16. Fox
FOX
I had an urge to take Ashley’s hand as we approached the villa.
Why? This wasn’t a date. I looked for pockets in the boardies and only then realized my hands were empty.
“We should have brought wine or something.”
“Mom’s been planning the menu down to the last slice of toast since we booked the trip. We bought beer and wine when we bought the groceries.” Ashley rapped the door once and entered without waiting for an invite.
A variety of energy hit me as we stepped into the villa. The boy on the couch stared at me with open curiosity. Fliss held a handful of cutlery and offered a super casual, definitely not guilty of oversharing, closed-lipped smile.
The man taking chairs from the kitchen table might have some North American native in him, but could have been a very well-tanned White guy. He paused to give me an unabashed once-over while the two women in the kitchen sent a silent but loudly implied Hmmph .
“We’re all up to speed then,” Ashley said, showing all her teeth. “Thanks, Fliss.”
Fliss scuttled outside.
“Fox, this is my mom, Joanna, and my sister, Whitney.” Ashley waved, but it wasn’t really necessary. We’d all met online.
“Nice to meet you in person,” I said with the smile I reserved for the customers who looked like they wanted to spend a lot of money on something they didn’t know how to use, and would demand a refund later. The kind I wanted to be nice to, but wanted to steer away from setting me up for later blame.
Both women had their hands full of dishes and didn’t offer to shake.
“Nice to meet you, too.” Whitney’s tight smile shrank her top lip. She was a pretty blonde with a yoga-mom vibe. She had always seemed warm and funny and outgoing whenever I’d overheard her talking to Ashley, but she was definitely throwing cold today.
Joanna had struck me as far more reserved and still did. She was shorter and plumper than her daughters with hair the same shiny dark brown as Ashley’s, but hers had streaks of silver and was cut in a no-nonsense, boyish style.
“Make yourself at home,” Joanna said, but I wasn’t convinced she meant it.
“And this is Oliver, Whitney’s boyfriend,” Ashley said with a wave at the man who set down a chair so he could shake my hand. “Ryan is Oliver’s son.” Ashley nodded toward the sofa.
Oliver offered a friendly smile. He looked to be in his late thirties, had a receding hairline and the hint of a paunch. He shot a glance at Whitney, definitely checking up on whether he was allowed to like me or should hold me at arm’s length.
“Need help taking the table outside?” I offered.
“We were debating whether to bother.” Oliver gave the fruit bowl on the table a perplexed look. “The Holloways aren’t coming so?—”
“No? I should go see them,” Ashley said. “Is dinner ready now or?—”
Her mother was taking a tray of chicken wings out of the oven. “Sandy had a headache.”
“I’ll text them,” I said. “We can drop by after dinner if she’s feeling better.”
“Tell them you’ll bring some of this food,” Joanna said. “Save them ordering in or going out.”
Ashley angled her body to give him a bland, This is my mother , blink.
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that,” I said, because it was true. I read Sandy’s immediate reply. “Sandy says she’d love to see you.” His phone dinged again. “And don’t worry about sending food. They’re eating leftovers from lunch.”
“So we’re only seven,” Joanna said. “We can dish up in here, then. Some of us can eat off our laps, rather than move the table.”
Ashley pulled salads from the fridge and took them to the chairless kitchen table.
“You want a beer, Fox?” Oliver offered.
“I’m on the wagon. I’ll pour myself a tap water, thanks.”
“I don’t usually have more than one myself when I’ve got Ry-guy.” Oliver bent and picked up the boy who’d come to hug his leg. “What’s up, little man? Hungry?”
Ryan nodded and curled his arm around Oliver’s neck. He tilted his head into his father’s jaw, but he was staring pretty hard at me. Was I the first Black man he’d ever seen?
“Hi, Ryan. My real name is Felix, but most people call me Fox.”
“Fliss said you would take us to the beach and we can try a boogie board,” he said.
Ah. “I did say that. Do you want to? Do you surf? Hang ten?” I gave him the finger-thumb hang-loose sign.
Ryan didn’t know if he wanted to shake his head or giggle. He wound up grinning at his father while Oliver folded Ryan’s three fingers into his fist and left his pinky and thumb sticking out.
“Then go like that,” Oliver coached Ryan to swivel his hand.
“You’re a natural. Can you swim?” I asked.
“He’s had lessons. Only in a pool, but he can get himself from one end to the other. We brought a life jacket for him to wear.”
Ryan got a disgruntled look on his face.
“I call life jackets PFDs. You know what that stands for? Pretty Fine Duds. I love seeing people wear them. I’m an open-water lifeguard and people who think about staying safe in the ocean are my favorite kind of people. We’ll see how the waves look in the morning, try to get out before it gets too hot. Sound good?”
