Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  Tucker’s still crying. The sirens are getting louder. And when Beck helps Ellie shuffle past us, she doesn’t look up when she whispers, “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

  Having my arm gnawed off by a bear with dull teeth would be less painful than the searing ache shredding my heart. “Ellie—”

  Beck shuts her in the car, and he, too, doesn’t look at me as he walks around to the driver’s seat. The engine roars back to life, and he pulls out of the driveway thirty seconds before the fire truck screeches to a halt at the house.

  “The fire’s out,” I tell the firefighters, but the words are hollow. “Kitchen accident.”

  They still file inside.

  Mrs. Ryder wraps her arms around both me and Tucker, and I wish I was seven again so I could cry too.

  Because it’s Ellie.

  She’s strong. She’s smart.

  And when she’s fucking determined, there’s nothing in the world that will stop her.

  And she’s determined that I’m not good for her.

  I grip Tucker tighter.

  One day, he’ll grow up and leave me too. And we still have the teenage years to get through, when he’ll probably hate me.

  “I love her,” I whisper to Mrs. Ryder.

  “I know, honey,” she says softly. “I’ve always known. She’ll come around.”

  I shake my head, but I don’t answer.

  Because she won’t.

  She’s made up her mind.

  And thirty minutes after I thought I was finally in, finally right, it turns out I’m out.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Wyatt

  It takes less than an hour for us to get the all-clear to head back inside, but it feels like weeks. Especially with a sleeping Tucker in my arms. He’s dead weight once he drifts off.

  “Watch those towels,” one of the firemen tells me as they depart.

  “Yeah. Got it.”

  I get Tucker put to bed, and I’m about to collapse into my own bed in the next room when I realize I left my phone in the master bedroom downstairs before the fire. On the off-chance Ellie’s willing to talk to me, I don’t want to miss her. I hit the bottom of the stairs and realize Beck’s back.

  He’s lounging in the living room. Alone.

  “Where’s Ellie?” I can’t help it. The question rolls out.

  “Cooper’s place.”

  “In her bathrobe?”

  “Doesn’t really need clothes for sleeping, does she?” He grins at me, like nothing in the fucking world is fucking wrong, and I consider decking him. He might have two inches on me, but I have more muscle.

  Plus, hitting something would feel damn good right now.

  Maybe.

  Probably not.

  But it’s worth a try.

  “Want a beer?” he asks me.

  “No.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Yes.”

  “Awesome. What’ve we got? Smells like toast. You hungry?”

  “That’s burnt dish towel.”

  “Eh. Never liked that one anyway.” He leads the way into the kitchen, digs into the fridge and emerges with two bottles of Sam Adams. “Ping-pong?”

  “You know I’ve been sleeping with your sister, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “There a reason I’m still standing?”

  His blue eyes flicker over me, and for half a second, I think he’s going to deck me. “Looks like she already got you.”

  “She sneezed.”

  “Son of a bitch.” He gets me with a jab to the shoulder. “Keep that shit to yourself.”

  I recoil. “Hell, you do that—never mind. Don’t want to know.”

  “Exactly, motherfucker.”

  He shoves the second beer at me. “Ping-pong. Now.”

  We troop down to the basement, and he flips on the lights. If I wasn’t watching, I wouldn’t have noticed him casting a glance at the water stain in the ceiling.

  “Didn’t mean to break your house,” I mutter.

  “It’s just a house. I’ve got more.”

  In the game room, he claims the far end of the ping-pong table and tosses me a paddle. “Talk.”

  I set my beer aside and serve a ball.

  And while we battle it out for superiority in ping-pong—he’s winning, because I have no heart left to put in it—I tell him everything.

  Everything.

  Starting with Christmas.

  He doesn’t say anything for three games after I’m done. It’s past two in the morning. We’re just standing here, hitting a ping-pong ball back and forth, beers gone, the ball hitting the table and our paddles the only sound.

