Grim & The City: A Grimlock Family Short Read online

  Grim & The City

  A Grimlock Family Short Book Two

  Amanda M. Lee

  WinchesterShaw Publications

  Copyright © 2018 by Amanda M. Lee

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  Mailing List

  About the Author

  Books by Amanda M. Lee

  1

  One

  Six months ago

  “Aisling and Griffin are fighting.”

  I dragged my eyes away from the interior design magazine I was flipping through and focused on my boyfriend. Jeremiah “Jerry” Collins was many things. He was loyal, handsome, enthusiastic and energetic. He was also dramatic, prone to fits of whimsy, gossipy – and my twin sister Aisling’s best friend. It was the latter that proved to be the most frustrating at times.

  “Maybe you should give them some privacy?” I suggested. Until two weeks ago, Aisling and Jerry lived together in the townhouse where I now boasted “co-lord of the manor” rights. They were co-dependent, loud and altogether annoying when they spent too much time together. All that changed when Aisling’s boyfriend, Griffin Taylor, surprised my sister by buying the townhouse next door and issuing a heartfelt plea for them to have their own space.

  That meant Aisling – a woman used to being doted on by her fussy roommate – had to grow up a little bit. I thought it would be good for her. In addition, it opened the way for Jerry and me to move in together. As much as I love my sister – and I do – living with her is all kinds of aggravating.

  I thought I was over living with her once we’d hit adulthood. Our father’s house – more of a mansion, really – didn’t force us to share bathrooms or live on top of one another. That didn’t mean the walls of Grimlock Manor didn’t close in at times. As one of five children – I’m Aidan Grimlock, the youngest boy – I’ve grown accustomed to noise and irritation. We’re all rambunctious and loud, and Aisling is the worst of the bunch. She’s the only girl. I think the noise level might have something to do with her ovaries. I’d never admit that to her, of course, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking it.

  “Why would I want to give them privacy, Aidan?” Jerry made an exaggerated face before pressing his nose against the sliding glass doors. Given the angle of his body, I doubted very much he could see anything going on in Griffin and Aisling’s backyard. That wouldn’t stop him from looking, of course. “Aisling might need me if things get out of hand. I can’t abandon my best friend in her hour of need.”

  I swallowed a sigh, although just barely. Approaching Jerry from a pragmatic standpoint is often a bad idea – he says he’s allergic to rationality – but I still attempted it from time to time. “How do you think things are going to get out of hand?”

  “I don’t know.” Jerry wrinkled his nose in a manner that suggested he was trying to be serious. Instead, he simply looked adorable. There was no way I was going to mention that when he clearly had something on his mind. “Maybe Griffin will get so angry that he’ll slap her around. Have you ever considered that?”

  I tilted my head to the side and stared hard. “Not for a second. Aisling would eat Griffin alive if he tried. Then the rest of my family would hunt him down and kill him. They would never find all the pieces of him when we were done.”

  “That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try.”

  “It does,” I argued. “Griffin isn’t an idiot. He knows what would happen to him if he ever touched Aisling. Besides that, Griffin loves Aisling – although that fact has caused me to question his sanity from time to time – and he would never hurt her.”

  “I don’t know.” Jerry didn’t look convinced. “Aisling has a unique ability to make people crazy. She might push Griffin to do the unthinkable.”

  “She does have a unique ability,” I confirmed. “Don’t worry about her, though. She and Griffin are happy and fine.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when I heard a loud exclamation from next door. “What was that?”

  “Aisling kicked over a potted plant,” Jerry replied. “Things are about to get all Real Housewives of Atlanta. Just you wait.”

  I had no idea what that meant, but given Jerry’s expression I figured it probably wasn’t good. I let loose a long-suffering sigh – whether it was for Aisling’s shenanigans or Jerry’s theatrics I couldn’t say – and dropped the magazine on the coffee table to join Jerry at the sliding glass doors. I wasn’t disappointed. I was barely there when a plastic flower sprinkler flew onto our back patio.

  “What was that?”

  “The woman who owned that place before Aisling and Griffin had terrible taste,” Jerry supplied. “Aisling is probably simply explaining that to Griffin. He, on the other hand, clearly isn’t taking her feelings into consideration. He’s threatening her with ugly backyard furniture if she doesn’t shape up.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “You can’t even hear what they’re saying. All you hear is raised muffled voices. They could be talking about the weather.”

  “My Bug is in trouble. I can feel it.”

  “Oh, geez.”

  Jerry fumbled with the lock and had it open before I realized he intended to insert himself in the argument. He was through the door before I could grab the back of his shirt, leaving me with nothing to do but follow.

  “Unhand her, you fiend!” Jerry bellowed.

  It was late fall and cold. I couldn’t stop myself from crossing my arms over my chest and rubbing myself to keep the blood flowing. “Jerry, I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

  “Why is he calling me a fiend?” Griffin asked, his eyes flicking to me. “Are things about to get dramatic?”

