Chapter 6
I was sixteen when the twins, Iris and Parker, were born.
No one was expecting my parents to have more children after so many years. Not even them. My mother never actually said so, but I suspect they were using the rhythm method for birth control, and the twins were the predictable result.
But my parents were still young and healthy enough for the surprise new additions to our family to be celebrated. And so was Tessa when she was born two years later.
My parents never asked or required me to do a lot of caretaking of the younger children, but being me, I took it on myself anyway. I parentified myself if such a thing is possible.
I looked after them a lot in their early years, and ever since our parents died, I’ve done even more.
I love all five of my sisters—none more than the others. But my relationship with Audrey and Natalie is different than with the younger three. I feel maternal toward them as much as sisterly.
Maybe when they’re older that will change, but Tessa is still only eleven and the twins are thirteen.
They’re at entirely different stages of life than me.
Shortly after she became the legal guardian of the youngest four (since Natalie was still underage then), Aunt Grace instituted Sunday evenings as family time, a tradition we’ve continued all these years.
At thirteen, the twins have gotten a little eye-roll-y about it sometimes, but they’ve never asked to sit out.
The next day, we’re all there—the six of us plus Aunt Grace—at five to make homemade individual pizzas and play board games. Tonight the game choice is Risk, which was my father’s favorite and one we play regularly in honor of him.
We divide into four teams since we’re too many to play as individuals. I immediately volunteer to be a team on my own because I know no one else will want to do it.
No one objects.
I’m not a good enough player for the more competitive among us to care, and Audrey, the best, gets nabbed immediately by Tessa, who treats all games like life-and-death.
Two hours into the game, being a purely defensive player, I’m focused only on holding on to Australia. I let the rest of the teams battle for the larger continents and enjoy the good spirits.
Parker is in that mood where she can’t stop laughing, and Tessa is screaming outlandish, old-fashioned insults she learned from watching too many pirate movies whenever another team makes a successful advance.
Iris has always been the shyest and quietest of us all, but even she is flushed and giggling as she and Aunt Grace conference briefly before making their move.
“How could you attack us like that, you scurvy knaves!” Tessa was barely perched on her stool as she watched the play, and she jumps up with her loud exclamation, making wild gesticulations as she fences with an invisible sword.
Parker almost falls out of her stool laughing. The twins are identical with chestnut-brown hair and green eyes, but Parker keeps hers in a bob while Iris’s has grown all the way down her back, so it’s easy for anyone to tell them apart.
When she and Natalie make their next move, pushing Tessa and Audrey all the way out of Central America, Tessa howls in indignation and Parker and Natalie get up to do an impressively synchronized victory dance.
It’s my turn next, which I take as they’re all in a chaos of laughter from Tessa jumping up to try to out-dance her opponents, swishing her invisible sword all the while.
My move is to shore up more troops in Australia.
“You’re so boring, Ellie!” Tessa has stopped dancing to inspect the board again. “The name of the game is Risk!” The last word is another shout.
“I know. But I’m not a risky person. I like being all safe and secure on my own with all the kangaroos, wombats, and koalas.”
“But you’ll never win like that!”
“I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to not get demolished.”
Tessa sniffs and tsks her tongue with exaggerated disapproval at my cowardice, but then her focus returns to whisper strategy with Audrey.
Before they’ve even settled on their next move, there’s a knock on the door.
We usually have family night at the largest cottage—where Aunt Grace lives with the youngest three—but she’s in the middle of a major craft project, and the kitchen and dining table are covered with pottery. So we’re in our cottage instead, crowded around the table.
I get up to answer the door and blink in surprise when I see it’s Wes standing on the doorstep.
He’s dressed casually in jeans and a gray T-shirt, but he still manages to look good.
“Oh.”
His mouth twitches. “Oh. Are you busy?”
“We’re just having family night.” I step back to let him into the cottage. “It’s just Wes,” I call to the others, all peering over except Tessa, who is ruthlessly studying the board.
“Just Wes. Very flattering.” Despite his dry words, he still looks warm and amused as he comes in. “Sorry to interrupt. I forgot it was family night.”
“No worries at all,” Aunt Grace tells him, greeting him with a gracious smile. “We’re a little wild tonight.”
