Chapter 15

15

Wyatt

Davis declines joining Tucker and me down in Shipwreck for the kick-off to the treasure dig, so it's just the two of us walking along Blackbeard Avenue, heading for the center square. We haven't yet figured out any of the clues to find the hidden peg leg around town, but neither of us cares. We're having fun with everything else.

"Dad, can I get a tattoo?" Tucker asks.

"What? No. You're seven."

"Motherfucker! Motherfucker!" a voice calls.

I clap my hands over Tucker's ears and look around at the various tourists joining us on the sidewalk, but they're all just as confused as I am.

Grady Rock pops his shaggy head out of the bakery. "Hush your craw, Long Beak Silver. There are kids around."

We all follow his gaze to the cannons sticking over the edge of the roof at Cannon Bowl next door, where old Pop's parrot is perched. "Eat shit," the parrot replies.

"Ah, go walk the plank," Grady says.

The parrot waddles to the end of the cannon, lifts a foot, sways, and plummets toward the ground.

Everyone gasps, but the bird flaps its wings at the last second and takes off across the street to perch on the movie theater's marquee.

"Asshole parrot," Grady mutters as he ducks back into his shop.

I let go of Tucker's ears, but he's stopped and is staring in the bakery window. " Those tattoos, Dad," he says.

Oh. Right.

The temporary tattoos that are in baskets all over town. "Oh. Yes."

We grab a handful inside, and Tucker tells Grady he makes the best donuts in the universe, and I end up getting both of us a plain glazed donut for fuel for the dig, though I'm eyeballing the banana pudding donuts. "Banana flavoring?" I ask Grady.

He shudders. "Vanilla pudding with real bananas. They're new. Want one?"

"Ellie will."

That earns me a knowing grin. He glances down at Tucker then back to me, and mouths, padded headboards .

I give him a glare that usually makes lieutenants quake, but he just grins bigger.

"Tucker, say thank you for the tattoos," I instruct.

"Aahnk oo," he says around a mouthful of donut.

We make it to the crowded town square just in time to see Pop in full pirate regalia making a speech about the pirate Thorny Rock on the makeshift stage in the center of the square. Tucker tugs my hand, and I follow, thinking we're heading for a better view, or to get closer to what looks to be the line.

But nope.

He's pulling us over to gawk at a group in full costume.

The men are dressed as pirates, but the women are a dog, a monkey, and a parrot.

"Do you think that one uses bad words?" Tucker asks me while he points.

The parrot turns our way, and—oh, fuck .

It's Monica.

She waves and gestures us over while the crowd applauds Pop.

"I love your feathers," Tucker tells her, reaching out to pet her stomach.

"Whoa, bud, we ask before we touch," I tell him.

Monica offers an arm instead while I nod to Ellie, who's decked out in the monkey costume. The inside corners of both her eyes are swollen and purply-red, stretching halfway across her lids, and there's no mistaking that she took a hit to the face.

Just like there's no mistaking I took a hit to my right eye, though my bruise is smaller.

She's ridiculously adorable in the costume though.

"That thing hot?" I ask her.

"Not yet, but it will be soon." She casts a glance at the rising sun in the clear blue sky, and I swallow a smile.

"Don't even think about it," she says when I reach for my pocket, like I'm going for my phone to take her picture, but there's an easy smile that she usually doesn't have for me, and seeing the friendliness lifts a weight off my chest I didn't realize I was carrying.

So we can be friends.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, have you met Ellie's boyfriend?" Monica asks, turning to an older couple I hadn't realized was with the group, since they're not also in costume. "This is Wyatt and his son, Tucker."

I stifle a wince, because Tucker heard that. Does a seven-year-old understand the difference between girlfriend and girl friend ?

Doesn't matter, I decide. Ellie's my best friend's sister, so odds are, Tucker will see her again. It's okay for him to know grown-ups he can trust, even if he doesn't see them often.

Mr. Dixon—tall, white-haired, and stuffy—barely spares me a glance, but his wife—slender, in pearls and a pantsuit—looks me up and down. A haughty smirk makes her thin face even less attractive. "Dear god, what happened to your face?"

"He accidentally got hit with a log when he was saving a baby from a wolf," Ellie says.

The woman looks at her, and her lip curls as she leaps to the conclusion everyone else apparently has this morning. She turns back to me. "And what do you do?"

"My dad's a superhero," Tucker announces.

"An actor, hm? I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, given the circles Ellie's close to."

"I'm in the Air Force," I correct.

"Oh. A working man."

"He has a really cool job testing airplanes," the Blond Caveman's girlfriend says, surprising me.

