Chapter 15
Tucker
I’m thankful when Autumn disappears into the bathroom. Thankful for a few moments to think.
Yes, it was quiet in the truck on the way back from the airport, Jane asleep in the back and Autumn too silent in the passenger seat to actually be sleeping.
I’d heard enough of her cute buzzy snoring last night and on the way to the airport to know she’s not a soundless sleeper.
And it was fine if she wanted to fake it.
I wasn’t in the right mood to chat, either, not after the weird intensity of the interaction in Joe’s parking lot.
The happiness influencer is not happy.
She pretends to be. She pretends so hard that she convinces herself.
But she’s not.
And it bothers me.
Which…bothers me. Because her happiness isn’t part of this equation. It’s not anything I’m responsible for.
And yet I want to know why it’s so damn important to her to be happy.
I can tell it has something to do with her sister. The way she falls all over herself to make sure everything is perfect for Summer.
There’s a whole story here.
I never want to know people’s stories. I quit wanting to know people’s stories after Elizabeth died, and I’ve been pretty sure I’d never want to know again.
But for the first time in as long as I can remember, I want to know someone’s why.
And that scares the shit out of me.
I’m so deep in my head that I totally fail to brace myself for Autumn’s emergence from the bathroom.
She steps out of the bathroom, bringing with her the scent of a whole fucking garden.
She’s wearing a blue dress with a big square neckline and those kinds of sleeves that only cover your shoulders. It’s got a lacy pattern—tiny cutouts in the fabric arranged like flowers. And it’s barely long enough to be called a dress. Under any other circumstances, it would be an oversized shirt.
Fuck me, that’s a lot of long, lean leg, including the part of her thigh where the skin goes white because it never sees the sun.
And the strappy silver sandals make my mouth go dry.
Her arms are mostly bare, and I can see the upper curves of her tits, heaped high in a bra whose outline shows through the thin fabric of the dress.
I must make a rough sound because Autumn’s eyes flash to my face, and there’s surprise in them. I cover my awkwardness with a cough. I’m about to say something dorky about having something in my throat, but my words are arrested by the expression on her face as her eyes move over me.
There’s a lovely flush on her cheeks as she checks me out in my favorite gray suit. And I wish I didn’t give a shit, but I do. I like it way, way, way too fucking much, the way she looks at me.
“You look very—” she begins, at the same time as I say, “You look beau—” and we both stop.
I cough again. “You look beautiful,” I say, trying not to sound like a high school senior who wishes he’d thought to get his prom date a corsage.
“You, too,” she says.
The moment stretches, and then she looks away and reaches for her purse. “We should go down,” she says.
The welcome party is in a tent on the hotel’s side lawn.
As we make our way toward the center of the party, Autumn greets friends and family members and introduces me as her boyfriend.
I do my best to look like someone Autumn would date, someone who remembers how to…
if not smile, then at least not scowl. Autumn does most of the talking, which makes things easier.
It’s all fine until Uncle Willie asks what I do for a living, and then I freeze.
Autumn says, “He’s an authentic business coach.”
I have no idea what those words mean in that order.
“He specializes in joyful productivity.”
“Oh!” Uncle Willie says. “So…er, what’s that?”
Autumn shoots me a look that’s three-quarters terror and one quarter…damn, is that glee?
She’s messing with me.
“It’s when you…” I begin. Joyful productivity.
What the actual fuck? Okay, I can do this.
It’s a little like the improv class they made me take during my private-security training.
I hated the fuck out of it, but here we are.
“You prioritize the things on your to-do list that—” What’s that phrase that everyone says, the nausea-inducing one? Oh, yes. “—that spark joy.”
“‘Spark joy,’” Uncle Willie says. “I’ve always wondered what that meant. You know what sparks joy for me? Sleeping late and drinking a big cup of very dark coffee. Not very productive, right?”
“My philosophy…” I had no idea all this bullshit lived in me.
It’s alarming to discover but also kind of…
am I having fun? How did that happen? “My philosophy is that our ideas about what is productive are all wrong. Sometimes drinking coffee is the most”—what the fuck is that word?
—“fertile ground for taking the next step.”
Autumn is staring at me open-mouthed in obvious surprise and awe, and honestly, it’s making me feel a little lightheaded.
