without saying a word, I grabbed Reagan’s hand and pulled her up the stairs. I didn’t stop until we were in our bedroom with the door shut safely behind us.

I dropped her hand and ran my own through my hair as I paced back and forth across our room. My mom had just eaten a pot brownie. My mom… super conservative… permanent stick up her ass… in less than an hour she would most likely be as high as a kite. And now I had to explain to herwhyshe was high. I had to tell her that her daughter, who she was too conservative to even fully accept for being gay, had brought weed along on their family vacation. Sure, I understood that weed wasn’t some hard drug, but I was pretty positive my mother wouldn’t understand that.

I didn’t even know if Reagan’s parents would understand that.Oh god. What if they hate me? What if we lost the one set of parents that actually supported us?I knew I was spiraling and my thoughts were going out of control, but I couldn’t stop them.

I stopped pacing and turned to face Reagan. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“So, I’ve been considering that. And I think we need to tell everyone what happened right now. Well, everyoneexceptyour mom.”

“You want to tell everyone here except the person who is actually getting high?”

“I also don’t want to tell our children.”

I didn’t try to hide my eye roll from Reagan. This was no time to be joking around. “Obviously. I just don’t understand why we would tell everyonebutmy mom.”

“I figure there’s no sense in hiding it from anyone else since I’m sure it will become pretty obvious once it hits. My parents are pretty liberal about things, so I highly doubt they’ll care that much. I’m sure your dad is a different story, but whatever. He needs to know.”

My patience was wearing thin because Reagan wasn’t addressing the most important point. I waved my hand at her as I wiggled around in anticipation. “Okay. Fine. But what about my mom?”

“If we tell your mom now, she is going to get all up in her head about it and as soon as that high hits, I guarantee she will be super paranoid. Remember that time you took more than you meant to and you spent the whole time you were high convinced you were going to die?”

“Of course.” Lord, that was a terrible three hours. Thank god Reagan had finally convinced me to go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was, to no one’s surprise, still alive.

“I feel like the same thing will happen to your mom. Honestly, it could happen either way, but I think if we wait until it hits, we’ll have a better chance of a giddy high than an impending doom high.”

“Okay, that makes sense.” Surprisingly, it really did. Plus, at least that gave me more time until I had to feel my mother’s wrath.

We spent the next few minutes taking family members aside to explain what had happened. Jamie and Ethan had obviously already figured it out. Reagan’s parents scolded us about being more careful, and expressed concern for my mom, but I was also fairly certain they were trying to hold back smiles. My dad of course freaked out to the point that he almost gave away what was happening, but, luckily, we were able to calm him down enough to keep him quiet.

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