by Grant, Pippa
“That would show the Dixons,” I reply. “And you know that’s the fastest way to get Beck here. He loves weddings. And me. And sometimes you.”
Wyatt grins.
I grin back.
He’s not winning this round.
“I’ll swap out your bubble bath for itch powder,” he offers.
“You would not.”
“Wanna bet?”
“You don’t have itch powder.”
“Last time I stayed here, your brother salted my sheets and put a life-size taxidermied bear in my bedroom to scare the shit out of me. I owe him. So yeah, I brought itch powder.”
And I’m suddenly quite certain I don’t want the man making the bed I’m going to sleep in tonight.
I start to move again. “Sit,” he orders.
Damn, that military order voice is hot.
Hot hot.
And that’s why I sit.
Because if I follow Wyatt into the bedroom, the mattress won’t be the only thing undressed.
“Thank you,” I say, conceding with a regal nod. “Also, if you itch powder my sheets, I’ll itch powder your underwear.”
He just grins again.
Which is also freaking hot.
I go back to flipping through my doodles. After a few minutes, Wyatt appears again. He stops in the kitchen before joining me with a water bottle in one hand and the rest of the banana pudding in the other. He claims the recliner angled to give him a view of both me and the scenery of the town below—or it would, if dusk wasn’t falling—and props up the footrest. “Trade you,” he says, lifting the banana pudding and pointing to my doodle pad.
I hesitate only a moment before I lean over, ignoring the twinge in my hip and thigh, to snatch the pudding and toss him the notebook.
“I was kidding, Ellie.” He holds out my book for me to take it back, but I shrug.
“I was going to show you anyway.”
“Why?”
“To scare you into your senses so you’ll quit trying to kiss me.”
He smirks and settles deeper into the recliner as he flips the cover open. “Do I want to know where you got the inspiration for Dick?”
“You don’t recognize him?”
Dick’s a short, squat, not very pretty penis. He looks nothing like Wyatt’s package.
“Can’t say I do,” he replies easily, completely bypassing the opportunity to ask if I’ve gotten an eyeful of my brother without the sock the photographers make him put in his briefs.
It’s an old joke. Possibly we’ve worn it out.
Also, possibly I don’t want to think about my brother in his underwear. It’s been nice having the cardboard cutout of him in the corner turned around.
Wyatt’s perceptive gray eyes skim the page, and he snickers.
“Not a word on my talent,” I warn him around a mouthful of heaven. I mean, banana pudding. My mom makes awesome banana pudding, but there’s something about the meringue on Crusty Nut’s banana pudding that puts it head and shoulders above.
“I was laughing at the Nuts,” he tells me.
“Oh. Then maybe you do have good taste after all.”
Sparring with him is so easy. We’ve done it a million times. It’s habit. But it’s also comfortable, which isn’t something I ever noticed before.
Maybe it’s never been comfortable before.
Or maybe we’ve both grown up.
Considering how long we’ve each been legal adults, it’s probably past time.
“Why’d you date the Blond Caveman so long?” he asks as he flips another page.
“Ambition made me blind. Why didn’t you quit the military?”
His smile fades into a resigned scowl. “Paperwork and networking failure.”
“Networking?”
“Need a job to pay child support. Don’t have enough experience yet in flight test to be valuable to anyone who’d hire me in Copper Valley. And my request for a waiver to get out of my service commitment got lost on some colonel’s desk. Found it last week, got denied.”
“Beck always said you’d be career military. That it suits you.”
“Shit happens. Rather have Tucker than a long career though.” He skims the next page and cackles.
Wyatt Morgan.
Cackling.
Because he thinks my doodles are funny.
My nipples go tight and a familiar heat pools between my legs.
“Broccolisauruses? Eating underwear models?”
“Beck might’ve pissed me off that day.”
“What’d he do, tell you that you couldn’t do something?”
“He asked me to be his date to some gala in Paris.”
He glances at me in surprise. “That pissed you off?”
“You want to know the last time Beck asked me to be his date to anything?”
“Ah.”
I think he’s done, that he gets it, but instead, he shuts the book and looks at me. “Ever consider he finally realized what he almost lost?”
I open my mouth, but I suddenly don’t know if he’s talking about Beck, and the possibility of losing a sister, or himself, and the possibility that he might’ve lost an opportunity.
With me.
Which is crazy, because I have always irritated the shit out of him.
I used to run marathons. I knew I was pretty—I’m Beck Ryder’s sister, for god’s sake, last year’s People’s Sexiest Man Alive, and we’re clearly related—and athletic and smart. I didn’t have insecurity issues, and so when Wyatt was willing to do the naked tango with me, I assumed it was because he wanted the same thing I did.
A little human companionship and confirmation that I was still attractive to somebody.
And possibly he was a little tipsy.
And angry. And hurt. And lonely.
Just like I was, except I wasn’t tipsy.
And maybe, just maybe, seeing him lonely and hurt and angry, made me realize what I’d been missing all those years between hating him, then crushing on him, then hating him.
That I wouldn’t have given him a second thought if there wasn’t something there.