  Finally, he tosses his paddle to the table. “You love her?”

  My chest threatens to cave in. “Yes.”

  “Huh.”

  A Beck Ryder huh can mean anything from you’re in my seat to clogged the toilet again to oh, good, meatloaf leftovers. “Huh what?”

  He shrugs. “All she’d say was Tucker needs him alive more than I need to bang him again. I think you’re fucked.”

  “Thanks. Helpful. Real helpful.”

  “And Mom’s making pancakes in the morning. Told me to tell you to sleep as late as you want, she’ll make you more.”

  I dig the heel of my palms into my eye sockets, because I don’t want pancakes.

  I want Ellie to have some faith that we can do this.

  But I’m supposed to leave to drive back to Georgia in a few hours, because I go back to work Monday.

  “You believe we’re cursed?” I ask Beck.

  “Nah. Met too many witch doctors over the years. Your case is too boring.”

  He was always unpredictable even before the boy band days. Now, he’s unpredictable with a worldly bent, which is mildly terrifying at times.

  “Can you convince Ellie?” I ask.

  “You want me to convince my sister that I know more than she does about something? Dude. It’s one thing to say you love her. It’s another to act like you don’t know her at all.”

  “The Ellie I know would say screw the universe.”

  His smile drops. “Yeah. Fucking Blond Caveman.”

  I start. “You—”

  “Her ex. The douche-nugget.”

  “Didn’t know you called him that too.” A thought strikes me, and I squint at him. “Was this your plan when you asked me to annoy her?”

  “That you break my dishwasher and burn my house down?”

  “To hook me and Ellie up.”

  “Nah. That was Levi.”

  I owe another buddy a text. “Levi,” I repeat doubtfully.

  “After you showed up at the hospital, he said the only other time he’s seen that look on a man’s face was Tripp, when Jessie had all those complications with delivery.”

  “You miss the part where it was my fault she was on the road?”

  “Oh, go shove your responsibility complex up your ass. You weren’t the drunk shitbag who hit her, and you weren’t the fuckweasel who dumped her on Christmas Eve. She made up her mind she wasn’t staying at Mom and Dad’s that night the minute she saw you, and we both know it. She just wanted to pick a fight, just like you wanted to pick a fight. It was shitty timing, but it wasn’t your fault. Got it?”

  “Yeah,” I mutter.

  I don’t know if I believe him yet, but I hear him.

  Maybe Ellie’s right.

  Maybe we are safer apart.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ellie

  My leg is pounding like a mother, there’s an annoying light shining directly at my eyelids, something smells faintly like moldy gym socks, and there’s a godawful racket coming from outside the doorway.

  Sounds like—

  Oh, dammit.

  Sounds like my brother trying to hit those falsetto notes Levi can reach but Beck most definitely cannot. He’s not bad, but they didn’t add him to the band for his musical talent.

  Nope, they added him for the eye candy.

  Blech.

  He bursts into th
e room, and I remember I’m not at his house.

  I’m at Cooper Rock’s house half a mile up the road. Because Wyatt and I tried to burn down Beck’s house last night.

  “Is your house still standing?” I ask, realizing I’m croaking like a frog, and also that I don’t give two fucks.

  The universe spoke.

  I listened.

  And it hurts like hell.

  “Damn straight,” he says. “C’mon. Get up. They haven’t found the peg leg yet. I want to go look, but I can’t go without a disguise.”

  “Go buy yourself a peg leg.” I shove my head under the pillow, which smells like mothballs, and I really don’t care.

  Yum, mothballs.

  Like death, but mothier.

  “You know you broke my best friend’s heart.”

  “Talk to the universe. I’m saving his life.” My voice cracks, and I want to hit something, but I also want to roll over and go back to sleep and hope that when I wake up in five or six years, I won’t have residual pain in my leg and Wyatt will have found a safe, kind, motherly type of woman that he’s madly in love with who gives him blow jobs every night after she bakes cookies for Tucker.

