by Grant, Pippa
Because then maybe I can also convince myself.
Four
Wyatt
While we wait for five-thirty, I introduce Tucker to the joy of Pac-Man in Beck’s basement haven. Because modeling underwear as a second career after being in a boy band for years pays well, Beck has money to burn, and he uses it outfitting his houses with enough games to keep a man busy for three lifetimes. In addition to the old-school Pac-Man arcade game console, he has Ms. Pac-Man and Frogger, plus foosball, table tennis, pool, air hockey, and two closets full to bursting with board games. And more.
This whole house is a man cave, but the basement?
The basement is the cherry on top. Half bar with TV viewing area, half game room, it’s where we always hang out when we’re here on those rare days we’re all in the area at the same time without other responsibilities to tackle, and some of my best adult memories have happened in this basement.
Like the Frogger weekend.
And I am never risking fucking up that friendship again.
Not for the houses and the games.
But for the guys who are my only family left beyond my son.
“Run away from the ghosts, bud,” I tell Tucker, who’s sitting on a red leather bar stool so he’s tall enough to man the controller. “You can eat them once you get the dot in the corner.”
He shrieks with glee as he races the ghosts back and forth on the bottom row, until the blue ghost eats him.
As Pac-Man falls off the screen, Tucker bursts into tears. “I died!” he wails.
“Whoa, hey, it’s okay.”
“I died,” he wails harder.
I rub his back, because fuck, what else am I supposed to do? It seems like a silly thing to cry over, but then, he’s seven. He cried once on spring break because a worm dried out on the sidewalk.
Kid has big feelings and a big heart. There’s no way I’m breaking that heart.
The world needs more heart.
“You want to play again?” I ask.
He wipes his eyes, pushing his glasses crooked, and nods. “Uh-huh.”
“You want help?”
“Uh-huh.”
His hair smells like a fruit pie when I lean over him, and his little body is just so little. Even after growing since I saw him last. I kiss his crown and restart the game, covering his small hand with mine. “We’re going to run away from the ghosts, okay?”
“Okay.”
We die twice more before my phone alarm goes off with my two-minute warning to get upstairs and get shoes on.
Tucker heaves a grown-up sigh. “Really, Dad? The alarms again?”
“They keep us on time.”
“Sometimes you just have to live life.”
And that’s his mother coming through. I do my best to keep my expression neutral. “And sometimes, people are counting on us. And other times, we want to get to the pirate parade before we miss it.”
He pushes his hair out of his eyes and hops off the stool, dashing for the stairs and clutching his shorts, which are threatening to fall down his slender hips. “Pirate parade! Pirate parade!”
“Tucker, you forgot your…” I trail off, because he’s gone, running past the basement bar and up the stairs. So I grab the little scrap of a security blanket he still carries with him and trail after him, also grabbing three dirty glasses from beside a glittery notebook on the high bar counter as I pass, though those aren’t our mess. I get to the top of the stairs just a few steps behind Tucker, who’s staring again.
And when I look up, I realize why.
“Not. One. Word,” Ellie says.
“Daddy, a pirate girl came out of the bathtub,” Tucker whispers.
Ellie’s eyes go soft as her dimple pops out when she smiles at Tucker. She’s in a pirate wench dress, with a fluffy white blouse hanging off her shoulders and covered with one of those leather-looking thingies that ties up from her waist to her chest and gives her good cleavage—a corsage? A coriander? A makes-a-man-speechless?—and a flowing gauzy maroon skirt with black stiletto heels coming up to her knees.
I swallow hard and remind my dick that we’re here for my son to go to the Pirate Festival, not for me to lose my head. Again.
Or one of my best friends.
“You may call me Calamity Ellie, captain of the Golden Albatross,” she says to Tucker, ending on a fancy bow that has her wincing when she stands back up.
I start to ask if those boots are a good idea—she looked like she was hurting earlier, and I know she busted her leg and hip bad in the accident—but then I remember who I’m talking to, and I clamp my mouth shut and move past her to put the glasses in the kitchen.
