Chapter 31
A FEW GOOD ENEMIES
Cricket
The first thing I realize when I slip into the back door and through the mudroom of the main house is that the vibe is off.
Happy voices drift into the kitchen, but there’s something not right here.
I pause inside the hallway, trying to figure out why things feel off, and decide to approach the sitting room from the lesser-used door from the formal dining room.
When I peek in from this side, it takes me a minute to realize what’s wrong.
It’s Mabel.
She’s so tense that I can practically feel my own molars aching for her.
Caro and Mike have arrived—at least, that has to be Caro and Mike, right?
They have their backs to me. Caro’s taller than Ginny. She’s wearing shorts and heeled sandals and a loose-knit summer sweater over a pink tank top, with her hair tied up in a bun. Mike’s in jeans and a collared shirt, his curly hair sticking out from under his baseball cap.
Caro’s hugging Ginny, who’s smiling so widely that her eyes are squeezed shut. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Mike says.
Except that doesn’t sound like Mike.
Maybe he used a particular voice for his character in Strawberry Lemonade Sunshine?
And every other movie I’ve seen of his?
And the podcasts I’ve heard him do?
“Yes, actually, you are chopped liver,” Ginny says with a laugh as she moves to hug him.
Mabel’s eye visibly twitches.
She glances at me from the other doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest, spine ramrod straight, and I mouth are you okay?
Her eye twitches harder as her lips tighten and she nods sharply.
Oh, no.
Oh, no no no.
Did Mike already ruin her impression of her celebrity hero?
What did he do?
Will I have to hate him now too?
How will we pull off this wedding?
We have to pull off this wedding. It’s much-needed income while we keep looking for the perfect investor.
“I know I’m a poor substitute for Mike, but I’m not that bad, pipsqueak,” Mike says.
Except that’s clearly not Mike.
That can’t be Mike.
Ginny pokes him in the side. “Call me that again and you’ll wake up with peanut butter in your sheets.”
Samantha and Olivia rush in from the hallway entrance, and for once, they’re the clumsy ones, jostling each other.
Caro and Ginny and not-Mike all turn to look at us, and oooooohhhhh.
I know him.
Not know-know, but know who he is.
While I didn’t watch the reality TV show about Ginny’s childhood, I saw advertising for it, and I recognize Ginny’s whole family.
And this explains Mabel’s eye twitch.
“Oh, you’re here,” Ginny says. She glances my way too. “Cricket, meet my sister, Caro. She’s one of my very favorite people. And this guy’s unfortunately my brother, Ten.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Ten says to me with a grin and a wink and a dramatic bow.
“Oh, lordy,” Olivia mutters. “Here we go again.”
“It’s so good to see you again, Caro,” Samantha says, taking the lead in reaching the bride-to-be first and squeezing her in a hug.
Caro hugs her back, her eyes the same warm blue as Ginny’s. “Sorry to be so early, but Ginny mentioned coffee cake last night, and you know I love your coffee cake. I thought I could help make it.”
“I’ll help eat it,” Ten says.
Ginny’s smiling as she rolls her eyes. “And then do the dishes.”
He acts like she’s stabbed him in the heart as he punches himself in the chest and staggers dramatically, then falls onto the couch. “Noooo, not the dishes,” he moans.
If Mabel’s eye twitches any harder, her whole face might break. “Heaven forbid, the dishes.”
“Mike had a friend call in a favor last night, so Ten’s here in his place,” Ginny says to Olivia and me as I join the rest of my friends in the room.
“Who got a bend in their face?” Pip asks as she too comes in from the hallway.
She’s wearing a leopard print miniskirt that’s so mini it might actually be a wide headband, with matching pink daisies pasted over both her good nipple and her burned-off nipple.
Her headpiece of the day is a black flapper headband with a red feather sticking up out of the fake diamond centerpiece, and she’s finished her ensemble with a pearl necklace and matching earrings.
“Tennessee came in Mike’s place,” Mabel says loudly.
“Hey, Pip,” Ten says. “Love the fit. Mabel full-name you yet today too?”
“Did Mabel skull game me?” Pip says. “Is that one of those things you Hollywood people are doing these days?”
“Mabel, I need help in the kitchen,” Olivia says.
I don’t need to be told that there’s something up between Mabel and Ten, but Pip says it anyway.
“Mabel hates Ten because she can’t do his handshakes,” she tells me.
Ten leaps off the couch and holds out a fist, then meets Pip in the middle of the sitting room, where they do a handshake that would take me at least an hour to learn, complete with butt-wiggling and hip-bumping and jazz hands at the end.
“Mabel hates Ten because he’s an ass,” Olivia murmurs to me as she pushes me toward the kitchen.
“He’s not an ass. He just has…personality,” Samantha whispers on my other side.
“Not a great one.”
“I think it’s all an act to hide his insecurities since he was the one who got the most attention from On the Rhodes.”
“He’s a grown-ass man who can choose to do better at any point.”
Having experienced going viral firsthand, I can appreciate insecurities that come from attention, even if I’m unsure of how he apparently handles it.