  Okay, maybe I’m not willing to go that far. I didn’t even get the chance to give him a blow job before fate decided blowing up Beck’s house was more important.

  Great.

  Now I’m dictating when his imaginary girlfriends can go down on him.

  And possibly my eyes are leaking.

  And if any asshole woman bakes Tucker cookies—

  I squeeze my eyes shut, because Tucker’s adorable and sweet, but he’s not mine.

  “Eeeellllliiiiiiieeeeeeee,” Beck whines. “Get uuuuuuuuuppp.” He pokes me in the back.

  I let him.

  He pokes me again.

  I still don’t move.

  When he pokes me the third time, and I still don’t react, the big lug sits on me. Right on my back with his bony butt.

  “Aaahhlp!” I grunt. “Get off.”

  “I missed my sister,” he declares.

  “I can’t breathe, you ass.”

  He moves to sit on my calves, and now, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could bend right to punch him. “And what do I come home to? A woman who’s not my sister walking around in my sister’s body. What did you do with Ellie, Fake Ellie? Where’d you put her? Are you from Zygorb? Are you an alien wearing my sister’s skin?”

  “You are annoying as hell.”

  “I’m annoying? You’re the one who’s pulling this shitty woe is me, the universe hates me, and for once in my life I’m gonna just lay down and take it because I’m afraid to love somebody who might actually break my heart shit.”

  I freeze.

  Because that might be hitting too close to home.

  “Go. Away.”

  “Wyatt’s a good dude, Ellie. And he likes you despite you.”

  “And he flies in airplanes for his day job and we can’t even kiss without dishwashers leaking and towels catching on fire and Tucker deserves to grow up with a good dad.”

  Beck heaves a loud, annoyed sigh and climbs off me. “Fine. Have your pity party. But if you don’t get up, I’m calling Monica, and you know she’ll skip her honeymoon to be here.”

  “Dick move. And you’d put her on a private jet and upgrade her to the fanciest cruise in the world to make it up to her.”

  “Yeah, but she won’t know that when she comes running.”

  Which is why she’s my best friend.

  My best girl friend.

  My best friend friend might be—dammit.

  “And I’ll send Mom,” he adds. “Oh, and by the way, Wyatt was pissed when he found out Cooper lives so close. Dude thought he was bicycling up the mountain to deliver you donuts because he’s angling to get into your pants. Isn’t that a hoot? Ten minutes, Ell. And then I’m singing again too.”

  He heads out the door whistling like he has freaking sunshine in his sparkly bright soul, and I realize I’m naked.

  I’m naked, with a healing black eye, a sore hip and thigh, and a big ol’ pile of ash in my chest.

  But that’s how it has to be.

  Because I’ve hurt enough people in my life.

  I won’t put Wyatt in danger. He deserves better.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ellie

  I’d planned to stay in Shipwreck through the weekend for recovery time, but with Beck back, the odds of having a minute of peace are nil. Not because he’s always as annoying as he was this morning, but because he’ll be calling anyone he can to hang out while he’s in town, which will undoubtedly be three days or less.

  And I don’t want to be in the house when he sees the new high score on Frogger.

  Too many memories.

  So I convince my dad to ride with me back to Copper Valley before lunch.

  When we hit the 256 loop around the city, my eyes sting, because we’re officially now out of the country and out of the mountains. It’s back to the hustle and bustle. Traffic. Billboards. Skyscrapers.

  Dad’s quiet the entire ninety-minute drive. When I pull into the driveway of the red brick colonial in the middle-class neighborhood where I grew up, with the old basketball hoop still over the garage door, my eyes burn again.

  Dad squeezes my knee. “Been through a lot this year.”

  He doesn’t tell me I’m overreacting. Or that it’s okay to be scared, but not okay to let fear rule my life, or any of the other things I logically know.

  That’s not how Dad works.

  Probably because all the rest of us finally talked him into silence over the years.

