Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Eleven
Griff
Dinner was controlled chaos per usual.
Dixon and Fiona sat at one end of the table, two chairs squeezed together where normally only one would go. They were practically half in each other’s laps and neither seemed to mind; they’d been like that since Dixon had admitted last month that he’d lost the bet for Grandma’s present.
Nash sat bracketed by his little sister and brother, Bristol and Macon. The three were doing that thing they always did when they were together, where it seemed like they were in the middle of two conversations at once—one that was spoken, because none of the trio ever stopped long enough to take in a full breath, and the other through meaningful looks and raised eyebrows, because not a single one of that line of Becketts could keep what they were thinking off their faces.
On the other side of the table, Morgan and Kinsey sat next to each other. Kinsey was telling Morgan about an artist she’d found on Etsy who would customize stickers for their planners. From his spot at the end of the table, opposite Dixon and Fiona, he had the ideal view of everyone at the table, but his gaze kept going back to Kinsey. Her hands were going a mile a minute, emphasizing certain words as she talked, even as her slow Southern drawl could barely keep up. It was mesmerizing.
“So Griff is about to go down in our bet,” Nash announced to the table. “I promise to accept my win with all the humility you have grown to expect from me.”
“Which is basically none,” Bristol said in a stage whisper that was loud enough to be heard across the harbor in Waterbury. “And nothing is guaranteed, no matter what Mom says.”
Nash shrugged. “He posted the bio. It’s all over but the woman responding to his Bramble profile part.”
“The bio I helped you with?” Morgan, her eyes almost as big as the bowl of pasta Bolognese in front of her, whipped her head around to look at Griff. “You didn’t change it?”
“No point.” He shrugged and kept eating—the Bolognese was really that good.
Plus, he knew his family. They’d do more than enough talking without his input, and it would all get them to the same point: him going out on six dates and not falling in love.
No matter who it was, he wasn’t going to fall for his Bramble date. Kinsey, engaged or not, was the only woman for him. That he was too late to even have a chance with her was as painful as having a belly full of battery acid. Another guy would have ignored the ring and gone ahead and won her over with charm. But Griff? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t say more than four words to her, let alone sweet talk her into having second thoughts about her engagement, even if that wasn’t a total dick move—which it was.
Kinsey’s fiancé was probably the man of her dreams, and he was just her friend’s nearly silent older brother who had to go out on six dates with a stranger.
“Now we all just sit back,” Dixon said, leaning in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, “and wait for Griff to get swept off his feet.”
Morgan let out a harsh, derisive laugh. “By someone who wants to talk about their feelings and do nothing but sit around for hours and zone out? That bio was so bad because it was supposed to spur him into writing his own. Nash, we talked about this. We had a plan. You can’t take a straight drive at him. You have to nudge him where you want him to go, like he’s a sheep.”
Griff took another bite of pasta, unsure if he should be more offended by his sister’s misguided manipulation or the fact that she’d just called him a sheep.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Nash said. “Mom says the cards are in his favor. It’s his time.”
Next to Nash, his brother, Macon, let out a tortured groan. “You can’t believe Mom about that stuff. She doesn’t even know how to read tarot right.”
“I offered to sign her up for a class,” Bristol added. “She rolled her eyes and said the cards speak to her in a way that can’t be taught.”
“I believe her,” Nash said in one of the most succinct sentences he’d ever uttered.
“Nash, you’ve lost it,” Bristol said, shaking her head. “Do you remember the time she told me a yellow dog was carrying an important message for me and to be on the lookout for malevolent bluebirds?”
After that, everyone at the table shared their Aunt Celeste stories because before tarot, it had been crystals, and before that, it had been astrology, and the time before that, it had been a year of silent meditation that had lasted about two hours. Everyone was talking over one another, laughing and correcting each other’s versions of one of Aunt Celeste’s predictions. The din quieted, though, the second he locked eyes with Kinsey. Her full pink lips were curled into a small smile that he returned without even thinking about it. The fact that none of the muscles in his face cracked at the unusual arrangement should have shocked him, but he was too fascinated with the wow-they-are-a-lot-huh look on her face to have any reaction at all.
