Chapter 42
BEAVERSHACK
Cricket
If you’d told me two months ago that I’d be hanging out in the sitting room of a gorgeous, if run-down, Victorian house in Sonoma Valley with people who’ve become more family to me than any family I’ve ever had, madly in love with a single dad, laughing over hate mail that’s flooded my inbox while my boyfriend’s parents egg us on, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But that’s exactly what’s happening two days after Lav’s birthday party.
Heath’s mother-in-law has had the fear of, well, me put in her, apparently.
Supposedly she’s left the state for good, but the sheriff has extra patrols going by Lav’s school for a while, and the principal knows the situation too.
Lav’s as safe as she can be without hiding her away from the world, which wouldn’t be good for her either.
So since she’s at school today, we’re all taking a much-needed decompression minute.
As a family.
We should be rushing around with wedding plans—it’s coming fast—but we’ve all needed this adult time together.
“Oh, look, more-muscles-than-brains with his clearly AI-enhanced photo says that Cricket should go lick her own pussy since no one else is ever going to do it for her, and he hopes she has a venerable disease on her tongue when she does, because he doesn’t know how to spell venereal,” Dori says.
She’s currently holding my phone and picking which email to share with the group.
Thor shakes his head. “To think people have brains and this is what they choose to use them for.”
“In all my years on the job, I never met a single woman who could’ve licked her own pussy.” Vivian taps her chin thoughtfully. “I’d come out of retirement to write a paper on that.”
“He clearly thinks it’s possible,” I say. “Maybe he’s the one-in-a-million with the right flexibility to suck his own dick. Except if that were the case, don’t you think he would’ve recorded himself doing it to show off?”
“And put it up on GrippaPeen,” Olivia says dryly, referencing GrippaBeav’s sister—brother?—site.
“Is this really healthy?” Heath asks.
“Yes,” Thor and Vivian and Dori and Ginny and Olivia and Samantha all say.
“Is who really wealthy?” Pip asks. “We need someone wealthy.”
“Healthy, Pip,” Ginny says.
“Can I join?” Mabel asks from the doorway. She’s the only one who’s been missing.
“How’s your sense of humor?” Vivian asks back.
“At least as good as Cricket’s when she caught me stuck in a beaver costume,” Mabel replies.
“Fuck, seriously?” Heath asks me.
“Oh my gosh, like a month ago,” I reply. “The weekend Ginny’s family was visiting. Did I forget to tell you that?”
“You did.”
I grin. “It was hilarious. See? I’m fully recovered from my trauma.”
I’m not fully recovered, but I’m getting closer by the day.
We started our reading of my new hate mail with me deleting all of the text messages that rolled in from my parents and sisters since the internet’s screaming about me again, this time in horror that Ava Benton’s widower would date the Cheeky Beaver.
Mabel plops a bottle of Makepeace wine on the table.
“We should quit drinking that and sell it instead,” I murmur.
“Only live once,” Mabel replies. “Go viral twice, you drink the wine.”
“At ten in the morning?”
“Especially at ten in the morning when I’m showing up with news.”
My heart speeds up.
Mabel having news—and being dramatic about it—this feels like something. “Good news?” I ask.
“We’ll see.”
“This place isn’t boring, is it?” Vivian murmurs to Thor.
“One day, the next evolution of humanity will hike North America, looking at broken electronics scattered trailside and whisper tales of how we brought our own demise by being more technologically advanced than we were evolved to handle,” he murmurs back.
“We’re witnessing a chapter in civilization’s history. ”
“Wow,” I say. “That was deep.”
“Apologies.” He grins at me.
I laugh.
“What does we’ll see mean?” Heath asks Mabel.
“It means it’s good and bad.”
He grabs the wine bottle and accepts a corkscrew from Olivia. “Wine it is, then.”
“I’ll get glasses,” Samantha says.
“You’re doing okay with going viral again?” Mabel asks me as she takes a spot leaning against the fireplace.
“Are you kidding? This is fantastic. I’ll stay current until we can start putting out Cheeky Beaver Chardonnay.”
Heath almost drops the wine. “What? No. Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely yes,” I reply. “I’m not managing grape fields if I can’t name a wine after myself.”
I don’t care if I don’t get a wine named after me, but it’s fun to watch his face battle itself from horror through protectiveness and finally land on a reluctant smile.