“I considered a lot of things after the accident,” I tell him. “But it’s complicated. I don’t want pity dates. But I don’t want to take anything for granted either, so I understand other people not wanting to take people for granted. But I also wanted everything to go back the way it was before. Except it can’t.”
“Embrace what’s better, Ellie. Change what you can change. Fix what you can fix. Accept the rest.”
“You mean like accepting that the house will burn down if we sleep together again?” I whisper.
He gives an exasperated laugh. “Sure.”
“Okay. Good. Glad we agree on that.”
“You gonna eat that?” he asks with a nod to my banana pudding.
Our banana pudding.
I lean over and hand it to him.
“Did you spit in it?” he asks suspiciously.
And I laugh.
Because we’re a little messed up, but for the first time in my life, I’m really glad to have Wyatt as a friend.
Twenty-One
Wyatt
After a long and restless night, Tucker and I agree he needs to learn to play air hockey more than he needs to go dig for more pirate treasure or hunt for the peg leg that apparently still hasn’t been found in town. Ellie was up early to take the box of parrots into town and get ready for the wedding, but she hung around long enough to have breakfast with us and draw Tucker a parrot for him to color later.
We’re scrambling away for the puck mid-morning when I hear the door open and someone hit the security keypad.
“Stay here, bud,” I tell Tucker.
I creep softly up the stairs, half expecting to see Beck, and instead, I get a glimpse of an older couple.
My eyes sting and my chest swells, because these two people are the closest thing I have to parents in the entire world.
“Morning,” I say.
Mrs. Ryder turns, her bright blue eyes land on me, and her face lights up in a familiar smile that her children share. “Wyatt! We thought you’d be down in Shipwreck with Ellie.”
She smothers me in a hug, which is impressive, considering I have over half a foot and at least thirty pounds on her. Mr. Ryder squeezes my shoulder. “Hanging in there?” he asks.
“Always. You, sir?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Where’s that little boy of yours?” Mrs. Ryder demands. “I have presents.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“Hush. This is what grandmas do.”
I know a thing or two about arguing with the Ryders—all of them—and I know it’s usually pointless.
Sometimes fun, but always pointless. “Yes, ma’am.”
I help Mr. Ryder with the luggage while Mrs. Ryder heads downstairs to hug Tucker. After they’re settled, Tucker talks them into heading to town with us for pizza.
Doesn’t take much. Just him looking at Mrs. Ryder and asking if she’s hungry for pizza too.
Tucker chews her ear off about the pirate festival on the drive down the mountain. I smile as I listen to them chattering back and forth, but worry’s creeping in.
Tomorrow, we leave to drive home to Georgia. Monday, I go back to work. He starts at a summer camp that my boss swears his wife loves for their kids.
And we won’t have Ellie with us.
For the majority of my life, that was just fine with me. She was irritating, obnoxious, and a general pain in the ass.
Now?
Either I need to see my doctor for an issue with sudden flaming indigestion, or I’m going to fucking miss her.
Because maybe the problem was never that she was irritating, obnoxious, and a general pain in the ass.
Maybe the problem was that she was everything I wanted to be, and then everything I wanted, and nothing I thought I could have, or deserved to have.
Working hard to make something of myself in a career and being the best father I know how to be isn’t always enough to erase the seeds planted in my subconscious in my early childhood that I was nothing but a pest.
“Work going well?” Mr. Ryder asks.
I tell him about my current project, an upgrade to radar sensors on the newest fighter platform, and he tells me about a windmill farm project their company’s been doing for a cloud-based server complex south of the city, closer to where Davis lives.
“Still looking to get out in a year?” he asks me.
“I’m ready.” I’d stay in until retirement if I could—I like knowing my job supports my country and ultimately helps protect my friends and neighbors, and the work is challenging and rewarding—but the odds of being able to get stationed and stay stationed at the base just north of Copper Valley, and therefore close to Tucker, are slim. “Just waiting for the clock to tick down or a waiver to come through.”
“You want a job, you know where to find us.”
“Appreciate that, sir.”
Not that I plan on taking him up on any offer without knowing I’ve earned it. It was hard enough letting them pay for me to take my SATs so I could apply to college.
Which is exactly the sort of thing that family does, and one more reason I need to not fuck around with Ellie.
Her family means too much to me.
Hell, they’re why I applied for an ROTC scholarship the minute I hit campus.
So they wouldn’t feel like they needed to help me through.
That was before Beck and the guys hit it big with Bro Code, and before Ellie landed herself a full ride.
And if I fuck things up with her, I’ll never again hear the chatter in the back of the car with the way they’ve adopted Tucker as a surrogate grandkid. I won’t feel like I still deserve to be treated like one of their own.
If Ellie and I were both in this for the long haul, that would be one thing.
But she doesn’t even want to touch me for fear the world will crumple around her.
So I’ll keep my feelings to myself, and Tucker will keep his second set of grandparents, and life will go on, just as it always has.
Except different.
We park once again in the field at the far end of Shipwreck and head down Blackbeard Avenue into town. Mr. Ryder scans the street. “Where do you suppose Ellie is?”