“Oh my God, we’re being such assholes. Kinsey doesn’t even know what’s going on.” Morgan turned to her. “Sorry. This is all about a bet our idiot brothers—and Dixon—made.”
“We’re not idiots,” Dixon and Nash said at the same time.
Griff kept his mouth shut—one, because it’s what he did, and two, because they were idiots.
“You are,” all the younger siblings said at the same time.
As she refilled Kinsey’s wineglass and her own, Morgan launched into an explanation. “When Grandma Betty passed away, she left one last present. All we know is that it is for one of the older cousins, but she didn’t say which one.”
“Of course, these three saw that as an invitation to make a bet about who would be the last man standing,” Bristol said, continuing the story as she held up her glass to Morgan for a refill. “Hello, toxic masculinity and immaturity.”
The women at the table ignored the guys’ protests.
“The last man standing?” Kinsey asked. “Do I want to know?”
“No, but I’ll tell you anyway,” Morgan said. “These three decided that the last one of them who isn’t in love by this Christmas gets the present.”
“What is it?” Kinsey asked.
“That’s the thing,” Fiona chimed in with a disbelieving shake of her head. “They don’t even know.”
“But here they are, filling out Bramble dating app bios and going on six dates with the first woman to answer their ads to prove to one another that they can’t fall in love,” Bristol said, tilting her wineglass in Dixon’s direction. “He went first.”
Fiona snuggled in closer to Dixon. “And was the first to lose, because he couldn’t resist the Hartigan family charm.”
“No, your family I could resist,” Dixon said with a grin. “You, however, were undeniable.”
Kinsey turned to Griff, her eyes wide with shock and the corners of her mouth turned up in a teasing smile. “And you agreed to do this?”
He shrugged and swirled his fork in the pasta until he had a bite-size portion wound around the tines and took a bite.
“Six dates with the first woman to respond. And you can’t scare her off by showing her your Legos,” Nash said.
Griff pointed his fork at his cousin. “They are collectibles.” And he had an entire room devoted to them with a special building table crafted just for him by a furniture builder in Vermont. The display shelves he’d put up himself, customizing them for the proper depth some of the bigger pieces needed. “Anyway, they relax me.”
Dixon leaned forward on the table, his forearms going on either side of the pasta bowl he’d practically inhaled. “Well, they’ll scare off any woman you show them to.”
“Only the ones who aren’t worth having,” Kinsey said, drawing the attention of everyone at the table. Her cheeks turned a soft pink, but she maintained a steady gaze as she addressed his family. “Hobbies are important and have been shown to benefit people’s stress levels and moods. If someone doesn’t get that, then you don’t want them, because mental health and being accepted for who you are is important.”
For once, his entire family was silent—even Nash.
For her part, Kinsey gave him a wink and then went back to eating her pasta.
Unable to keep his lips in their usual flat line, he sat back in his chair and grinned at the shocked faces of his family. They gave one another shit pretty much all the time—it was just what they did, and they didn’t mean anything by it. Hell, he gave his cousins just as much shit as they gave him. Becketts were competitive, stubborn, and never gave anyone else the last word in an argument—but Kinsey had shut them all up without even raising her voice.
What a woman.
Nash was the first to recover. “Excellent point,” he said. “I’ll keep that in mind when I’m planning his first date.”
“He’s planning your dates?” Kinsey asked, making it sound like as much of a monumental nightmare as it was.
“It’s more of a group effort,” Dixon said. “We each get to plan three dates, and he can’t wimp out or submarine any of them.”
Nash lifted his glass. “To the end of Griff Beckett’s life as a single man.”
Every one of the people sitting around the table—including Kinsey—lifted their wineglass. He picked up his beer bottle, not willing to ruin the toast just because Nash was wrong. There was no way he’d fall for whoever responded to his Bramble profile, because that woman was never going to be Kinsey.
