Chapter Twenty-Six

Nash

The annual pre-Christmas decorating extravaganza lunch at Vito’s Diner with his cousins was a Beckett family tradition—one that their grandma had started. Every year, the day before they went to decorate Gable House for the holidays, she’d gather all of the grandkids at the Harbor City diner for bottomless milkshakes and endless baskets of french fries. This being the first Christmas without Grandma Betty, Nash worried things would be a little quieter. He should have known better.

His cousin Morgan blew out a straw wrapper at Bristol, nailing his little sister in the head. “That is the absolute dumbest idea next to the Last Man Standing bet of theirs.”

“You’re full of shit,” Bristol shot back as she crumpled the paper into a ball and launched it back across the huge, circular corner booth at Griff’s younger sister. “Spending New Year’s in Vegas under an alias is a brilliant idea—especially after you agree that the person who breaks character first has to host the family Fourth of July party.”

“Why would you even want to take on an event you know is cursed?” Dixon asked, barely glancing up from the text messages he was getting from his fiancée, Fiona.

Bristol gasped. “It’s not cursed.”

Technically, probably not. However, in reality, the Beckett Fourth of July gatherings at the family beach house in Ocean Side were always a disaster—very entertaining, but always a disaster.

“Do you remember what happened with the fireworks display?” Nash asked, needling his sister enough that he was able to steal an entire fist full of fries.

“One time.” Bristol held up a single finger for emphasis. “All of the fireworks were duds one single time.”

“That’s what happens when you buy fireworks from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who sells fake fireworks to suckers.” Macon swiped more of her fries while she glared at Nash. “Then there were the sharks.”

Bristol let out a huff of frustration as she curled her arms around her red plastic basket of fries and pulled it in close. “Come on, that is never going to happen again. An entire group of sharks just hang out on your strip of beach for a week, twice in one lifetime? Not gonna repeat.”

“It’s a shiver,” Griff said, speaking up for the first time since Bristol had brought up the idea of a Come As You Aren’t trip to Vegas and started trying to get Morgan to agree to spend one weekend in Sin City as someone—anyone—besides herself.

The whole table went silent, and everyone—including Dixon, who stopped giving his phone screen I’m-so-in-love cow eyes long enough to look up—stared at Griff. Seemingly oblivious to the stares, or more likely way too used to them, the usually silent, gruff cousin kept on dipping his fries into his chocolate milkshake before eating them.

After a few seconds, Griff’s sister Morgan spoke up. “What’s a shiver?”

“A group of sharks is a shiver,” he said. “Don’t forget the beach house haunting.”

If Gable House was a quirky lake house with shrubs trimmed to look like geese, not to mention a real-life attack goose, then the family beach house was a creepy Gilded Age fear fest. It looked exactly like the location for a horror movie.

“Oh, come on,” Bristol said, gathering up the few fries that hadn’t been stolen from her basket. “That was Grandma Betty being Grandma Betty.”

It was true. The woman always had a plot or a plan to stir things up.

“Could you imagine the amount of effort it took to set up that prank?” Nash said. “She had every corner of the beach house wired to set off ghostly encounters.” All of the cousins had gone from room to room, trying to unravel the mystery, never realizing that it had been their grandmother all along. He chuckled, his whole chest going warm at the memory of her laugh when she’d finally revealed herself Scooby Doo-style by ripping off a Mike Myers mask. “There was no one like Grandma Betty.”

Everyone nodded, silent for once in absolute agreement.

Nash raised his mint chocolate-chip milkshake. “To Grandma Betty.”

All the cousins lifted their milkshakes and toasted the woman they all missed and then started up the smack talk again about the Last Man Standing bet and speculation about what was in the present from their grandmother. The guesses were getting more and more ridiculous, when Dixon cleared his throat and shot Nash a pointed look. Nash braced himself for whatever was coming next.

“So, Chelle’s coming out to help decorate Gable House?” Dixon asked.

“Yeah,” Nash said, trying to figure out what his cousins were planning. When Dixon had brought Fiona to Gable House for the first time, Nash and Griff had made sure they were stuck on the island in the middle of the lake overnight. Payback had to be in the works. “She’s bringing her friend Karmel, whose show just wrapped for the season, and she’s leaving right after to spend the holidays in Paris.”

“You don’t mean Karmel Kane AKA Violet Davis from the Murder, She Wrote remake?” Bristol’s eyes had gone round, and she let out a fangirl giggle. “Oh. My. God. I love that show. I mean, I wouldn’t want to end up vacationing in that little beach town and end up either dead or a murder suspect, but that is my Thursday night happy place.”

Macon side-eyed her. “Murder is your happy place?”

“Don’t judge me,” Bristol said, pointing her fork—which still had a bite of waffle covered in dripping syrup on it—at her brother. “You are obsessed with picking locks—please don’t tell me why, I like to have plausible deniability for whatever it is you’re up to. Griff collects LEGOs. Morgan has that dumb planner thing. Dixon goes to bar trivia nights just to feed his need to win at everything. And Nash would explain how lightbulbs work to Edison. We’re all weird.”

Morgan flipped off her cousin. “Planners are not dumb.”

“Yes, they are,” everyone else at the table said at the same time.

Morgan rolled her eyes and snagged a piece of Dixon’s cinnamon roll, popping it in her mouth before he could voice his objection.