“Oh, wow,” her uncle says. “I’ll never see my morning coffee the same way again.”
When Willie moves on, Autumn says, “Coffee is fertile ground, huh?”
“What?” I demand. “I could make ten-K per keynote speech off that, couldn’t I?”
Her smile is a thing of beauty. “Not gonna lie—you probably could.”
“Joyful productivity. You’re a sadist.”
“It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“Your subconscious is a sadist.”
She snickers. “Could be.”
I’m thinking the worst is over; people are moving toward their tables—assigned seating—when I spot a familiar face. Very familiar.
It’s my brother Shane, carrying a tray and wearing the white shirt and black slacks that mark him as a server for the event.
“He has the crab cakes!” Autumn says, tugging me toward Shane before I can steer us both in the opposite direction.
I clock the exact moment Shane recognizes me—and the confusion that immediately follows.
“What are you…?” he asks at the same time I manage my “What the hell are you doing…?”
“Some of Hanna’s people got food poisoning, and she had to recruit us at the last minute,” he says. “But what are you doing here?” His eyes travel from Autumn to me and back again, cloyingly curious.
Apparently Hanna hasn’t told our brothers about our solution to the will problem.
I’m about to explain—the real explanation—when Autumn gives a sharp tug on my sleeve.
I turn my head to discover that Summer is immediately to her left, wearing a tiara.
“Hello!” Summer says buoyantly. “I know you!” She says this last to Shane. “You’re Mavryx Extyllior.”
That’s the name of the fae lord that Shane played in his most famous movie series.
Literally the only reason I know that is because he’s my brother.
You couldn’t have paid me to watch the movies otherwise.
I have to admit, though, I didn’t hate them as much as I was expecting.
I did have to close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears at some point, because even if he was playing a role, there are things you don’t need to see or hear your brother doing.
“I love those movies,” Summer says breathlessly. “You were amazing.”
“Thanks,” Shane says offhandedly. “They were fun.”
Fun is an absurd way to describe one of the most famous movie franchises of all time and a body of acting that has meant that Shane won’t have to work for the rest of his life unless he wants to (which, mysteriously, he does), but we’re all used to it by now.
“I’m also Tucker’s brother. My wife Ivy’s around here somewhere, with the shrimp skewers—” He swivels, spots her, and points. “We’re pitching in for Hanna tonight, as you can guess from the outfits.” He gestures down at his black and white.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a brother, too!” Summer says to Tucker.
“Four actually,” Autumn says.
“Whoa! Well, super nice to meet you,” Summer says. “We all love Tucker! You should have seen him with my grandma earlier today—he was so good with her! And he and Autumn went to get Janie today when her flights got all screwed up. He’s a great guy. So there are five of you, right? Five brothers?”
“Uh, yeah—five brothers plus Hanna,” Shane says.
“I adore big families!” Summer hugs herself. “One more reason Tucker’s a keeper,” she says to Autumn.
I try to catch Shane’s eye, to signal to him that there’s more to this story, that I’ll explain it all later, but he’s too busy holding out his hand to Autumn, saying, “Autumn, huh? It’s really nice to meet you.
I’m Shane. Ivy and I are cooking breakfast for the family tomorrow morning”—he frowns at me—“as you would know if you ever checked your phone—and if you and Tucker want to be there, we’d love to have you both.
And Summer, you and…” Shane inclines his head toward Jane, who has materialized, wearing a tiara that’s the exact match of Summer’s.
“Jane,” she says, holding out her hand, shaking Shane’s hand. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”
I’ll have to grab Shane sometime tonight and sort him out. There’s no way Autumn and I are going to go to a breakfast where we have to pretend, in front of my entire family—for the benefit of hers—that we’re dating.
My family would see through it in a second. Shane must have already guessed that it’s some kind of will-related bullshit. My other siblings would piss themselves laughing once they got wind. We’d never pull it off.
I’m about to make some half-assed excuse about wedding stuff we can’t miss when Summer jumps in.
“Thank you! We’d love that! Right, Autumn?”
“Uh,” says Autumn. “Isn’t there a wedding activity then? Or something else we need to do…?”
Summer thinks about it. “No,” she says. “Totally free tomorrow till noon.”
Well, shit.