  “When don’t things in this family get dramatic?” I challenged.

  “Good point.” Griffin tilted his head to the side as he regarded Jerry. “What’s wrong, Jerry?”

  “You’re upsetting my best friend,” Jerry replied. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  Griffin, his mid-length brown hair rippling in the chilly wind, waved off Jerry’s concerns. “She’s fine. She’s not upset.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Aisling argued, brushing her long black hair out of her face. It was highlighted with white streaks, giving her a bohemian and ethereal quality that most straight men found sexy and most gay men found stylish, and her cheeks were flushed with color thanks to the frigid air. “I’m totally upset, and I think it’s clear the world is about to end.”

  Did I mention that when Aisling and Jerry get together they can turn even the most mundane of conversations into potential Armageddon?

  “Oh, geez.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What now?”

  “Griffin wants me to garden,” Aisling announced with an expression that told me things were about to get ugly.

  “Why is that an issue?”

  “Because that’s women’s work and I don’t feel that I should have to follow antiquated gender roles simply because I agreed to live with a man. Oh, and because I have a vagina.”

  Griffin made a face. “Don’t say the V-word. You know I hate it when you do that.”

  “Why do you think I say it?” Aisling’s eyes blazed.
“I’m not going to suddenly turn into a 1950s housewife.”

  “I see.” I did see. My sister decided to pick a fight because she was bored and now we all must suffer. She didn’t care enough about gardening to muster outrage on a normal day. She must be bored. There was no other explanation. “If you don’t want to garden, don’t garden.”

  “That’s what I said,” Griffin supplied. “She apparently hears what she wants to hear and nothing else.”

  “You’re not going to like it when I pay you back for that statement,” Aisling warned.

  “Somehow I think I’ll survive.” Griffin had been romantically involved with my sister long enough to recognize her moods. I had to give him credit; he rarely backed down despite the fact that things could go easier on him if he did. I think he believed that if he let her win too often that the power center in their relationship would tilt forever, and Aisling was nothing if not a power-hungry zealot.

  “I won’t survive if I have to garden,” Aisling shot back. “I have no intention of digging in the dirt and planting flowers in pots … and watering them and weeding them … just because you’ve decided I’m a girl now that we’re living together.”

  “Oh, my … !” Griffin slapped his hand to his forehead, making me grin. Whenever I think back on my childhood and the headaches my sister doled out at every turn, I wonder what I did to deserve her ire. Now that she’s Griffin’s problem, I can’t help but wonder what he did to deserve her. It must be something bad.

  “Why don’t you want to garden, Bug?” Jerry asked, taking me by surprise with the question. “I’ve been considering it now that Aidan and I are living together. I think it sounds like a nice hobby. It’s something we could do together because our backyards are right next to each other. In fact, we’re going to the Home & Garden Expo at the trade center tomorrow and I’m going to see what kind of gardening stuff they have for sale. If you have time, you should go with us.”

  The Home & Garden Expo? That was news to me. “We’re going to an expo tomorrow?”

  “I’m talking to Aisling.” Jerry patted my arm. “She has relationship stuff that needs to be hashed out. We’ll deal with our own relationship stuff later.”

  That sounded like a terrible idea. “But … .”

  Jerry ignored me and turned his full attention on Aisling. “Why don’t you want to garden, Bug? It’s something we can do together. I’ll even pick out the perfect flowers for you. By the way, you don’t weed pots. That’s not a thing.”

  Aisling’s expression was blasé. “I don’t really care what you do with pots because I’m not going to use them. As for gardening … I think most men fancy that a woman’s thing and think it’s a good way to get rid of the ‘little woman’ while they watch baseball, eat brats and drink beer all summer. Well, I’m not that type of woman. I want to eat brats and drink beer. I don’t want to garden.”

  Instead of reacting with sympathy, Griffin and I accidentally snagged gazes and broke into raucous laughter at the same time.

  “It’s not funny,” Aisling snapped. “I’m not going to garden until my fingers fall off while you have fun without me.”

  “Oh, and people ask why I fell in love with you,” Griffin teased, tugging Aisling in for a hug as he chuckled. “Just out of curiosity, how many women in your father’s neighborhood actually do their own gardening?”

  Aisling balked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, you act as if you’ve witnessed some terrible gardening catastrophes over the years,” Griffin pointed out. “It sounds like there was some sort of rich woman slavery extravaganza going on in your neighborhood in which women were forced outside to toil in the garden while men drank beer and belched. That’s the feeling I’m getting, anyway.”

  “That is not exactly what I said,” Aisling hedged.

  Griffin ignored her. “I believe the only people I’ve ever seen gardening in your father’s neighborhood are actual gardeners. As for us, I merely suggested that throwing the pots away was a waste and maybe we could plant some flowers to brighten up the patio. There are three pots, Aisling – two now that you’ve broken one – and I hardly think that means you’ll have to plunge yourself into gardening servitude to get things done.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at Aisling’s murderous expression.

