Behind her, Remy stood listening to every word, his eyes flicking from her to Toby and back again. I didn’t know what he was going to do to fix his fuck up, but he was going to have to do something. And soon.
“Um,” Addy said quietly and shifted uncomfortably. “Do you think you could turn and face the other way while I get up?”
Frowning, I clipped, “What the fuck? Why do you want me to do that?”
“It’s just- Well, I—” she broke off and sighed loudly. “Would you just do it?”
“What my granddaughter mean say, she have the cushion for the… how do you say?” Mrs. V put her finger on her chin, ignoring Addy’s glares and attempts to get her attention. “You know the balloons from the passage of the donkey.”
What in the ever-loving fuck?
Addy looked like she was going to kill her. I swear I’d seen that look on my brothers' and cousins' faces enough times to know what it meant. Granted, we’d never actually killed each other, but it wasn’t through lack of trying.
“I could put you into an old people’s home. Not a retirement home, one purely for old people like you,” she growled. “I could also update your dating profile and say you’re incontinent, but it doesn’t hold you back unless you forget to wear a diaper. Perhaps I’ll even add you prefer men to be the same way so that you can share the diapers.”
Mrs. V glared down at her granddaughter. “Don’t you dare.”
“Ah, so now you can speak English. And just watch me.”
They exchanged glares, almost like they were trying to outdo each other, and it was an actual battle of wills that was playing out in front of me.
That was until something made Mrs. V smile. “You’d have to get up first to do that.”
“Well, now I have the perfect incentive not to give a shit and to do just that so I can go and mess around with your profile.”
The smile dropped from Mrs. V’s face, and I had to bite down on my lip to stop myself from laughing.
Holding her hand out to me, Addy smiled up at me. “Would you give me a hand, please?”
Knowing how painful it was for her to use the muscles that’d been bruised and to strain her injured ass cheek, I did just that without even thinking twice.
“And if you’d refrain from looking at the chair after I’m up on my feet, I’d be forever in your debt,” she muttered, groaning as she slowly rose.
Of course, there was nothing in the world that’d stop me from looking at the very thing she’d told me not to look at. And then I realized why she was so embarrassed about it and what Mrs. V’s cryptic explanation had meant.
She was sitting on one of those cushions designed to take pressure off people’s asses when they had hemorrhoids.
“Don’t mention it or even think about mentioning it now or in the future. The old woman magicked it out of thin air, and it’s the only thing I can sit on just now when I’m working.” Addy’s face was bright red, which only made me want to laugh even more.
“It helps, does it not?” Mrs. V sniffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “The donkey isn’t in pain.”
Donkey=ass. Now that I’d figured that out, I could cope with her garbled explanations in the future.
“I’m just going to put this back on its stand,” Addy said and then walked slowly into her music room. I knew from previous encounters like this that offering to do it for her would be futile because she had a particular way of storing her instruments, and she didn’t like people to touch them.
“Why do you pretend not to speak perfect English, Mrs. V?” I asked quietly while I waited for Addy to get back to us.
Leaning into my side, she covered her hand with her mouth and whispered, “It drives her crazy and keeps her guessing. I’m old, but I still need some entertainment, so with her and her brother and sister, I like to wind them up and not be predictable.”
“You’ll get along with my grandparents, then.”
“I hope I do. Maybe we can learn from each other.”
I wasn’t sure if that’d be a good thing or not. In fact, I was going with the latter and had a quick flash of Addy trying to smother me in my sleep for introducing them all.
Still, I had Townsend blood in me, so I smirked at her. “You’d have to up your game to get yourself to their level of crazy. Trust me on that one.”
What I didn’t realize was that I’d just set a challenge for her. One that’d definitely make Addy pissed and give her the incentive to not even wait until I was asleep to smother me.