“Whatcha been up to, Pipster?” Ten asks behind us.
“Playing hard and wrecking hearts,” she says.
“Wicked.”
“You?”
“Playing hearts and wrecking hard.”
“Epic.”
“Caro, we’re so excited to host your wedding,” Samantha says as we reach the kitchen. “Sit. Coffee? Oh, wait, you like tea. Teakettle’s going on. Which kind of coffee cake? Rhubarb cream or traditional streusel? And you have to tell us all about how Mike proposed.”
For once, I’m not the most verbally vomity person in the room.
I’m actually mildly speechless.
I join Mabel as she’s refilling her coffee cup with a shaky hand.
“What can I do?” I murmur.
“Keep him the fuck away from me.”
I shoot a look down the hallway, then back at Mabel.
Definitely not the time to ask what happened.
It’s time to be helpful. “Any restrictions?”
“No.”
“None at all?”
“Keep him from doing anything that’ll require anyone to call for any kind of emergency services beyond what Heath can do here, and don’t let him kill Pip.”
That’s not an ominous request at all. “On it.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
She snorts softly. “I give it an hour before it’s not.”
I text Heath on my way back to the living room, giving him the heads-up that Ginny’s brother, Ten, is here in place of Mike, and asking if he knows what happened between Mabel and Ten.
All I get in response is one word—fuck.
That’s also not ominous.
“Hey, Pip, remember last week, Heath was wearing those pants you hated of Dean’s?” I say as I reach the living room.
“Dude, she said the devil’s name,” Ten whispers out of the side of his mouth to Pip as he looks me up and down.
“My dead husband was a clown. He loved being a clown. Wore all of the clown makeup. Had to wear big shoes to make him feel like his feet were bigger.” She pinches her fingers together and squints at them. “Know what I mean?”
He grins at her.
She grins back.
“You doing better with that then?” he asks.
“Eh? Who’s puking netters?”
“Nice try, old lady.”
“Call me that again and I’ll show you old.”
They’re both grinning at each other like long-lost besties finally together again.
“I was thinking about clearing out the tasting room in case any of the wedding guests want a tour,” I tell them. “But I didn’t want to accidentally keep or throw away the wrong things from…the devil. If you had other plans for them.”
Pip winks at me. “C’mon, Ten. Mabel wants you out of the house, and Cricket’s the poor sacrificial lamb who has to babysit us today.”
Ten looks me up and down again, then grins at me too. “Lucky Cricket. That your real name?”
“Yep.”
“Your parents must be epic too.”
“In their own unique way.”
Pip leads us to the front door, Ten on her heels like a puppy.
If he knows who I am—if he saw my video—he’s not giving any indication.
I could like him for that if I wasn’t already on high alert due to Mabel’s reaction to him.
“Cricket redid the garden,” Pip says. “You should hit on her. It’ll make Heath lose his mind.”
“You’re so much trouble, Pip,” Ten says. “My favorite thing about you.”
I do less leading and more trailing along the dirt path to the front of the property where the tasting room is, The Cluckinator following along behind us.
Not long into our trek, we cross paths with Heath and Lavender.
“Ten!” Lav shrieks.
She breaks into a run and throws herself at him, and he lifts her in the air, nearly tossing her like my dad used to toss my nephews and nieces when they were toddlers.
“Lav, my friend, how’s life?” he asks as he sets her down and they also do a complicated handshake, though less complicated than his greeting with Pip.
“Can’t complain,” she says. The hair on the left half of her scalp is in a ponytail, and the hair on the right side is in a braid.
And she’s wearing orange pants, a pink skirt, and a bright blue T-shirt with more rhinestones on it, though these aren’t in any particular pattern.
Heath looks at me.
My heart pitter-patters, and I smile, unable to help myself.
“Text if you need me,” he murmurs.
“Nobody’s sexting today.” Pip shakes a finger at him. “And in front of your daughter?”
“What’s sexting?” Lav asks.
“It’s all about the number seven,” Ten says. “Sextuplets are when someone has seven babies at a time, which is a terrifying thought. Did you know Pip’s afraid of sevens?”
Heath opens his mouth.
Closes it again.
Sucks in a smile.
None of us correct Ten on sex being about six, not seven, when talking numbers.
“Good to see you too, daddy-dude,” Ten says to Heath. “Nice job making this kid grow.”
Ten flings an arm around both me and Pip. “Gotta go, though. I’ve got two hot dates all day today so that Mabel doesn’t lose her shizz.”
Now Heath’s eye twitches.
“Beer later?” Ten says.
“Sounds great,” Heath replies mildly.
“Wicked.”
I look back at Heath as Ten marches us back along the path.
Lav’s watching us like she wants to come, but Heath has a firm grip on her shoulder.
Good luck, he mouths to me.
I blow him a kiss.
Actually, I blow it toward Lav, but the way his cheeks go pink too—he knows.
He knows it’s for him.
If I thought I was chaos—I’m as chaotic as a butterfly compared to Ten.
This weekend suddenly got a lot more interesting.