  “I’m not gardening,” Aisling said after a beat. “You can’t make me. I want to be part of the brats and beer squad.”

  “Then you can be part of that squad.” To prove his point, Griffin grabbed one of the remaining pots and tossed it away from the patio, smiling when it hit the ground and shattered. “Happy?”

  Aisling shrugged, her anger clearly dissipating. “Kind of. Now I’m in the mood for brats. Can we go to the Coney Island for dinner?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” Griffin slipped an arm over Aisling’s shoulders and offered up a half-wave to us by way of goodbye before lowering his mouth to her ear and whispering something. I had no doubt that it was a dirty suggestion given the expression on Aisling’s face, but I decided to pretend I didn’t grasp the intricacies of their relationship. She was an adult, after all, even though she was still my sister.

  “Well, that was disappointing,” Jerry said the moment Aisling and Griffin shut the sliding glass door and disappeared into their townhouse. “I thought she was going to come to her senses and run home.”

  The statement was enough to cause a twinge in my stomach. “Is that what you want?”

  “What do you mean?” Jerry’s expression was hard to read when he turned to me. “Is what what I want?”

  “Aisling to go home,” I replied. “I was under the impression that you and I share a home now and Aisling only visits – and daily, I might add – because she shares a home with Griffin. You don’t seem to feel the same way. You seem to think she still shares a home with you.”

  “Oh, don’t get all dramatic,” Jerry snapped. “I just meant that … um … .” He broke off, unsure how to proceed. Instead of helping him I merely cocked a challenging eyebrow. “Oh, don’t give me that look,” Jerry whined. “I want you and me to share a home. I’m thrilled that we do. It’s just … .”

  “You want Aisling in our home, too,” I finished, doing my best to tamp down my irritation.

  “Not exactly,” Jerry said. “It’s not that I want Aisling to share a home with us. I simply don’t want her to share a home with Griffin.”

  Hmm. That was a new admission. “And why not?”

  “He’s stealing her from me.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s not,” I argued. “He’s trying to build a life with her, just the same as we’re trying to build a life together. He has no interest in stealing her from you … mostly because we like it when you guys spend time together.”

  “You do?” Jerry brightened. “Have you talked about it?”

  “We have.” I touched Jerry’s elbow to prod him toward our open sliding glass door. I was chilled to the bone and ready for a beer of my own to chase away the cold. “We both agreed that we would never put limits on your time together.”

  “Because it’s what’s best for us?”

  “Because it’s what’s best for Griffin and me,” I corrected. “Believe it or not, Jerry, you and Aisling are a lot of work. Sometimes it’s fun to let you work on each other while Griffin and I relax.”

  Instead of being offended, Jerry grinned. “That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

  He’s always full of surprises, which is probably why I love him. He’s got a heart of gold. Sure, he vacillates wildly from dramatic to low key, but he’s never dull. “Not bad at all.” I slid the door shut. “Now tell me about this home expo we’re supposed to go to. I’m pretty sure you never mentioned it to me.”

  “I mentioned it.”

  “I don’t think you did.” A home expo sounded about as exciting to me as gardening did to Aisling. “I don’t understand why we have to go to a home expo.”

 
“Because I want to spruce up the townhouse now that it belongs to you and me,” Jerry replied. “I want it to reflect our tastes.”

  I glanced around. “I think it does that now.”

  “Not really.”

  “But kind of.”

  “Not completely.”

  I could sense that Jerry was about to dig in his heels and I didn’t like it. “Jerry, I don’t see why we need to buy a bunch of stuff that we don’t need. The townhouse is fine the way it is.”

  “It’s very far from fine,” Jerry argued. “This townhouse was decorated with Aisling’s taste in mind.”

  “Who are you trying to kid?” I challenged. “Aisling didn’t have a say in how this place was decorated. It’s all you. Now that we’re living together, I’m fine with it being all you. Don’t worry about it.”

  Jerry scowled. “I want to go to the home expo.”

  “Well … I don’t. This could be an example of the art of compromise we’ve been talking about. We don’t have to do everything together even though we’re sharing the same roof.”

  Jerry narrowed his eyes. “So you’re not going to the home expo with me? Is that what you’re saying?”

  I sensed danger, but much like Griffin, I knew if I gave my partner too much power he’d take it and run. I might never be able to rein him back in if I didn’t maintain at least a modicum of control.

  “I’m not going.” I kept my voice firm. “If you want to go, that’s up to you. I have other things going on.”

  “I see.” Jerry’s tone was clipped. “If that’s your final decision … .”

  “It is.”

  “Then I think we’re at an impasse.” Jerry strolled toward the bedroom, his expression hard to read.

  “Are you going to turn this into a thing?” I asked, legitimately worried.