Page 41 of Really Truly Yours

I bite in a grin. “I know, right? Kind of like washing the car and it rains the next day.”

His gravely chuckle erases the rest of the tension. “How’s he handling things?”

“He’s ticked. He loves this house.”

Behind the glasses, I believe Grayson squints.

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but Donny says it’s the only place he’s ever lived that someone else didn’t own.”

Hair scrapes his collar with the shake of his head. “That is incredibly sad.”

Because of the house it is or because of the ownership? My place is only better by a hair. I give Grayson points for curbing his amusement at the pair of us.

He tugs his lip in thought. “He actually does own the place?”

“He inherited it from a friend. As I understand it, Willy, the prior owner, was in prison for many years, but when he got out, he volunteered with a prison ministry. That’s how the two of them met. They struck up a friendship, and when Donny got released with no place to go, Willy invited him to come live with him. He died of cirrhosis several years ago.”

Gray removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

Too much of how the other half lives?

I tuck my hands into my sleeves. “Ready to see the damage?”

“I guess we have to.” He takes a step.

“But Grayson?”

He hooks the glasses on his collar.

“I didn’t tell Donny I texted you. He’s been moping around ever since you left the other night and insisting he would wait for you to reach out. He nearly bit my head off this morning when I suggested contacting you.”

“Moping?”

I ought to have used a more neutral term. “Sulking,” I pile on. Donny has a childish streak.

I can’t read Grayson’s expression this time. “Yet you did it anyway.”

“Yes, and I pray it was the right thing, but you’ll see when you get in there. It’s bad.”

His fingers set a fire ablaze at the small of my back as he motions for me to lead. Yet, when we reach the door, he steps in front and raps his fist. Taking incoming fire? “Knock knock.”

Donny’s joy escapes for an instant before he covers the slip with sourness. A relationship with his son means the world to him, but he still has his pride. Having his efforts rebuffed had an effect. He glares at me. “You called him!”

“No. I texted him.”

“I told you not to do that either!”

“Yes, but you also insisted you could stay in a house with an eight-foot hole in the roof.” And ceiling. We can see clear to the perfect sky, washed clean by the front. Grayson has his hands on his hips, doing exactly that.

“Just throw one of them blue tarps up there. I’ll be fine.” Donny’s recliner squeaks the more animated he grows.

“Donny.” Gray makes quite a picture, hands at his waist, staring the old man down, one end of his mouth curled, borderline patronizing.

Donny grouses and grumbles. Rather than a grown man, he looks like a child in the big chair, shrunken and frail—and puffing out gaunt cheeks in one doozy of a pout. Not so childlike is the word he utters, something he rarely does.

Gray points. “A tarp is not going to fix that.”

From his crooked recliner, Donny huffs and sticks his nose in the air. “What do you care?”