A New Ride Begins

Chapter Eight

"This your place?" I ask Ellie.

Ellie smiles and pulls a key out of her purse before sliding off the back of my bike.

"It is now. But it used to be your grandma's place," she says, standing next to where I'm still sitting halfway on the bike. "After your Dad died, Nero offered it to my mom at a ridiculously reduced price, fully furnished. Said that Jax would want us all to have a nice, safe place to call home."

I look at the house with a new appreciation. If this was my Grandmother's home, it would stand to reason that this was the house my father grew up in. Ellie stands awkwardly, fiddling with her keys.

"So, you want to come in or are you just going to stand out here and stare at the house all night?"

I look over at her, my face void of any expression. Ellie rolls her eyes and reaches out, taking my hand and pulling me from my bike.

"C'mon, Goldilocks," she says with a slight chuckle.

She's pulling me up the stone path and to the front of the house. She unlocks the door and walks inside, holding it open and waiting for me to follow.

I stride inside cautiously, my eyes dancing around the space. Immediately, I notice that this house doesn't scream "Grandma". (Not that I remember what my Grandmother's house looks like from memory or anything)

Everything looks way too new to have possibly belonged to her. I don't know why, but the realization that it isn't the same seems to put me at ease.

"What did your mom do with all of Gemmas stuff?" I ask, still standing in the doorway. Ellie kicks her shoes off in the corner of the room.

"Well, the furniture and stuff, we used until it fell apart and then we replaced it. The other stuff...Personal papers, photo albums, knick knacks.. stuff like that, Mom put in the crawl space. She used to say she was saving it all for Abel when he came back. But looks like you'll have to do," she says with a wink.

"Come on," she says when I don't answer. "I'll get it all for you. We can have a slumber party, stay up late and go through old boxes, and just have a super time...," she says, clapping her hands together in over exaggerated excitement, in a voice mocking any teenage girl I'd ever met.

I must be looking at her like she's lost her mind because her smile falls and she crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her hip out to the side.

"You know, Tommy, you're really going to need to lighten up," she says with a thin grin. "If you don't have a sense of humor in Charming, then all you will find are nightmares."

"You sure your mom won't mind us going through it all?" I ask, following her down the hall, ignoring her completely inaccurate view on my sense of humor.

I'm a damn funny guy. Two guys walk in to a bar...Or is it a priest and a rabbi?

Ugh. Fuck it.

"Even if she did, I wouldn't know," Ellie says softly as she reaches a back-hall closet.

She opens the door, flicks on the lights, and pushes the coats that hang inside to the corner, revealing a small latch on the floor. She turns and looks back at me, a soft smile on her lips. "Lyla's been dead for three years."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I reply, which earns a shrug from Ellie before she turns back to the task at hand.

"Don't be. We knew it was coming. Cancer," she explains as she lifts the latch and rests the wooden door against the wall. She throws her legs inside the hole and jumps inside.

It's a typical underground crawl space. There's definitely no standing upright down there. Ellie drops to her knees and scoots over, allowing me room to enter.