Ryan nodded and slid down his father like an otter off a rock.
“Fliss!” Ryan ran outside. “He said he would take us!”
“He probably won’t sleep,” Oliver said with a chuckle. “Fliss said you two were offering to babysit, but we can all go to the beach after the walk.”
Oliver had the same inclusive nature that Shane had, like a herd dog who needed everyone to stick together.
“No worries. It didn’t sound like Ash or Fliss were that keen on the gardens. Go for your walk with Whitney and catch up to us when you get back.” Yeah, it was a blatant effort on my part to win Whitney over, but so what? “Ash and I can handle it.”
“You got kids?” Oliver asked.
“Three little brothers and two little sisters.” I didn’t get into how they weren’t really related to me. “The youngest is fourteen, but no one grows out of playing in the waves, not even me.”
Oliver chuckled, started to say something, then caught himself as though he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be getting my measure, not making friends.
I didn’t mind. I was doing the same thing. It might not be my place to be protective of Ashley’s family, but I was protective of her. I would make no apologies about wanting to keep her from being hurt by association.
Whitney offered an empty plate to Oliver. “Do you want to fill this for Ry or should I do it?”
“I’ll do it, thanks.” He dropped a light kiss on her lips and turned to dig a serving spoon into the potato salad.
Whitney offered me a plate and gave me a flickering once-over as she did.
“So?” she prompted.
I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond to that.
Ashley distracted me by touching my back as she leaned to take a plate, causing a light shiver to chase down my spine.
“Help yourself,” she invited. She sent a look of warning to Whitney as she began filling her own plate.
“What?” Whitney took the next plate and dished up behind them. “I’m allowed to have questions.”
Joanna waved for Fliss to go ahead of her before filling her plate last.
“Ask me anything,” I said mildly, even though I knew every single ear was trained on me along with not-very-surreptitious stares.
“Why didn’t you talk to Shane sooner?” Whitney demanded. “You could have saved us a crap ton of money.”
“Come on, Whit,” Ashley cut in. “You wanted to come here more than I did.”
Whitney made a shut-up face at her sister and looked expectantly at me.
“I—” I hesitated to speak a truth that would only hurt Ashley more. I didn’t think Shane would let it get this far . It was a sobering thought and I disguised it by shaking some hot sauce into a puddle on my plate. “I think we all got caught up, not addressing the reality of it.”
“By that you mean how it affects your business? I would think that would have come up the minute Shane and Ashley got engaged,” Whitney said.
“It did.” I could be one hundred percent truthful about that. “I called our lawyer, got his opinion, and told Shane the next day that I expected him to sign a prenup to protect my share in the business and the house, even if he wasn’t worried about his share.”
“What’s your store even worth? Because?—”
“Whit!” Ashley hissed. “You’re being so rude.”
“Well, I don’t understand how a bathing suit boutique is worth breaking up a wedding for.”
“It’s more than that.” Ashley’s color went up with her dander.
I wanted to pat her arm and say, ‘Easy, tiger,’ but I was also kind of heartened that she was coming to my defense.
“We carry a lot of high-end equipment,” I said. “Designer sunglasses, wetsuits, boards, camping gear. On paper, Togs and Boards is worth two million. That’ll double in the first year if our distribution deal goes through on our T&B branded products. We’re aiming for ten in five years by expanding with at least two more shops. That’s conservative. I’m confident it’ll be three shops and annual revenue closer to fifteen.”
“Oh.” Whitney blinked.
“They bought the house for a two million,” Ashley threw in. “It will probably sell for five when they’ve finished fixing it up.”
“You flip houses?” Oliver perked up. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”
“The trick is to do it fast so you’re not carrying the mortgage longer than a few months. We typically find something we can live in and do the reno as time allows, but living in a work site gets old real fast. With this one, we’ve become victims of our own success. Running T&B hasn’t left much time for a side hustle. We used to flip two or three a year. This one has been going on for eight months and it’s only half done. We’ve had to hire out a lot of things we usually do ourselves. We won’t lose money, but we won’t come away with as much profit as I initially projected.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize. I guess all of that is worth protecting,” Whitney said in a small aside to Ashely.
“Thanks,” I drawled. “I thought my assets were worth protecting when all I had was four thousand bucks and my girlfriend at the time walked away with it, but okay.” Glad I have your approval , I conveyed, not meaning to get pissy, but shit. It had been a hard lesson and one that I hadn’t needed to learn twice.
Whitney dropped her lashes and her mouth tightened. She shoved the spoon back into the pasta salad.
“I didn’t know that,” Ashley said as she led me outside.
“Long time ago,” I dismissed.
“I’m impressed that you went from zero to where you are today. How old were you when that happened?”
