“There aren’t any contractors here yet,” Tom insisted.
Seth scratched his head. “But you’re still doing renovations. Rosie’s been spamming the group chat with photos of Boyd Kellagher taking out drywall. That’s renovations, right? Why didn’t you get a permit?”
Everyone gazed at him judgmentally for a moment. In response, Seth blushed but didn’t back down. “And I saw a TikTok of Boyd replacing some rotten studs too,” he muttered, tucking his chin into his chest.
Tom briefly shut his eyes, praying to Old Testament God for some lightning bolts.
Ximena folded her arms over her bump before elbowing Tom to bring him back into the conversation. “Do you really need a permit if you’re not doing anything structural?”
The code enforcement officer had perked up at Boyd’s name.“Wait, Boyd Kellagher? From the Meteor Man movies? Seriously? That’s who’s doing the renovations?”
Ximena and Tom exchanged lifted eyebrows.
“Meteor Man himself,” Tom said. “Just hanging out. Not doing any renovations.”
“Would you like to come inside and meet him?” Ximena smoothly suggested to the county official. “And I’m sure Tom’s…young friends…will move their cars to a better spot if we just let them know they’re in the road.”
The other woman hesitated in the face of this blatant play for leniency in exchange for celebrity selfies. But as celebrity encounters had to be one of the chief perks for drawing a Dukes County salary in an expensive town, she agreed.
“I’ll just verify that there are no renovations going on inside,” she said, justifying it to herself as she slowly lowered her ticket pad.
“It’s just some good friends spending some time together out at the vacation property,” Ximena said, leading the code enforcement officer into the inn. “Having a relaxing vacation.” She looked back over her shoulder at Tom while making an exasperated face at him, one that eloquently stated that she was too famous for this shit too.
Seth nearly went in after them, but Tom seized him by the back of the polo shirt and dragged him around to the side of the porch. Rosie had been texting her family all week, trying to convince them to join in the fun. Nobody had agreed to come. Now this douchenozzle showed up with the cops?
“Did you call code enforcement on us?” Tom demanded,leaning in to the other man’s shocked, pink face. “On your own cousin?”
“No,” Seth yelped. “I didn’t call her.”
Liar. Tom glared at him. He wouldn’t come eat Rosie’s dinner, but he showed up now?
“No. I mean, Lettie’s in my golf group. I just happened to tell her today that the property’s value is going to take a hit if you guys wreck the place. If Rosie does sell, I mean.”
Tom fisted his hand in the front of Seth’s shirt, knuckles going white. Rosie would literally tape herself to the front door before she agreed to sell.
“If anyone else wants a vote on how I fix up this shithole, they can fucking show up and help,” he growled. “And you. How do you not have time to help at all, but you have time to watch the stupidest content on the whole Internet and tell yourgolfbuddies about it?”
“Hey!” Seth objected. “I’m not in control of what the algorithm shows me.” His bland face turned threatening. “And anyway, maybe you shouldn’t be getting all in my face while you’re cheating on my cousin?”
“I’m…what? Cheating?” As aggravating as it was to be dogged by Boyd Kellagher allegations, it was news to Tom that Rosie now considered the two of them to be in a relationship. “When? I’m literally sleeping in the same cottage as her, and I think fifteen teenagers can report I haven’t even beenalonewith Boyd.”
Seth sneered at him. “Bro, there are like amillionvideos online of you two making out.” He pretended to pick lint off his shirt where Tom had grabbed him. “I can’t believe youinvited the dude you’re hooking up with to stay in the same house as Rosie, but you know she’s gonna find out eventually. Maybe you should, um, go do some counseling about how you’re into men?”
Tom goggled at this person who was somehow related to the love of his life despite sharing no personal qualities past their eyebrows.
“Seth…do you remember that I’m bi? I was always bi? Not to mention, Rosie and I weredivorced? For ten years?”
From the vacant look of nonrecognition Seth gave him, Tom’s absence had not been noted at the past decade’s worth of holiday celebrations nor had Seth ever managed to absorb a single pertinent biographical detail about him.
Tom curled his fists and uncurled them. Rosie would not thank him for beating the shit out of her cousin.
“Why don’t you go back to your property management office and look up whether there’s any other paperwork you can fill out for us before I callyourwife and tell her you’ve got plenty of time to golf and watch videos from my stupid queerbaiting Broadway play instead of taking care of your baby, huh?” he growled at Seth. “Next time you show up uninvited, you better have a paintbrush in hand or I’m turning the hose on you.”
He shoved the hapless cousin off the porch, then gathered himself. He was a dependable version of Tom, a man who didn’t lose his temper when asked to do home improvement tasks, a Tom who cheerfully managed houseguests.
After a deep breath, he went back inside. Boyd was slowly touching up a section of crown molding while the codeenforcement officer and half a dozen young women watched with rapt attention, phones at the ready to document every second of this process.
Rosie came up from the basement, a flowered silk scarf tied on top of her head to hold her hair out of her face. She had a smudge of dust on her nose and paint on the overalls she’d rolled up three times at the ankles so they wouldn’t drag. The smile on her face when her gaze landed on him washed all the week’s frustrations away like rain. Whatever it was about this place, it was working for her. She looked happier by the day. Like his Rosie.
