“I’m always happy to provide anything you need, my love.”
“I have everything I’ll ever need—more than I ever dreamed possible before you knocked me off my bike,” Maddie said.
“That was the best day ever, except for the blood and scabs.”
“I love to remember that day and the days that followed when you moved in to take care of me and Thomas and then never left. Everything that’s happened since then is like a beautiful dream, even the difficult parts.”
He knew she particularly meant the loss of their third child, Connor, who’d died in utero. “I wouldn’t trade a second with you for anything in this world.”
“I wouldn’t either. With you, that is.”
“I can’t wait to take the babies home and introduce them to their brothers and sister.”
“I’m very excited to see them all together for the first time,” she said.
“If only Connor could be there, too.”
“That would be perfect.”
“No one gets total perfection, but our family is as close to perfect as it gets.”
“All thanks to you, my warrior woman.”
“No more babies, Mac. I mean it.”
“I hear you, love. I can’t go through that again.”
She poked his ribs, making him startle and then laugh.
“Really, though, Madeline. A helicopter?”
They laughed until they cried, and then he kissed her lips and eyelids. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. Our five children are going to need their mom to be well rested, or the inmates will take over the asylum.”
“You won’t let that happen.”
“I gotcha covered, my love.”
“Hey, Mac?”
“Hmm?”
“In case I forgot to mention it today, I love you.”
“I love you, too, and our babies. Thank you for this beautiful life.”
“Thank you. You’re the one who made it happen by crashing into me on my bike.”
“You crashed into me.”
“Nope.”
“Yup.”
“Nope.”
She pinched his lips shut, effectively ending their regular “argument.”
He fell asleep smiling.
Chapter 8
They were going crabbing. Gigi hadn’t signed on for that when she agreed to be Jordan’s sidekick on the show. Then again, she hadn’t signed on for a summer on Gansett Island either, but there she was. The things she did for her best friend. But crabbing? That might be going too far.
What did it even mean to go crabbing? Matilda, the show runner, had explained that it was something people loved to do on the island, and it would make for a fun segment for the show.
Gigi disagreed, but no one had consulted her.
Jordan, that perky, well-fucked bitch, was all smiles as they rode in one of the show vans to McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina, where they were shooting. They’d already endured an hour in hair and makeup that was intended to make them look “casual and sexy.” Everything about the show was focused on the sexy, including the skimpy sundresses they wore over skimpier bikinis.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Jordan asked as she scanned her Instagram account.
“I’m not grumpy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Anyone is grumpy next to you. How many times did you get lucky last night with that six-and-a-half-foot mother-effer with the ten-inch cock?”
Jordan laughed as she always did at the way Gigi described Mason. “Just once. It was a slow night.”
“Ugh, you’re such a bitch.”
Jordan cracked up again. “Maybe if you got some, you wouldn’t be such a grumpy beast.”
“You bring me to this place for an entire summer while you’re off humping like a randy rabbit, and you expect me to be as happy and perky as you are?”
“I am not a randy rabbit.”
“You’re fucking like one.”
“I’m in love. You ought to try it sometime.”
“Ew, no, thank you.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“I’m good. You and your sister are enough to give me cavities with all the sweetness and sugar you’ve got going on.”
“You could use some sweetness. What about that young thing you were out with the other night? If you got busy with him, maybe it would change your disposition.”
“My disposition is going to stay just like this until I’m back in LA where I belong.”
“So that’s a no with Cooper?”
“I like Cooper.”
“But?”
“No buts. I like him. He’s fun and cute and funny.”
“Then why not take him for a spin?”
Gigi shrugged. “What’s the point? I’m leaving soon, and he’s putting down roots here, starting a business.”
“The point is to have some good sex to make everything look better, even crabbing.”
“Nothing can make crabbing look better. What does that even mean, anyway?”
“We’re going to catch crabs.”
“So much I could say to that, including I don’t want to catch crabs.”
Jordan snorted at her double meaning. “I hear it’s fun.”
“How in the world can catching crabs be fun?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
When they arrived at the marina, Big Mac McCarthy greeted them with a warm smile and a firm handshake. “Welcome to our humble marina,” he said. “We’re honored you chose us to be on your show.”
“Thanks for having us, Mr. McCarthy,” Jordan said. Her sister, Nikki, was engaged to Big Mac’s nephew Riley.
“Call me Big Mac, honey. Everyone does. Come on in and have a bite of one of our famous sugar doughnuts.”
Gigi’s mouth watered at the words sugar doughnuts. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten anything in the doughnut or sugar families. The marina was well-kept and chock-full of boats. On the long wooden pier that extended into the Salt Pond, people were enjoying the late summer day on the water.
“Will your doughnuts sweeten up my partner in crime?” Jordan asked. “She’s not feeling enthusiastic about the day’s activity.”
Gigi sent her a foul look that made Jordan smile like the blissed-out fool she was these days.
“Our doughnuts make everything better,” Big Mac said.
They were led into a large building that opened right onto the pier. At the counter, Big Mac ordered two coffees and a half-dozen doughnuts.
“I hope you’re eating some of them,” Jordan said.
“We won’t let them go to waste,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
The young woman behind the counter was obviously trying to hold her shit together in the presence of Jordan and Gigi.
“Are you a fan of the show?” Jordan asked sweetly.
She was so sweet these days, but getting laid two or three times a day—on a usual day—would do that to a girl.
“I love your show. I watch it with my friends in the dorm at college.”
“We’d be happy to sign something for you all.”