“Twenty.” I tugged my earlobe, glancing up self-consciously as Oliver and Whitney settled at the table with Ryan, listening in. “I was taking my business degree and those savings were my rent and groceries. I had to give up my lease and pull out of school, go back to working for Eddie.”
“You worked for Eddie?” Joanna asked, coming to take the fourth seat at the table.
“On and off through the years.” I nodded. “I don’t have a trade, but I can swing a hammer and dig a hole. Shane was still on the circuit?—”
“Surf competitions,” Ashley explained to her family.
“He’d bought a run-down bungalow with some prize money and wanted to flip it, but he wasn’t home to do the work. Eddie had done the same thing when he and Sandy first married. He gave me some pointers and I cracked at it while Shane was gone. Shane gave me a cut when he sold it and we kept at it while I finished my degree. By then, we were getting good at it so we kept it up after I graduated. When Shane was ready to retire from professional surfing, he suggested we open the shop. By then I had a decent little nest egg and thought he was out of his tree, asking me to gamble it on Togs and Boards, but he talked me round.”
“And now you’re, like, rich?” Fliss asked from the seat beside me. “A millionaire?”
“Honestly? The bank owns most of T&B. We keep our salary modest and reinvest a lot of our profit into our growth plan. We had a really good quarter, thanks to Ash’s help with the website and the vlog. Speaking of that—” I glanced at her then belatedly recalled she wasn’t marrying Shane and coming to work for us. I bit back a curse. “Never mind.”
“What?” she prompted, wide-eyed with curiosity.
I scratched under my chin. “I was hoping to corner you at some point while we’re here to help with a promotion proposal. Remember that one we did for the wetsuits, tying it into board purchases? I want something like it for the tents and camping gear. There’s a deadline for getting the proposal to the suppliers. That’s why I wanted to jump on it this week.”
“What else have I got to do?” she said dryly.
“I’ll pay you. Obviously.” It hit me that her not marrying Shane was a loss to the company, something I hadn’t fully computed yet. Ashley knew the business and the particular culture behind our brand. I had already folded her skill set into our expansion plans. Togs and Boards wasn’t a house of cards that would fall under the first gust, but her absence was definitely a missing piece that would have to be re-tooled.
“You don’t have to pay me.” She frowned as she shoved a bite of food into her mouth.
“Of course, I do. Maybe we could work out a long-distance consultancy.” I was thinking aloud.
She scowled harder.
“So you’re definitely not going to Australia?” Fliss pressed.
“You still want her to work for you?” Whitney chimed in with a scathing smile. “Just not have a stake in your company by marrying your partner?”
“Whit, stop it. I can fight my own battles,” Ashley snapped.
“Can you?” Whitney scoffed. “Because what he did to you sucks. And you’re completely ignoring that.”
“To me ,” Ashley repeated. “Not you. So back off.”
Everything in me wanted to take Ashley’s hand then. Especially as her eyes pooled with tears of frustration and her mouth trembled.
“Hey,” I said gently, confining my touch to one bent knuckle grazing her elbow. “I can fight my own battles. It’s okay if your sister wants to give me a hard time. She cares about you. That’s nice.”
“Oh, if you’re enjoying this, then by all means.” Ashley swept a Help Yourself wave toward her sister.
Whitney set down her cutlery with a clank, as though ready to take up the challenge.
“Getting name, income, and points of vulnerability is standard procedure in this family, isn’t it?” Oliver spoke lightly as he gave Ryan’s fingers a wipe. “My ex-wife thought Ashley was hitting on her when she chatted her up at the grocery store.”
“She did not!” Ashley giggled and covered her mouth.
“Oh my gawd . You grilled her at the grocery store?” Whitney was horrified. “ When ?”
“How did she know who I was?” Ashley wasn’t denying it, I noted with amusement.
“Not at first. She was flattered, actually, then you said something about just getting home from Australia and she put it together. She thought I might want to know that my girlfriend’s sister was doing recon.” Oliver was tickled, not offended.
“Too far.” Whitney glared at Ashley.
“Your Aunt Gilly opened your father’s mail more than once,” Joanna mentioned idly.
“That’s illegal!” Fliss snapped her head around.
“Very illegal,” Ashley agreed. “She worked at the post office.”
“She could have been fired and I didn’t even listen to her. I should have.” Joanna shook her head with regret.
“Aunt Gilly was such a badass.” Whitney said wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to be like her.”
“Me, too.” Ashley turned to me and said in an awe-filled whisper, “She rode a motorcycle .”
“Which is why Aunt Gilly is not with us today,” Joanna said tartly.
Ashley, Fliss, and Whitney all bounced looks off each other as they heaved simultaneous sighs of resignation.