“Not Ella, surely.” He’s focused on the others, but he slants me a teasing look. “I’ve never known her to be wild.”
I flush and give him a playful swat.
“She’s not wild,” Tessa confirms with impressive solemnity. “She won’t move out of Australia. She says she’s safe and secure there with the kangaroos and wombats and doesn’t want to take a risk.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Hey!” I give Wes another light swat until I realize I don’t normally touch him this much, so I put a step or two of distance between us.
“Why would you assume it’s an insult?”
“It was definitely an insult when Tessa said it.”
“It is an insult!” She gives Wes a dramatic salute. “Only yellow-bellied scoundrels are too scared to take risks.”
“I’m not sure scoundrel is the word you’re looking for there,” Audrey says, breaking into the laughter.
While Tessa and Audrey discuss more appropriate pirate vocabulary, Wes explains, “I just came to drop off the budget sheets Dad and I finished.”
Wes always helps his father with the budget and then emails me the necessary documents. But Jake, being Jake, insists we also need a hard copy.
I take the pages, which are secured with a large paper clip. “Thanks.” I’m smiling down at them. (I don’t know why.)
“We estimated extra for maintenance and housekeeping on the assumption we’ll be having more events here next quarter.”
“Yeah, that sounds right. Thanks for helping with this.”
“I don’t mind.”
I’m embarrassed for no good reason. Hot and jittery, I keep staring down at the pages.
I suspect almost everyone at the table is watching me and Wes with interest.
Aunt Grace saves me by waving Wes over to the table. “Come and join us.”
“I couldn’t intrude on family time.”
“You’re mostly family,” Parker tells him. “You’re around all the time.”
“Is that a hint I should make myself scarcer?”
“Oh, I don’t care what you do.” Parker isn’t being rude. She’s turned back to the game and is only half paying attention to Wes now.
But her words make everyone else snicker.
“I’m not sure this visit is turning out to be good for my ego.” Wes has stepped closer and is studying the game board, studying my impressive number of troops crowded into Australia.
“You can be on Ella’s team,” Audrey tells him. “She’s the only one on her own.”
“Wait!” Tessa is immediately on alert at a possible threat to her supremacy. “Are you any good?”
“I haven’t played this game for years and years.” Wes goes to grab the last stool from against the wall and squeezes it between me and Iris. “I’m sure I’m no good at all.”
“Okay. You can be with Ella then.”
“Thank you for the permission.” Wes’s tone and expression is bone dry. “I need a moment to catch up and discuss strategy with my new partner.”
When we lean toward each other, our faces are less than an inch apart. My heart jumps, and my flush deepens down my neck.
Wes makes a show of keeping our whispered discussion secret by picking up the top of the box and blocking our heads from the others with it.
Our conversation is mostly a brief, good-natured debate about how aggressively we can expand out of Australia.
When the game resumes, the competition heightens because the rest of them rightfully understand that my team might now be a threat. Over the next half hour, thanks to Wes’s sharp thinking, we’re able to take over New Guinea, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia.
“No!” Tessa howls, falling to the floor and clutching an invisible wound in her chest. “We never should’ve let Wes play with us! He’s too good!”
Parker is also visibly annoyed by the new competition, and even Natalie seems good-naturedly frustrated when gameplay is harder than it was before. Grace, Iris, and Audrey don’t care much about winning and so are enjoying the way Wes’s presence is disrupting our typical dynamics.
At eight forty-five, Aunt Grace calls an end, which is just as well since Tessa is starting to get a little grumpy.
Wes and I didn’t have time to make up ground, so a tie is declared between Parker and Natalie’s team and Tessa and Audrey’s.
The safest outcome for the preservation of our good moods.
Grace and the younger girls leave after the final decisions are made because having them help clean up always extends the process. Wes does stay to help me pick up the game and straighten the furniture as Natalie and Audrey clean up the kitchen.
With all of us working, it doesn’t take long.
I don’t have any particular desire to see Wes leave, but there’s no way to have him stay longer without me dissolving into a puddle of self-consciousness.
Maybe if it was only the two of us but not with Audrey and Natalie watching and whispering from the kitchen.
Wes looks from me to them and then back. “Okay. I guess that’s it for me. Thanks for letting me join. It was really fun.”
