Billie smiled, absurdly pleased by his compliment. “Thank you.”
Andrew rolled his eyes.
“I swear, Andrew,” Billie said, using a third card to transform the T into an H, “you turn into the most annoying person when you’re doing this.”
“But I get the job done.”
Billie heard George chuckle, followed by the crinkling sound of the newspaper opening and then folding into a readable shape. She shook her head, decided that Andrew was extraordinarily fortunate she was his friend, and set a few more cards into place. “Will that be enough to get you started?” she asked Andrew.
“Yes, thank you. Mind the table when you get up.”
“Is this what you’re like at sea?” Billie asked, limping across the room to get her book before settling back down. “It’s a wonder anyone puts up with you.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes – at the card structure, not at her – and placed a card into position. “I get the job done,” he repeated.
Billie turned back to George. He was watching Andrew with a peculiar expression on his face. His brow was furrowed, but he wasn’t precisely frowning. His eyes were far too bright and curious for that. Every time he blinked, his lashes swept down like a fan, graceful and —
“Billie?”
Oh, God, he’d caught her looking at him.
Wait, why was she looking at him?
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Lost in thought.”
“I hope it was something interesting.”
She choked on her breath before answering, “Not really.” Then she felt kind of terrible, insulting him without his even knowing it.
And without her really meaning to.
“He’s like a different person,” she said, motioning to Andrew. “I find it very disconcerting.”
“You’ve never seen him like this before?”
“No, I have.” She looked from the chair to the sofa and decided on the sofa. Andrew was now on the floor, and he wasn’t likely to want his spot back anytime soon. She sat down, leaning against the arm and stretching her legs out in front of her. Without really thinking about what she was doing she reached for the blanket that lay folded over the back and spread it over her legs. “I still find it disconcerting.”
“He is unexpectedly precise,” George said.
Billie considered that. “Unexpected because…?”
George shrugged and motioned to his brother. “Who would think it of him?”
Billie thought for a moment, then decided she agreed with him. “There’s an odd sort of sense to that.”
“I can still hear you, you know,” Andrew said. He’d got about a dozen more cards into place and had pulled back a few inches to examine the house from several angles.
“I don’t believe we were aiming for stealth,” George said mildly.
Billie smiled to herself and slid her finger into the correct spot in her book. It was one of those volumes that came with an attached ribbon to use as a bookmark.
“Just so you are aware,” Andrew said, moving to the other side of the table, “I will kill you if you knock this down.”
“Brother,” George said with impressive gravity, “I am barely breathing.”
Billie stifled a giggle. She rarely saw this side of George, teasing and dry. Usually he was so irritated by the rest of them that he was left entirely without humor.
“Is that Prescott’s?” George asked.
Billie turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Yes.”
“You’re making good progress.”
“Despite myself, I assure you. It’s very dry.”
Andrew didn’t look up, but he did say, “You’re reading an encyclopedia of agriculture and you’re complaining that it’s dry?”
“The last volume was brilliant,” Billie protested. “I could hardly put it down.”
Even from the back of his head, it was obvious that Andrew was rolling his eyes.
Billie returned her attention to George, who, it had to be said, had not once maligned her for her reading choices. “It must be the subject matter. He seems terribly stuck on mulch this time.”
“Mulch is important,” George said, his eyes twinkling in what was an impressively somber face.
She met his gaze with equal seriousness. And perhaps just the littlest twitch of her lips. “Mulch is mulch.”
“God,” Andrew grunted, “the two of you are enough to make me want to tear my hair out.”
Billie tapped him on the shoulder. “But you love us.”
“Don’t touch me,” he warned.
She looked back over at George. “He’s very touchy.”
“Bad pun, Billie,” Andrew growled.
She let out a light laugh and returned to the book in her hands. “Back to the mulch.”
She tried to read. She really did. But Prescott’s seemed so dull this time around, and every time George moved, his newspaper crinkled and then she had to look up.
But then he would look up. And then she’d have to pretend she’d been watching Andrew. And then she really was watching Andrew, because it was bizarrely riveting to watch a one-armed man build a house of cards.
Back to Prescott’s, she admonished herself. As dull as mulch was, she had to get through it. And she did, somehow. An hour drifted by in companionable silence, she on the sofa with her book, George in his chair with the newspaper, and Andrew on the floor with his cards. She got through the straw mulch, and she got through the peat mulch, but when she got to sour mulch, she just couldn’t do it any longer.