Especially since she’s in full makeup with her hair curled special and hanging down to the tops of her bare shoulders.
She doesn’t look like she’s meeting friends.
She looks like she’s headed for a pirate battle that will be followed with a dance.
Not a care in the world.
Just time to party with the pirates.
“Girls can’t be captains,” Tucker announces as I step out of the kitchen.
I wince and angle back to put a hand on his shoulder. “Never, ever tell a woman she can’t be something. Especially Miss—Captain Ellie.”
“But boys are pirate captains.”
Ellie gives me a look that suggests this is my fault—of course she does—while she puts her fists to her hips. “Is that so, you scurvy dog? You keep talkin’, you’ll be swabbing the poop deck!”
Tucker giggles. “Ew, I don’t want to swap poop on the deck!”
“Then don’t be sayin’ there ain’t girl pirates, sonny boy.”
Ellie winks at him, then sashays past us.
With a limp that puts a rock in my gut.
I’ve never wanted to protect someone so badly while simultaneously being so irritated with her that I want to tie her to a chair and make her promise she’ll quit—quit—fuck.
I don’t know what I want her to quit, but I know it’s none of my fucking business.
Tucker falls in line behind her and also limps all the way out the door.
Fucking hell.
Does it still hurt? Beck said they weren’t sure she’d walk again right after it happened.
But I can’t ask.
I don’t have the right.
Not with our history. All of our history.
“Set the alarm, please, powder monkey,” Ellie calls to me as though we’re kids again and she’s just trying to get my goat.
Like our relationship isn’t way more complicated than that.
Like we didn’t screw on her parents’ basement floor. Like she didn’t tear off out of the house right afterward. Like she didn’t ignore every last fucking attempt I made to apologize.
“Are you going to the pirate parade with us?” Tucker asks her while I set the alarm and lock up.
“Nay, laddie, I be off to pillage and plunder whilst you all be watching the lesser pirates distract you.”
“I’m going to dig for pirate treasure this week.”
“Only the luckiest pirates who believe in girl pirate captains will find any gold.”
“I know all the pirate stories, and none of them are about girl pirates.”
“That’s because men pirates write all the books.”
“Where did you hear all the pirate stories?” I ask Tucker, and not just to distract him from sticking his foot further down his throat, which of course he doesn’t realize he’s doing, since he’s seven. I talk to him most every night before bed, generally read a story on video chat, and I’ve never read him a pirate story.
“From Mr. Duffy next door. He lets me water his dog and he tells me about when he was fighting all the pirates before the war.”
“Which war?”
“The Civil War.”
I make a mental note to ask my ex-wife if she’s aware of what Tucker’s doing when he’s playing outside. She’ll probably tell me Mr. Duffy’s a harmless old man, but Tuc
ker can’t always tell the difference between reality and a good story, and I don’t want him getting made fun of at school for talking about his neighbor the vampire pirate hunter.
I fucking hate not being close enough to go see his teachers and just be there for those minutes after school when he talks about his day.
One more year.
Just one more year.
“Keys?” Ellie says to me.
“I locked the door.”
She points to my SUV. “So I can drive.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“This is my car.”
“I have control issues.”
She’s got that stubborn look Beck gets when he’s determined that we’re going to play poker until he wins. And she’s not overtly setting any guilt trips, but she doesn’t have to.
She doesn’t fucking have to.
I approach and dangle my keys between us. “I’m backseat driving.”
She smirks. “Of course you are.”
But she still takes the keys.
I hold the ring steady until she makes eye contact again. “That’s my kid you’re driving,” I add softly.
She holds my gaze without flinching. “Noted. Now, if you don’t want me stealing this thing, you better get in.”
Tucker’s already in the backseat strapping into his booster seat, so I settle into the passenger seat.
Feels weird to be on this side of the car.
But I think I owe her.
