Grant lifted his hands carefully.
“Okay,” he said. “Before everybody kills me… happy birthday, Mom.”
I found my voice.
“What are you wearing?”
He blinked.
“A uniform.”
Mark stared at him.
“You’re a police officer?”
Sarah recovered first.
She stormed toward him.
“Have you completely lost your mind? Mom thought something terrible happened to you!”
Grant’s face changed.
His eyes went immediately to mine.
“Mom?”
“You sent a police officer to my house.”
His confidence vanished.
“Yeah.”
“You left me alone for four hours.”
His shoulders dropped.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“You told me not to ask questions. You had him put me into a police car.”
“I thought—”
“You thought what?”
Grant swallowed.
“I thought it would be dramatic.”
Sarah made an outraged sound behind me.
Grant rushed on.
“I wanted him to bring you here, then I’d walk in wearing the uniform. I thought you’d be shocked for thirty seconds, and then everybody would laugh.”
I stared at him.
“You didn’t think.”
“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”
The shame on his face was real.
For once, he had no joke ready.
