Page 113 of Grin and Bear It

Hours later, I was starting to question my life choices.

The lamb was in the oven, slow roasting and the savoury scents of lemon, garlic and rosemary filled the house, but as I peeled a metric fuck tonne of potatoes, I looked around the house. Why did I offer to host here? The guys’ house was lovely inside and out. They had a big, top of the line, shining stainless steel oven at their place. I could’ve prepared the meat there, then worked on the potatoes… My brows drew down as I looked beyond the kitchen and to the dining room table, seeing the piles there. But right as the anxiety started to spike, Colleen waltzed in.

“Lamb roast!” she yelped, rushing over. “Have I told you how much I love you?” I tried to fend her off with some sharp elbows to her ribs, but she took advantage of my encumbered state to snuggle into me and pepper me with air kisses.

“Coll… Coll! For fuck’s sake—”

“You cook the best lamb roast. Have I told you that lately? So, so good. And then we have leftovers and I can take them for lunch—” she enthused.

“Maybe not leftovers.” Her onslaught paused then and I knew she was watching me closely. Yep, she stared at me as my eyes slid sideways. “The guys are coming around for dinner.”

“The guys…” She pulled back, smirking as one hand went to her hip. “Damn, girl, you know you don’t need to lure those fellas in with a roast dinner. They’ll love you no matter what. But your famous lamb recipe?” She started to perform a funny little dance. “Someone’s gonna get a boning tonight.”

She sang that over and over, no matter how many times I told her to stop. Even a potato peeler pegged at her head didn’t silence her, until my next comment.

“Though I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just take the food over to the guys’ place. The twins can have something to eat too and…”

Coll followed my gaze, settling on the dining room table and that’s when I flushed. My feet shifted restlessly, some primitive part of me wanting to shield my doom piles from her gaze, even though she saw them every day.

“OK, so don’t get mad…”

No sentence that started that way ever ended well, so I bristled as she stepped away, hands outstretched as if to ward me off. I thought she was going to step in and try and sort the mess, part of me stiffening, ready to leap forward and stop her. Instead she disappeared into her room, appearing not long afterwards with an armful of cane and wicker.

“These are some cute collapsible trunks I picked up from Kmart not long ago,” she said, eyeing me warily. “They fold up to nothing, but when you assemble them…” She demonstrated, each one forming a sizeable box with a lid. “I got one for each pile, and a couple of extra ones. I know you don’t want your system messed with, but I figure this way everything could just stay in here, in the order you organised them, but they’re portable and you can close the lid so you don’t have to see the piles when you don’t want to, reducing visual clutter.”

I just blinked as I stared at her, trying to process her words. My eyes ached, my tear ducts filling, then spilling over, one tear running down my cheek.

“You bought me pretty doom boxes to hold my doom piles?” I croaked out.

“Hey…” Colleen dropped the boxes on the floor and rushed over. “I’m sorry, I just thought—”

I shut her up as I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight then and just squeezing.

This wasn’t an entirely pleasant feeling. Part of me was kicking my own arse for not coming up with the same simple solution, another hating how scared Coll was of broaching the idea. Yet another part was completely freaked at the idea of moving anything off the table, but it wasn’t the solution that had me sighing into her arms, but this.

My life felt like it was full of people proposing apparently oh so obvious solutions to my problems, and coming with it was this barely repressed irritation that I had those problems in the first place. Why couldn’t I sort my shit out? Why wasn’t my house neat and tidy? What kind of person lived like this? I could never answer any of those questions and so I wallowed in self recriminations or hid from it all, shoving my head firmly in the sand. But for someone to see that I needed those piles, for some reason or another, and find a way to make them more portable and palatable? My throat felt like it had swelled up, choking everything off, although I managed to express my appreciation.

“Thanks…” An inadequate response if ever there was one. “Coll, thank you—”

“No need.” She pulled back then, smiling down at me, even if her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “You know I’d do anything for my best bitch, right?”

But before I could answer, there was a knock at the door. She pulled away, walking over to answer it, then smiling when she saw who was there. Each man was freshly showered, as evidence by neatly combed wet hair and clothes that looked like they’d just been ironed, or pulled out of their wardrobes. Lin nursed a bottle of wine in his arm, Cole carried a slab of beer on his shoulder, and Tyson held a baking dish covered with a tea towel.

“We came a little early,” Nash said, sheepishly hoisting his toolbox. “You said you had light switches that were zapping you—”

“And we thought we could help in the kitchen,” Tyson finished smoothly.

“This is when you discover how much I love you,” Colleen said, jabbing a finger in my direction. “Because I’m gonna head over to Dale’s, no doubt to eat two minute noodles instead of roast fucking lamb.”

“Coll—” I started to protest.

“Use the boxes,” she said. “Feed your boys and…” She let out a sigh. “Be happy, El. Let yourself be happy.”

As the guys filed in, filling my kitchen, right as my bestie beat a hasty retreat, I started to see just how that might be possible.

Chapter57

Knox and Maddox

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