She might not realize it yet, but she owes me too.
And since we’re here together, she’s going to pay up.
Five
Ellie
Shipwreck smells like fried oysters, cannon fire, and dirt. People in pirate costumes stroll along Blackbeard Avenue while locals leap out from behind barrels and out of the local shops to challenge tourists to swordfights.
It’s glorious.
I tell Wyatt and Tucker to go on about their business, that I’ll get a ride back with a friend, but because Wyatt is Wyatt, he insists on walking with me from the parking fields at the end of the main drag toward Crusty Nut, which has the best fried pickles and banana pudding in all of Virginia, and yes, I have sampled every banana pudding in Copper Valley, and a fair number up in the DC metro area too, so I can say with absolute certainty that Crusty Nut’s banana pudding cannot be beat.
Also, if you don’t like banana pudding, I’m happy to eat yours. You can have my Twizzlers.
“Tucker, have you ever seen the inside of a pirate ship?” I ask as we pass Scuttle Putt, the miniature golf course at the edge of the park. The entrance to the payment shack is shaped like the bow of a ship, complete with a mermaid figurehead above the door.
Tucker slows.
Wyatt scoops him up and puts him on his shoulders like he’s light as a feather. “We’ll check it out later.”
“Why are you doing this?” I murmur. “I don’t need a fu—freaking escort. I’m fine.”
“Your brother would kick my ahem if I didn’t get you back safe and sound to his house tonight, and we both know it.”
“I know everyone in town, and I’ll get a ride. Go away.”
“Not until I see who’s driving you home.”
I pause outside Crow’s Nest, the local bakery, as I spot the owner just inside the open door, wiping down tables in a pirate costume, complete with eye patch.
Just as he’s supposed to be. “Hey, Grady. You ready?”
I smile, and he smiles back, and for the first time since Wyatt walked in on me in the bathtub, I know tonight’s going to be okay.
“You bet, hot stuff. Give me two seconds to toss this rag.”
Wyatt looks at me.
Then at Grady, who’s six solid feet of dependable, adorable muscle and dimples, topped with a thick mop of dark hair that even his hairnet can’t fully contain.
“What the f—fudge is going on here?” he growls.
“Just picking up my date. Who will also drive me home.”
“Your date.”
“Mm-hmm. Like I said, go about your business.”
Cooper, Grady’s brother, strolls out of the bakery and rubs my hair. Not because he’s older than me, but because he’s taller than me. “Still heartbroken you didn’t pick me, Calamity Ellie.”
“You’re unreliable,” I reply, earning a laugh.
“Dad. Dad,” Tucker whispers reverently while Wyatt continues to glare. “Daaaad.”
“I’m still handsomer,” Cooper points out.
I pretend to study him, then shake my head. “Nah.”
He puts a hand to his heart like he’s wounded. “Aah, Ellie. What’s a guy gotta do to get your affections?”
“You have to pick up your phone when she calls, idiot,” Grady tells his brother as he steps outside, sans the hairnet under his pirate hat. He offers me an arm. “Shall we, Calamity Ellie?”
“Who the hell are you?” Wyatt snarls.
“He’s—” I start, but I’m suddenly squished in a bride-scented hug with a fake parrot smashed into my face.
“Ellie! There you are. Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Monica demands. She’s dressed to the hilt as a pirate captain, with her honey blond hair tied back in a low ponytail under her pirate hat.
“It’s recovering from a swim,” I tell her.
“Daddy and Miss Ellie took a bubble bath together!” Tucker announces as I pull back.
Monica’s hazel eyes dart from me to Wyatt to Tucker up on Wyatt’s shoulders, going round as a pirate steering wheel by the time they’re back on me.
Grady drops his arm and takes a step back, brows raised, a slow smile spreading like he’s coming to a conclusion.
Shit.
Shit on a cannonball. This is not how today is supposed to go.
Behind Monica, Patrick, tall, blond, and usually affectedly bored, narrows his eyes like I’m still his business. “A bubble bath? Together?”