I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. “Lav can’t be the only one keeping you on your toes.”
“She won’t last that long,” Mabel tells Heath. “There’s a growing trend on socials related to a woman who made a video claiming to be Attila the Hun reincarnated that experience tells me will overtake attention on the two of you within the next three days.”
“Fascinating. Is this someone who’ll get invited here?” I ask.
“Unlikely, as the creepy factor was a bit too high.”
“You curate who comes here, and you picked me?” I joke.
Mabel’s expression softens. “Cricket. It’s impossible to not pick you. You have good vibes.”
“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I just—I meant I’m touched.”
“I know.”
“Ew,” Dori suddenly says. “Some guy named SpankySpankyHottie just emailed you.”
“Is it the name or the message that’s the problem?” Olivia asks as she returns with enough wine glasses for all of us.
“The Cheeky Beaver has destroyed Ava Benton’s widower and she should be dumped off a clip.”
“That fucker said what?” Heath says.
“A clip? Really, a clip?” Ginny asks.
“He actually spelled has and she wrong too,” Dori says. “But I didn’t want to say ahs and seh. Not as much impact. Or would it have been as much impact?”
“Probably about as much impact as his penis has if he has to call himself SpankySpankyHottie on the internet,” Samantha says.
“Very likely true,” Thor agrees.
“News,” Heath says, shaking his head at all of us, a smile lingering on his lips while he pours the wine. “Mabel, what’s the news?”
She glances at Ginny, then at the rest of us. “It’s not an investor, but an invited wedding guest reached out to ask if they could rent our space.”
“Another event?” Samantha sits straighter.
“Not exactly,” Mabel murmurs with another glance at Ginny.
Ginny frowns back. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“They apparently heard we’re planning to relaunch operations, and they want to film a documentary about us.”
“No,” Olivia says.
“Absolutely not,” Samantha agrees.
I glance at Heath.
He pauses in passing out wine glasses and glances back at me, frowning, and I know a million things are swirling through his mind.
“How much?” he asks Mabel.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re not doing it,” Olivia replies.
“How much?” Ginny says, echoing Heath.
“Ginny, no,” Samantha says.
“How much?” Ginny repeats.
“Enough to buy us three or four more months,” Mabel says. “After the grapes I’d have to negotiate with Winona so that we could actually look like we’re reopening operations this year.”
“Fuck,” Ginny whispers.
“Why are we still discussing this?” Olivia asks.
“None of us would have to be on camera unless we want to be,” Mabel says. “It’s a documentary, not a reality show. And the producer’s willing to discuss timing the release to coincide with us reopening the gift shop and tasting room.”
“Fuck,” Ginny whispers again.
“I couldn’t tell them yes or no without asking all of you how you’d feel about it,” Mabel says.
“We are not—” Olivia starts again, but Ginny cuts her off.
“Who?” she says. “Who’s involved?”
“It’s a retired hockey player who’s been doing self-made documentaries on social media about him trying to find a new career off the ice.”
Ginny grimaces.
Honestly, all of us do.
Ginny’s ex—the one whose wedding she interrupted—is a hockey player.
“I know,” Mabel murmurs.
“Who?” Ginny repeats. “What hockey player?”
Mabel cringes as she replies. “Declan Fox.”
Ginny’s lips part. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“You know him?” Olivia asks Ginny.
She grimaces. “He was—he was the best man.”
“Oh, shit,” Heath whispers, voicing my exact reaction too.
Dori’s eyes go huge.
Mabel’s cringing.
Even Pip seems shocked into silence.
“We’ll say no,” Samantha says.
“We will absolutely say no,” Olivia agrees.
“No, don’t—let’s not leap to hasty answers.” Ginny squeezes her eyes shut and blows out a slow breath. “I can—I can leave for a while. Not be involved. How big are his socials?”
“They’re we can’t buy this kind of publicity big,” Mabel says.
“Shit,” Ginny whispers.
“And we don’t have to decide today. We won’t do this if it makes you or anyone else uncomfortable,” Mabel says. “There’s always another way.”
“But there’s not.”
“There might be.” She glances at me. “Ready for more complicated big news?”
I raise my glass to her, happy to take the attention off of Ginny, who’s clearly struggling and needs some time to think. Possibly alone. “Bring it.”
“I located the owner of that GrippaBeav channel,” Mabel says.
