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"I mean. I." How is this a question a person can ask? "This is your home. I don't want to—" To what? Stay? Be comfortable?

Deandre saves me from myself. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, girlie. But that includes leaving—if going back to that ghost house is what you really don't want to do."

When he puts it that way, it makes both a whole lot more and a whole lot less sense.

I grasp onto the one thing I know for sure. "I need to do so much work over there. Cleaning, sorting through all her stuff. Repairs."

"Then we'll go over this morning," Cayden says. He looks to the others. "You all can spare me."

Dry as a desert, Jax rolls his eyes. "Somehow, I think we'll get by."

I shake my head. "I couldn't possibly."

It's not his responsibility. It's mine.

"Then I'm going to have to insist," he says. "I want to help, okay? It'll get the job done faster."

And it means I won't have to be alone over there.

"Fine," I concede. "But only if you really don't have anything else you need to be doing."

"Believe me." His eyes gleam. "There is nowhere else I would rather be."

9

The good news about Cayden driving me back to my grandmother's house is that at least I don't have to sit in the middle this time.

Without Jax's body crowding me into Cayden's, I have room to breathe. More dangerously, I have room to think.

Cayden has continued to act as if nothing is different, even after I slept with his friend Adam this morning. Loudly, messily, publicly. But he doesn't seem to care. Maybe it's a sign that he's really not that into me. Except his flirty touches and his protectiveness and enthusiasm for keeping me close haven't gone away at all. Either he has a really weird way of showing he's not interested or he's really weird about monogamy.

Either way, I'm a mess of emotions. Heading back to my grandmother's house doesn't help.

As we climb the mountain road, I stare out the window. The rambling, ramshackle house comes into view, and a sinking pit of dread opens up in my stomach. I love my grandmother—dearly. I miss her so much. But I never liked that old, dusty, falling apart house. The task of cleaning it out and fixing it up for sale is beyond daunting. Even though I'm pretty sure I shouldbe discouraging him or flat out sending him back home, I'm insanely, irrationally glad that Cayden is coming to help.

He parks in the long gravel driveway, more or less in the same place he parked last night. What a difference a day makes. The sun shines bright light on the uneven wood siding and the patches of green growing in the cracks on the roof. The windows reflect, they're covered in so much dust.

With a sigh, I open the door and step out.

Cayden gets out, too, and falls into step beside me as we climb the rickety porch.

"I tried to help, you know. This was always too much house for your grandma, and after she got sick…"

"I know. She told me you loved to make up excuses to check in on her."

"She was a proud old broad."

I chuckle. "Stubborn, too."

I didn't bother to lock the door last night—who would even be around to take advantage, up here? I push on through and step inside. It's dim and gloomy, despite the sun outside.

Funny, how I didn't really notice that, the month I was here taking care of her through her final days. A pallor of sickness and death held over everything. I chalked up any additional gloom in the decor to that.

My eyes are clearer now, though.

This is just how the place is. The only way to change that is to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

Cayden nudges me. "So where do we start?"