“They were all covered in bubbles,” Tucker says with a giggle.
I laugh too, way too high. “And isn’t it dinner time?” I interrupt, because I am not going to dinner solo with my ex-boyfriend and his perfect girlfriend and once again, Wyatt Morgan is fucking up my life. He’s going to ruin my carefully crafted date routine with Grady for the week. “We should get down to Crusty Nut before the parade starts.”
The crowd’s getting thicker, so I’m not wrong.
But Monica, Jason—her fiancé, who’s dressed like a first mate but usually looks like a surfer—Patrick, and his girlfriend, Sloane, don’t move.
“You’re dating again?” Patrick asks, again like it’s his business.
“Dude, I didn’t realize,” Grady says, backing away while Cooper shakes with silent laughter at his brother’s expense.
“Wyatt and I are friends,” I say lightly in a tone that leaves my answer open for interpretation.
Wyatt lifts a brow at me while holding onto Tucker’s legs, because whatever we are, we’ve never really been friends. More like people with opposing personalities who sometimes cross paths in social circles since my brother has always thought he could do no wrong.
But if he’s screwing up my fake date for the week, he’s going to be something other than my friend.
“Why doesn’t your friend join us for dinner?” Patrick says tightly, and that’s right, you dumping asshole, I have men fighting over me.
Sloane angles closer to him. “They’re not in costume,” she points out.
Like all of us, she too is dressed like a pirate. Her costume has red-and-black striped pants loose around her thighs but fitted to her calves, a white blouse, and a leather strap over her shoulder holding her scabbard and fake sword. A matching bandana covers her hair, and she’s sporting skull and crossbones earrings.
Patrick’s costume is nearly identical, except he’s missing the earrings.
And I can’t say a thing, because I would’ve dressed us in matching pirate costumes too.
“G
rady was coming with me for dinner,” I say, “because Wyatt and Tucker have never seen the pirate parade, and Pop’s less likely to harass Grady if he’s with us. Wyatt, really, that’s an amazing spot to watch the parade. Tucker will love it. And wait until you see Pop. Pop Rock? Grady and Cooper’s grandpa? He dresses up like Blackbeard every year. It’s glorious.”
I point desperately to a minute space between a lamp post and a family of six right at the curb.
“Wyatt…Wyatt Morgan?” Monica asks.
And I’m done. Totally, completely screwed. My master plan for a fake boyfriend this week is unraveling before my eyes.
So I do the only thing I can to save my pride in the face of disaster.
I link my arm through Wyatt’s. “It’s new,” I whisper, telling my best friend of ten years a bald-faced lie that will undoubtedly kick me in the lady nuts very, very soon. Like as soon as Wyatt opens his mouth and bucks away from me. “And I didn’t want to take away from his time with Tucker this week.”
There’s a muscle working in Wyatt’s jaw, but his gray eyes aren’t glaring.
Nope, they’re shifting into neutral. He disentangles himself from my arm, but then wraps his tightly about my shoulders, which is a little awkward with Tucker up on his shoulders, but he manages anyway. Because he’s Wyatt.
Of course he can hold a kid and me.
“I don’t share,” he says with a pointed look at Grady.
Cooper has a coughing fit.
“Dad,” Tucker howls, kicking Wyatt in the pec. “That’s Cooper Rock.”
“I’m free tonight, Ellie,” Cooper says. He winks at Wyatt.
“And you’re staying free,” Wyatt replies pleasantly.
Too pleasantly.
Like he’s bantering with Beck and the guys.
“Wyatt Morgan?” Monica repeats again.
“I know that name,” Patrick says with a frown.
I shrug and put on what I hope is an embarrassed smile, rather than the mortified dread I’m feeling at the farce I’m going to have to pull off all fucking week if I don’t want to be the fifth wheel for my best friend’s wedding to my ex-boyfriend’s brother. “You know what they say about that line between love and hate.”