Spotting the bridal party isn’t easy this morning—no bright parrot costumes for the wedding day, apparently—but then I notice the English colonists.
And the woman who looks like Kiera Knightly in that pirate movie.
“Ah, there, I’d guess,” I tell Mr. Ryder. I don’t see Ellie, but Monica, Jason, Sloane, and the parents are in full colonial regalia. It appears Pop Rock is spending the day playing the role of a governor with the powdered white wig.
This town.
I wave to Monica down the block when she glances our way, and her face lights up as she waves back.
“Oh my heavens,” Mrs. Ryder murmurs with a smile. “I can only imagine what her bridal gown will look like.”
We meet up with them two shops down from Anchovies. Ellie’s still not with them.
Neither is the Blond Caveman.
A slither of unease works its way down my spine. Not because I’m worried Ellie still has feelings for him, but because I don’t trust him.
Especially when Mrs. Dixon’s face lights up at the sight of the Ryders. “Michelle! Christopher! How lovely to see you both again.”
She leans in for cheek kisses with Mrs. Ryder and to embrace Mr. Ryder.
Behind her back, Monica rolls her eyes so hard her tongue sticks out, and I realize maybe I’m not so bad.
All I want is a little love and acceptance.
These people, though—they’re in it for the social status.
“How is the environmental business?” Mr. Dixon asks, engaged for the first time all week.
Mr. Ryder shakes his hand. “Good, good.”
“You know our bank will be more than happy to help you out anytime you want to get out of that old neighborhood you’re still living in. Upstanding family like yours should be in a house fitting your station.”
Jason sighs.
Even Sloane seems surprised.
“We could never leave our home, but thank you,” Mrs. Ryder informs them. She easily executes a side-step to hug Monica. “You look beautiful, sweetie. We’re so happy for you two.”
“I’m so glad you came,” she replies.
When Mrs. Ryder turns to Monica’s mom, I lean closer to the bride. “Where’s Ellie?”
She points to a bench at the edge of the park, then frowns. “I think we pushed her too hard this week. She’s limping. I told her to stay there, but—”
“Is she okay?” I ask at the same time Mr. Ryder asks, “But where is she now?”
“Miss Ellie kissed my daddy,” Tucker announces.
Festival-goers keep passing by, a band of pirates leaps out into the middle of the street for an impromptu swordfight, and complete silence descends inside our group while the Ryders turn to look at me.
It’s not that I didn’t know this was coming.
Ever since the moment Ellie informed me that I owed her for ruining her wedding date, I’ve known I’d have to face her parents.
Her brother.
Our friends.
Explain it to Tucker.
“Oh, Wyatt!” Suddenly, Mrs. Ryder is squeezing me tight. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
Mr. Ryder’s grinning at me, and I’ve never felt so loved while hating myself quite so much at the same time, because soon enough we’ll have to stage a break-up, and I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to look any of them in the eye.
“We should go find her,” I say gruffly.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Ryder agrees. He pulls his phone out and dials, and we all listen while the ringing rolls to voicemail.
Ellie’s safe here. She can take care of herself, and the locals know her well enough that if she gets into trouble, or gets h
urt, they’ll be right at her side. She probably had to find a bathroom.
Or she went for banana pudding.
But the Blond Caveman is missing too.
I scan the square with its upturned dirt and more festival-goers digging for gold, the benches around it, up and down the sidewalk, but I don’t spot her.
“Tucker, you want to hang with me?” Monica asks him, like she knows I’m about to head off to find her.
“Is that your real hair?” Tucker asks.
She nods and squats in her huge colonial princess dress, tilting her ringlets at him. “It sure is. Want to touch it?”
I don’t want to leave him here. I have no idea what the Ryders will think of me when this week’s over, and so I’m clinging to the one thing I know I’ll still have.
But he drops my hand to inspect Monica’s hair, and somebody needs to find Ellie.
Mr. Ryder inclines his head back toward the Crusty Nut. I nod and take off into the dug-up square and toward the bench Ellie was last seen sitting on.
I’ve barely passed the back edge of the building to my left when I hear voices.
Familiar voices.
“Why are you doing this to me?” the Blond Caveman demands.
“It’s not about you, Patrick. This week is about Jason. And Monica.”
“I meant shoving that asshole in my face.”
There’s a beat of silence before Ellie asks, “What are you talking about?”
“You, all over that jerkoff friend of your brother’s.”
I turn the corner and spot them. He’s blocking her against a dumpster, and I’m about to say something when Ellie speaks.
“Your insecurities and delusions are not my problem. You don’t get an opinion here. Now move.”
“You’re not listening to me—”
“And I don’t have to. We’re done. We’ve been done. Your opinion has no bearing on my life. Shut up and let me go.”
“I’d do what she’s asking,” I interrupt. “She has a mean right hook.”
I don’t add so do I, because I don’t actually make a habit of punching people, so all I have are gut instincts and the overwhelming desire to protect and defend what’s mine.
And by mine, I mean my family.
And no, I don’t want to talk about the way my heart is pounding or my muscles tensing to leap, because I will move fucking heaven and earth and travel to the depths of hell to make sure Ellie’s safe—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of it.