Surprising the Blond Caveman too, by the looks of the what the hell? look he sends her way.

"How do you know what he does?" the caveman asks.

"Ellie told us about it at dinner the other night. Remember?" She smiles at me. "My brother's a commercial pilot. So thank you ."

"I, ah, work on military jets," I tell her.

"An airplane's an airplane in my world, and I like knowing my brother's safe when he's in the air."

"I like being safe in the air too," Jason announces.

I start to explain that I'm more engineer than pilot, but Ellie jumps in before I can, tugging my arm like the good girlfriend she's playing today. "Guys, don't embarrass him. How much you want to bet Monica finds the most pirate gold?"

"I'm gonna find all the pirate gold!" Tucker announces.

"He has a son , Ellie?" Mrs. Dixon says with a nose lift.

"No, that's a random kid he kidnapped with candy and donuts yesterday, but he's cute, so we're making him an official pirate with us."

Monica coughs. Her fiancé clears his throat and swipes a hand over his grin. The Blond Caveman glowers. Ellie slips her hand lower until our fingers are intertwined, and fuck me, I could do this all day. "Come on. Are we digging for gold or what?"

"Mom, Dad, you go first," Jason says.

"I can't believe I've lived an hour from here my entire life and never knew I could come here to dig for pirate gold," the Blond Caveman's girlfriend says, falling into line.

"Dad, can we get two shovels?" Tucker asks.

"How about you help me?" Ellie says to him.

"Yeah! I'll dig for you, Miss Captain Ellie. Does your leg hurt today?"

"Not too bad. Thank you for asking."

"Me and Dad got donuts, but we ate them already."

"The banana pudding kind?"

Tucker wrinkles his nose. "No, plain. But Dad said he'd get you one of those pudding ones later. Can I get another donut later too?"

"Absolutely," Ellie says at the same time I say, "One's enough for the day."

Ellie bends down. "I'll sneak you one when he's not looking," she whispers.

Tucker giggles.

And I shake my head at both of them.

"Is she bringing him to your wedding, Jason? He's rather…plebian," Mrs. Dixon murmurs loudly in front of us.

"So am I, Mom," Jason replies.

"Honestly, I don't know why you let Monica have a maid of honor who broke your brother's heart. Not that he can't do better, but it's still rude."

"So is talking about people behind their backs, Mrs. Dixon," Ellie says cheerfully.

The Blond Caveman sends Ellie a murderous look.

She smiles back.

"I like you having other enemies besides me," I tell her softly, and she snorts.

"Speaking of," she replies, just as soft, "we can't have sex anymore. It's too dangerous."

That's a challenge if I ever heard one. "We'll discuss this in bed tonight."

"We will not ," she whispers.

"Bathtub works too."

She gives me the old Ellie Ryder you're pissing me off glare, and I don't even try to tuck in a grin at how easy it still is to get her.

She huffs as she obviously realizes what I'm doing.

"Or maybe over strip ping-pong?" she murmurs.

Dammit .

There I go, popping a boner in public with my kid with me again.

She doesn't look down, but she smiles triumphantly like she knows she won this round.

And honestly?

I'll give it to her.

Because I like that smile.

She works hard. She's dressed in a monkey costume in eighty-degree weather to make her best friend happy. And when I went snooping on her social media pages last night, I discovered post after post of shared help find this pet a home messages.

The last time she posted a personal picture was before Christmas.

Nothing about her accident.

Nothing about recovery.

The only pictures of her were posted by her parents or her friends.

So seeing her smile?

It's like watching her come back to life.

Beck might've been pulling her leg about me having a problem, but he wasn't lying about Ellie's accident affecting her.

Monica's grinning widely as she hands me a shovel. "Get to work, Wyatt. This gold won't dig itself up. Show me those muscles."

The Blond Caveman yanks a shovel out of the pile and stalks off. "C'mon, Sloane, I'll show you how a real man digs for treasure," he says.

Monica and Ellie share a look. Tucker looks up at both of them, and says, "C'mon, Miss Captain Ellie. I'm gonna be a real man too," and even the Blond Caveman's girlfriend cracks up.

"Dad, I'm going to beat you," Tucker adds.

"Oh, you think so?"

"He's totally going to beat you," Ellie says.

He grins at me behind his glasses, and fuck , how am I going to survive having to give him back to Lydia at the end of the summer?

I shove away the panic, because that's a problem for another day.

For now, I have pirate treasure to dig.

With my fake girlfriend.

Who just might be turning out to be more than I ever thought she could be.

Yep. Saving that problem for another day too.