“It was. Thanks for improving my performance.”
“Anytime you want help taking risks, I’m your man.”
I’m not sure he intended the comment to come across the way it did because he blinks and jerks slightly, as if he just heard what he said.
I look at the floor and try to hide behind my hair, but it’s not an unpleasant feeling.
I can’t seem to stop smiling.
Wes glances over again to my sisters. Then murmurs, “Walk me out?”
“Yeah.” I’m relieved even though there is no sensible reason to escort him the short distance to the end of the front walk.
When we’re outside, the brisk night air cools me down and relieves me. We walk down the front step and then the sidewalk that leads to the paved drive in silence.
Reaching it, we both stop.
“Well,” I say, hugging my arms to my chest.
I wish he could stay longer. I wish we could hang out. I wish I had a clue about what is happening here.
“Well.” He clears his throat. “Thanks again for letting me join. It’s nice. Having a big family like that.”
“It is. It’s not been the same without Mom and Dad, but it still… it still feels like family. You and Jake can join us anytime you want. No one would mind.”
“I know. Maybe we will occasionally. Although it’s already Dad’s bedtime.”
I chuckle at that. “He gets up so early.”
“Yeah, he does.”
When I risk a quick glance up at his face, Wes’s eyes are dark in the light of the moon. Dark and soft and something else that makes my breath hitch.
I stare up at him, my lips parted slightly.
“Well.” Wes shifts his weight from foot to foot.
“Well.”
“Well.” When he hears himself repeat the word again, he huffs in amusement.
So do I.
“So tomorrow we’ll run into each other at Rooster’s,” I say, finally landing on something to get us past the moment.
“Sounds good. I’ll see you there.”
“Yeah. See you there.”
Shit, I’m starting the repetition again. Why can’t I make my brain work?
Wes turns to walk away but then swings back around. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but doesn’t. Instead, he leans closer.
And I know—I know, I know—he’s about to kiss me.
And I want it so much.
More than anything.
I’m swaying toward him, preparing to stretch up to meet his mouth with mine, when a flash of light breaks into the tension between us.
Both of us jerk backward. Then shift in the direction of the flash.
“Wh—?” Wes scowls as he peers in the darkness. “What the hell?”
“Did she just take a picture of us?” I’m trying to figure out what I just saw, but it sure looks like a woman crossed into the private area of the gardens where our cottages are located and just snapped a photo of me and Wes.
Me and Wes about to kiss.
“Yes, she did.”
Then, before my brain can catch up, Wes takes off after the woman at a run.
“Wes!” I call after him, shocked and confused and half amused at the ridiculous situation. “Wes, don’t bother!”
My words don’t stop him. He’s racing down the drive in the direction the woman took off in.
I follow at a leisurely jog and catch up with him at the gate that blocks us from the public areas.
On the weekends, the gardens are open until nine, so she was probably just a regular visitor who decided it was worth trying to catch us unaware.
She did indeed.
Wes is scowling out at the path through the cherry trees and panting loudly. He was really booking it, trying to catch her.
I’m laughing as I stand beside him. “What exactly were you going to do when you caught her? Tackle her to the ground and snatch her phone away?”
He falls into wheezy chuckles. “No. Of course not. I’m not even sure what I was trying to do. It’s just obnoxious. Not only is she breaking policy here, but she was intruding on our privacy.”
“I know she was. It was a nasty thing to do. But unless we’re willing to install bodyguards, I’m not sure how we can stop it. It won’t last forever.”
“I know.”
“And we actually do want the publicity.”
“I know that too.”
“So why the dramatics?”
“I have no idea.” He shakes his head ruefully and takes my arm as we start walking back to the cottages. “I just reacted. I was pissed.”
“Yeah.”
Honestly, now that I think about it, I’m kind of pissed too.
Because Wes was about to kiss me.
And now he’s not.
Wes walks me back to the front path of my cottage. He’s caught his breath now, and his face is relaxed and wry and warm. “What a way to end a good evening.”
“I know. But it absolutely was a good evening.”
Spontaneously and without second-guessing myself, I reach up to give him a soft, quick hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
One of his arms tightens around me very briefly before he pulls back. “Good night, Ella.”
“Good night.”
This time when he turns away, he keeps walking until he’s out of sight.