  But he does offer me a scoop of homemade peach cobbler if I want to stay a few hours.

  So that’s how I find myself curled up on my parents’ couch, watching the Fireballs get creamed in high definition, while my dad cuts and sugars early season peaches for our late lunch of peach cobbler.

  I don’t realize I’ve drifted off to sleep until the doorbell rings, and when I wake up, I’m disoriented and confused, and it takes me a minute to remember why my heart hurts.

  Wyatt.

  He probably hates me.

  I hope he does. That’ll make it easier for him to move on.

  I curl tighter into a ball. The game’s over, and now an old Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie is on.

  “Ellie, I’m going for a walk,” Dad calls from the front door.

  “’Kay,” I answer, frog voice and all.

  I haven’t had any peach cobbler yet, but I should go home. I don’t have any food. I need to do laundry. And catch up on work email.

  Plus, I could stop at a pet shelter on the way and ask to play with the dogs for a few hours. Guaranteed pick-me-up.

  Since Beck sometimes shares my social media posts about dogs that haven’t found their forever homes—always with a caption like Sharing for my sister, who wishes she’d been born a dog so it would be socially acceptable for her to lick my face—I’m undeservedly welcome at all the shelters in the metro area.

  I’m staring blindly at Meg Ryan’s profile on the television when the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and the pile of ashes in my chest gives a big ol’ whomp.

  There’s a shadow in the doorway.

  A Wyatt-size shadow. Or possibly more than a shadow.

  That whomp turns into a staccato beat of whomp after whomp after whomp.

  “Please,” I whisper, and I don’t know if I’m asking him to stay or leave. I just know it hurts.

  It hurts to think about hurting him.

  It hurts to think about losing him.

  And it hurts to be terrified that disaster is waiting around every corner if I reject both of my first two options.

  He steps slowly into the room, eyes trained on me, searching, asking.

  I don’t even have to look him in the eye to know.

  He’s not afraid.

  He’s not afraid of anything.

  “You okay?” he asks, and that voice.

>   God, I love his voice. Rich and smooth and warm, like hot chocolate after a day playing in the snow.

  “Fine,” I say hoarsely, and we both know I’m lying.

  I can’t tell if he’s tired, frustrated, or all of the above, but I do know the yellowing bruise on his eye is all the reminder I need of the danger of the two of us getting together.

  “Where’s Tucker?” I ask, and dammit, there’s another flame attacking the ashes in my chest.

  “With your dad. He’s not too happy about the drive coming up.”

  The drive.

  He should’ve already left.

  Instead, he’s still here, lowering himself to the couch on the opposite end of where I’m curled up, and it’s all I can do not to crawl across the cushions and into his lap to hold him and tell him how sorry I am.

  For everything.

  For being a shithead when we were kids. For seducing him at Christmas when we were both hurting.

  For not answering his phone calls after the accident.

  For pushing him away.

  “I love you,” he says quietly, his voice husky but strong. No hitch. No hesitation. “I’ve spent my whole life afraid of what it would be like to love you, but I do, Ellie. I love you.”

  “You shouldn’t.” He’s going to break me.

  “I never thought I was built for marriage. I never believed in forever. But I look at you, and I can feel it. I can see it. You? You’re everything I never knew I wanted. Never knew I needed. I didn’t believe in forever until I believed in you.”

  Break me? No. Destroy me. “We’re—we’re dangerous, Wyatt.”

  “If there’s anyone in the world who can give the universe a middle finger and tell it to kiss your ass if it thinks it’s going to stand in your way, it’s you.” He sets a piece of paper on the cushion between us. “I don’t care if it takes you two hours or forty years. I’ll wait. You will always be the only woman I’ll ever love.”

  My breath hitches when he takes my hand and kisses my cheek, because yes, he’s everything I want.

  Everything.

  But I’m terrified.

  My entire life, all I wanted was to meet the goal.

  Of course I dated Patrick. He checked all the boxes. Handsome. Successful. Smart.