“Fuck my life,” Theo moans.
They all keep yakking about Christmas presents and who is going to score first in the family game tomorrow. I appreciate the discussion has steered clear of my career. But their efforts to not talk about the elephant in the room have kind of made the elephant feel like he’s sitting on my chest, especially when it’s just us because our careers and the game are usually all we talk about. I’m uncomfortable.
“The jet lag getting to you yet, Tate?” Theo asks him. “You look sad or tired. I can’t tell. So it’s either jet lag or you’re a sadpanda because your Silver Bay bunny didn’t come home for the holidays.”
“Neither. And don’t call her that,” Tate grumbles. “She’s not a puck bunny.”
“No. Of course not,” Grady quips. “She just fucks you, a professional hockey player, every time she sees you.”
“She falls on his dick, it’s purely accidental,” Theo adds.
“You need to stop,” Tate grumbles. “Diana is officially out of the picture. She got engaged to some British dude and is staying in London. Mallory emailed me about it last week. I think I’m more upset Mal is staying with her. She’s a good friend.”
“She’s an Echolls,” Grady grumbles.
“Fuck off with that. She moved to England to get away from her family,” Tate counters. “Now change the subject before I bolt.”
“Well if we can’t pick on you, and we can’t pick on Con what the hell are we supposed to do?” Theo asks and then his brown eyes flare and he realizes his mistake.
"Why can't you pick on me?" I ask, raising both my eyebrows and letting my eyes scan the room. Grady is looking at Theo. Theo is looking at Tate. Tate is looking at Grady. No one is looking at me. "Fucking hell. Dad! What did you say to them?"
My dad’s head appears in the entryway to the kitchen. “Me? What? Huh?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter and start to stand up. “Telling everyone not to pick on me isn’t helping Dad. It makes it weirder.”
“Well, I don’t know what will help,” he replies and the angst in his voice is another new thing, like the disappointment. Fucking great.
“Con, we don’t know how to act. Not because of what’s happening with your career, but because of how you’re reacting to it,” Uncle Jordan tells me as he, too, pops his head out of theentrance to the kitchen. He’s holding a dish towel and wiping a wine glass. “You’ve never been so down.”
“Do you blame me?” I ask like I’ve just been attacked but I know, deep down, that’s not what my uncle is doing.
Theo, always the one to try and broker peace in the family, which I think he gets from his mom, my aunt Rose, sits straighter on the sofa. “Con, stop fighting with them so they can go back to cleaning the kitchen before they realize they forgot to ask us to help.”
“Now that you bring it up…” Uncle Jordan starts.
"Nope! We're busy picking on Con because he doesn't want this to be weird" Tate tells his dad, standing up and walking over to me. "So, Con, time to tell me when you started hooking up with Mac Larue."
“Oh god,” I moan, and Tate cups my shoulder and pushes me sideways so he can sit on the couch too.
“Dude, older woman. Nice score there,” Theo says. “I had no idea Mac was even on your radar. Or that anyone was. You’re a monk for hockey.”
“I’m not a monk, Theo,” I grumble as I sip my wine, which has cooled off almost too much. “I’ve had a few girlfriends in Brooklyn.”
“Oh really? Well none of them were brought to Silver Bay so none of them were serious,” Tate announces, because thatisactually the standard for significant others in our family. If you bring them home to the madness, then they’re special.
“And I’m not dating Mac,” I explain as I sink into the comfy couch cushions, the wine finally loosening the knot between my shoulder blades. It only took six glasses. “I needed a place to crash and had no idea she was living in the apartment above the barn.”
“Do you ever look at the group chat?” Theo asks me, his big dark eyes wide with amazement. “Ten explained how Mac hadbeen screwed over by Beckett and needed a place to live and she offered the barn apartment, like,monthsago.”
“You people yammer so much on that thing I have it on mute,” I admit.
“I thought you learned your lesson about muting us when you showed up at the church the day of Harlow’s wedding,” Theo says, getting up and heading over to the bar in the corner to pull out another beer, even though I cut him off earlier. I know Dad and Uncle J won’t want him having a fourth. He’s not legal and we look the other way on holidays but there are limits. I don’t say anything though, because he won’t listen anyway. “If you hadn’t muted the group, you would have known she pulled a runaway bride thing.”
Right. That was a good time. Being the only Garrison to show up to a church full of the groom’s family five minutes after they found out Harlow had backed out. Zero stars. Do not recommend.
“Yeah well, you guys literally ramble on at all hours about garbage,” I say, twisting the cap off the beer. “Last time I looked at the chat, your dad was asking for step-by-step instructions on how to hook up his new modem. And Shelby was ranting on about something to do with seafood killing us all.”
"She watched a doc on how the fishing industry is destroying the ocean," Theo clarifies. "And my dad is absolutely useless with technology. Harlow ended up going over and fixing it for him. Also, both those threads were from, like, seven months ago."