“So is it that Karmel?” Bristol asked, already looking like she was planning all the selfies she was going to take with the actress in the background.

“That’s the one.” He shot his sister a warning glare. “Don’t overwhelm her.”

Bristol gasped dramatically and pressed her palm to her chest. “I never overwhelm anyone.”

Everyone at the table—even the usually silent Griff—laughed at that.

“Fine,” she harrumphed. “I’ll be calm and boring.” She turned her attention to Nash. “But enough distraction. What we really want to know is that if Chelle is coming to Gable House to decorate for Christmas, does that mean you’ve already lost the bet?”

Before he could even form an answer in his head, Dixon let out a triumphant yell that got them stink-eyed by their waitress.

“If he has already lost, how are we going to figure out who gets Grandma’s present?” Dixon said, no doubt already planning how he could be back in the running to win it.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Macon asked.

“Imagine if you dorks would have just done that from the beginning instead of making this dumb bet,” Morgan said with an I-told-you-so look at the three oldest cousins.

Dixon flipped her off. “Because then I wouldn’t have met Fiona.”

Griff flashed his cousin a smug grin. “Kinsey would have still been Morgan’s roommate.”

“But she never would have had a reason to pity date you,” Dixon shot back.

Everyone at the table turned and looked at him.

“Grandma worked in mysterious ways,” Nash said, not ready yet to let his cousins and siblings in on what was really going with him and Chelle, because he wasn’t sure himself. “Don’t think she didn’t have a plan for you three. The younger cousins aren’t getting away unscathed.”

“No fucking way,” Morgan said with a vehemence that left absolutely no doubt about how she felt. “There’s no way I’m joining your Last Man Standing bet.”

Macon and Bristol nodded in agreement as they finished their breakfasts. After that, there was the usual fight for the check—one Nash always won because, while the rest of them were arguing amongst themselves, he had already given his credit card to the waitress before they’d even ordered. He took care of things. That’s just what he did.

“So, here’s the book I was telling you about,” he told Macon as they pulled on their coats and walked toward the diner’s door behind the rest of the cousins. “You need to read it right away.”

“You know,” Macon said as he took the thick stack of paper, “normally the author emails these things. No book agent gets an actual printed manuscript anymore.”

“Yeah, well, it’s important to take screen breaks.” It was all true—and it was the perfect way to cover up the fact that he couldn’t email the files to his brother because the files Chelle had sent were protected against anyone sharing them, if not printing. “You know, too much screen time can lead to eye strain, fatigue, and headaches.”

His younger brother rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Dr. Nash.”

“I’m just looking out for you.” The as always went unsaid.

“And Chelle now, too.” Macon ran his thumb across the edge of the stack, curving the pages’ edges. “Does she know you’re sharing it with me?”

“It’s for her own good. She’s really talented.” All true.

His brother shook his head and muttered something that sounded a lot like you dumb fuck before saying, “Brother to brother, I have to tell you, you’re walking on thin ice here. Writers are weird about sharing their work before they’re ready.”

Nash opened the diner door and walked out behind his brother into the cold, overcast December afternoon. “It’s ready.”

“That’s usually the author’s call to make, not their husband who only married her to win a bet.” Macon’s eyes went wide. “That’s what this is. You’re trying to get her to stay.” This time his younger brother definitely called him a dumb fuck under his breath. “There are better ways to win over a woman than to try and run her life.”

“Just read the book,” Nash said, shoving down the itchy feeling that his brother might be right. “I’m telling you, you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Did that sound like a threat or a promise? He didn’t know or care.

Leaving the manuscript with his brother, Nash took off toward the park to avoid the pre-Christmas shoppers clogging up the sidewalks. He’d shave five minutes off the trip home by taking the walking path that went past the pet café. Chelle would just be wrapping up her writing time and getting ready to dive into her work for the foundation when he got home. Steps speeding up as he checked his watch, he figured he could play the timing right and stop at the deli on the corner to pick up a pack of her favorite Twizzlers.

He cut across the street to hit the shop on the corner across from the park, distracted by thoughts of Chelle and how fucking hot she looked in her writing uniform of messy bun and yoga pants. Nash headed into the bodega for Chelle’s favorite writing food and a couple of sandwiches to have for dinner along with the soup he’d left simmering on the stovetop before he’d gone to brunch.

Macon was wrong about the book. If Nash hadn’t given it to his brother, would that have been a better option? Chelle had kept the books hidden away for years, thinking—wrongly—that they weren’t any good. They were fucking brilliant. But if he didn’t share them with Macon, Chelle never would, and then she’d be trapped in that place where all she heard in her head was that she wasn’t good enough. She was. She was amazing. She just needed a little nudge to get there. And if Macon didn’t see how fantastic the books were, he’d never tell Chelle and she’d never get her feelings hurt.

That wasn’t going to happen, but on the off chance his brother turned stupid overnight, Nash had protected her from ever knowing.

He grabbed a bag of strawberry Twizzlers and headed toward checkout, his shoulders getting lighter with each step closer to Chelle.

She’d be excited when she found out what he’d done, because his brother was going to love the book. Nash just needed to wait for the right time to tell her—the only problem being it was starting to feel like they didn’t have enough of that left.