Kiss Her Once for Me (58)
“Wait. If you know Andrew and I are faking our relationship, why have you been so kind to me? Why have you made me feel like part of the family?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Meemaw asks, like it’s that simple. “Most of the people Andrew’s brought home over the years have only been interested in either his money or his ass. At least he knows that’s what you’re about in this case.” She eyes me over her mug. “You are getting money as part of this arrangement, yes? Or… ass, if that’s your thing.”
“Money,” I answer. “Ten percent of the trust fund.”
“Good.” She offers me a pleased smile.
“You don’t think I’m awful for marrying someone for money?”
“Hell no. I respect an entrepreneur. And I knew that a sweet girl with nowhere to go on Christmas must have her reasons for going along with this whackadoodle scheme my grandson cooked up.”
“I do,” I whisper. “And I swear, I have no intention of hurting your family.”
“I know you don’t.” She taps her temple again. “I can tell. Which is why I haven’t said anything to the rest of the family about the inheritance and why I won’t. Oh, Lovey knows about the stipulation, but she hasn’t put the rest together. Bless her heart, but she’s high as a kite most of the time these days. That hip surgery really took it out of her. This is your and Andrew’s secret, and you get to decide if and when you want to reveal it.”
I take another sip of mulled wine and try to figure out what I did to deserve Meemaw’s confidence. And also… “I’m sorry, but what you said earlier, about me and… Jack…?”
“Ah.” She winks at me from the rim of the bathtub. “Now that’s a funny story. Last Christmas, my granddaughter calls me to tell me all about this girl named Ellie who broke her heart after they got trapped together in the snow. And this Christmas, a girl named Ellie shows at our cabin acting all kinds of weird around my Jack. It didn’t take a genius to put it all together. Do you want to tell me why you ditched my granddaughter last Christmas?”
I really do not. “Does Jack know that you’ve put it together? That I’m the Ellie from last year?”
Meemaw shakes her head.
“Then why are you telling me now?”
“Why are you crying in the bathroom?” Meemaw snaps back.
I stare into my drink again. I could lie to Meemaw, but she’s the one person at the cabin who knows everything, the one person who might understand why my body feels like it’s being torn in a dozen different directions. “Because I didn’t know the truth about Claire until an hour ago,” I say, and I tell her about the conversation with Jack.
“Ah. I see. So, my little turtledove.” Meemaw thwaps my leg when I finish. “Sounds like you’re in quite the pickle. On the one hand, you’ve got my grandson and the money. And on the other hand, you’ve got my granddaughter. What are you going to choose?”
I stare down at my fingers wrapped around a mug of mulled wine as I sit on a toilet seat, tears barely dry on my face. “I don’t think there is a choice to be made, Meemaw.”
Just because it turns out our relationship meant something to Jack a year ago, that doesn’t change the fact that I hurt her back then and she hurt me. It doesn’t change the fact that Jack thinks I’m in love with her brother, or that I’ve agreed to help Andrew get his inheritance and I can’t back out now.
And nothing could ever change the fact that two hundred thousand dollars is a life-altering amount of money for me.
I don’t have any choice at all.
* * *
Given their wealth, I expect the Kim-Prescott tree-decorating ceremony to be an exercise in both decadence and restraint. I expect color-coordinated ornaments and flawlessly arranged lights. I expect something magazine perfect and somewhat emotionally vacant.
I don’t expect to find Dylan and Andrew haphazardly stringing twinkle rainbow lights around the base of the ten-foot tree. I grab a plate of Bagel Bites, and Lovey presses play on “Glittery” by Kacey Musgraves and Troye Sivan. Katherine sits on a giant ottoman in the middle of the room, and Jack moves totes of Christmas ornaments to her feet.
“Oliver,” Andrew barks when he sees me, “come hold these lights for me.”
The Kim-Prescotts love their Christmas traditions. This one involves Katherine pulling an ornament from the neatly organized totes—each ornament personalized and unique and definitely not color-coded—and someone in the room sharing a memory associated with the ornament. An anecdote, an inside joke, a feeling.
Katherine pulls out the first one. It’s Mickey Mouse in a silver blue top hat holding a golden “50.”
“Disneyland in ’05,” Andrew says immediately. “JayJay, remember how you barfed on Space Mountain?”
“And still rode it six more times.” Jack nods solemnly.
The siblings high-five over this victory of gastrointestinal distress.
A Popsicle-stick reindeer. “One of my students made that for me during my student teaching, and it was the first time I felt like I was in the right career,” Dylan says with sweet nostalgia. They’re also wearing a T-shirt that says, “Merry Capitalist Consumer-Driven Corruption of a Pagan Fertility Holiday.” Because there is nothing Dylan Montez loves more than ironic juxtapositions.