The entire mood of the room shifts instantly.
“Oh! That’s fantastic news. Let’s go burn his house down,” Dori says.
“Get a picture of his balls and feed it through AI,” Olivia says.
“Send his boss proof so he gets fired from his day job,” Samantha says.
“Who’s got a poof and a laycock?” Pip says. “What’s a laycock? And why do I think that should be liecock instead? I always get lay and lie mixed up.”
Mabel’s not smiling like everyone else, and she doesn’t correct Pip.
“What?” I say to her. “What’s wrong?”
Not that I expected her to laugh—it takes a lot to make Mabel laugh—but I thought she’d at least crack a smile at some of these revenge ideas that are breaking the tension in the room.
Instead, she winces.
“Mabel?” Heath says.
He’s noticed too.
Of course he has.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, thumbs over the screen for a moment, and then shows us all a picture of a dark-haired dude with a mustache. The way he’s lit and the angle of the picture makes it look like he’s hunched over, leaning into a computer screen, captured by a webcam.
I gasp.
Actually gasp.
It comes from the tips of my toes all the way up, and the sudden surge of blood to my heart as my pulse triples makes me temporarily lightheaded. “No. No.”
“Who?” Heath says. “Who is that?”
Everyone’s staring.
I can barely force the words out. “My brother-in-law.”
Heath leaps back to his feet. “What?”
“You’re sure?” I ask Mabel. “You’re absolutely, completely, one hundred percent sure?”
Mabel nods once.
I wheeze out another breath, then take a long gulp of wine.
And then I stare at Mabel more. “Sure-sure? How?”
“I reached out, pretending to be an investor wanting to buy the channel off of him for an ungodly sum of money to start communications. When he was convinced I was serious, we had a video call. He’s expecting me to send a contract this week.” She fiddles with her phone again, then passes it to me.
It’s an email chain between Mabel and a guy named Romeo Walker.
My brother-in-law’s name.
My hand shakes as I read the email chain.
Heath grips my elbow. “You don’t have to read this.”
“He didn’t even use a fake email address,” I say.
“It wasn’t masked,” Mabel says. “I’m sorry, Cricket.”
“No. No, don’t be sorry. I needed—I needed to know this. Thank you. This—this is helpful.”
“Is it?” Heath murmurs to me.
I almost laugh. “Knowing that my own family is profiting off of me? Yes. It’s not good, but it’s helpful.”
Heath’s still watching me.
Not like he’s afraid I’ll break though.
Like he wants to be ready for whatever I might ask him to do to help me through this.
And I know what I want to do.
It’s so immediate that I don’t even question it.
“Set up another call with him,” I say to Mabel. “I want to see his face when he finds out I know.”
Mabel nods. “Can do.”
“Don’t make him suspicious.”
That gets a smile out of Mabel. “Oh, honey, this is not my first rodeo.”
Heath squats beside me and squeezes my knee. “Do you have any idea how strong you are?”
“I’m starting to catch on.”
“No small portion of the population would prefer to avoid this kind of conflict, especially with family,” Thor says. “What you’re doing is incredibly brave.”
“Then maybe no small portion of the population needs the kind of support system Mabel’s built here,” I reply.
“We’ll all be there if you need us,” Mabel says.
Two months ago, I didn’t know any of these people.
But today—today, they’re my whole world.
All of them.
And that’s what has my eyelids prickling with tears. “Mabel, I owed you a better compliment.”
She shakes her head. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. You are the best of the best of people, and you deserve all of the good things.”
Mabel blinks quickly. “So are you, Cricket. So are you.”
“You’re an unsung hero of the internet age.”
“Stop.”
“You are, hon,” Samantha says.
“When your story is told in history books, little girls will dress in all black and cat-eye glasses,” Olivia says.
“Awards will be named after you,” Ginny says.
“Stars and constellations too,” Dori says.
Mabel’s eyes go shiny. “Stop,” she says again.
Pip grabs her in a hug. “You’re the best family I’ve ever had. Forever and always.”
None of us are dry-eyed.
How could we be?
And this is what matters.
Not going viral.
Not people mocking us.
Not my brother-in-law profiting off of my video.
But real friends and family.
I think when I flashed the world, I did what I needed to do.
I needed to break myself to find myself.
And I’m so grateful that I got to find myself here.