“You spent over an hour with your vision spinning. If you think I’m going to let you try to walk down these stairs, you’re delusional.” I may not be the most responsible person in the world, but I can’t be held accountable for his death.

“But I feel fine now. What do I have to do in order for you to deem me well enough to walk down the stairs like an adult?”

“Let me think about it.” I tap my chin with my pointer finger, pretending to ponder his question. “Nothing. This is a safety thing. You cannot walk down these steps when you’ve been showing symptoms of altitude sickness. The Dirty Birds would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

“But—” He starts, but that’s all he gets out.

“Nope. This is it. I’ll stand here all day, but the only way you’re going down these stairs is scooting on your ass.”

He opens his mouth and closes it just as fast. His eyes dart back and forth between me and the steps before he lets out a very resigned sigh and plops his firm behind on the top step.

He points a finger at me. “We will never speak of this again.”

“Cross my heart.” I draw an X across my chest. “This is between you, me, and anybody who happens to walk past us on our descent.”

“Geez, thanks.” He rolls his eyes and I have to swallow my laughter, seeing him not only going down the stairs like a toddler, but now acting like one too.

“You can be mad now, but you’ll thank me later when your brain is still in your skull and not all over the ground.”

I meant what I said about not sharing this detail with anyone else, but that doesn’t stop me from taking out my camera and taking one picture to remember this by.

Because as much as I should try to ignore everything that happened today, I never want to forget a single second of it.

Not ever.

CHAPTER 12

Gran’s office needs a window.

Numbers are stressful and I need some vitamin D to balance me out. I enter in another contractor’s information on the spreadsheet I’m creating so I can start the interview process for the coffee/wine bar I want to install and add another column with “Window????” as the header.

Professional.

“Drew?” Dani’s voice pulls me from the task at hand as she pushes open the door to the cave I’ve been in for the last hour and a half.

“Hey. I’m glad you’re here.” I close my computer and spin my chair to face her. “Have you ever had a sun lamp? And by that, I mean do you think I would benefit from some light therapy?”