Page 44 of Wrecked for the Holidays

“Probably for the same reason you changed your name when you got married and now sign everything under the sun as Mrs. Lindsey Hagen.”

I heard a sound from the tattooed oak tree that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but when I looked over, his perpetually angry expression was firmly in place.

“Did you not bring a contribution? Rather rude, wouldn’t you say? You’d think your boyfriend would know not to show up at someone’s home for a get-together without a contribution.”

This time, the sound from Beckett was unmistakably a derisive scoff.

“Mom, you know damn well we were all told not to bring anything this time because the aunts had a plan,” Beckett snapped as he got to his feet. “Dad said he wanted to talk to me about something. He’ll want you there, so we might as well go find him.”

With a curt nod in our direction, Beckett ushered her inside. Her complaints about the rudeness of making his dad wait rained down without even a break to catch her breath.

We stood silently as they disappeared inside the house.

“She’s…uhhh…something,” Jakob offered hesitantly.

“Yeah, a bitch. Sorry about that. I promise she and Lindsey are the worst. Everyone else is fine.”

“Is he okay?”

“Is who okay?”

“Your cousin? Beckett? Who else would I mean?”

I gave Jakob a smart smack to his ass that elicited a sharp gasp from him and a chuckle from me.

“He’s perpetually pissed off. You get used to him.”

“Hmm, if you say so, Papa. He seemed more sad than angry to me.”

Jakob’s words hung in the air, but Marjorie must have announced us because the horde of relatives now bore down on us in an attempt to get a better look at Jakob. As I expected, he stayed glued to my side, and for the most part, my relatives behaved themselves.

Jakob was quiet, as I’d expected, but my aunts fussed over his curls and offered him food non-stop. Beckett’s parents and a few random relatives were standoffish. I knew it was the gay thing, but it didn’t matter. I’d been out since before I left the island for college, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going back in the closet.

After we’d made the rounds through the house, saying hello and kissing great-aunts’ cheeks, we headed out to the backyard, where the cousins were sitting in lawn chairs around an unlit fire pit, drinking beer. Jonas and Elliott were playing a game of horseshoes with non-stop shit-talking. Cameron alternated between yelling over his shoulder at Beckett, who had ended up on the edge of the property just staring at the rest of us, and heckling the horseshoe game.

Jakob and I found our way to the enclosures. His favorite thing when we visited was to play with my mom’s pet goats. Since he wasn’t dressed to get in the pen, he resigned himself to feeding them carrots through the fence panels and scratchingtheir noses. If there was a better sound in the world than his giggles, I wasn’t aware of it.

“Papa, I have a goat?”

“Where would you keep one, silly boy?”

“In the house? I’d name her Goat-trude, and we’d be best friends.”

“As much as I’d love that for you, there isn’t enough room in our house for a goat.”

“Papa, why you gotta be a meanie?”

“Ahem.”

Jakob and I whipped around to see Beckett behind us.

“Jesus, how do you never make any sound?”

“That’s so cool you’re quiet like that. I bet you’d make an awesome ninja,” Jakob whispered.

“Yeah, sorry to interrupt. Your mom wanted you to come look at a rash.”

Jakob’s look of revulsion made me burst out laughing.

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