The Real Deal

“There will be many more games and events, and over the next few days, I ask you to stand by my side so I can go out on top. As many of you know, at the amazingly young age of sixty-six, I’m retiring from Hamilton and Moore Boats this year, and I would love nothing more than to retire on top. Bob Moore is my best friend and my business partner, but every four years, he is the foe. And we must defeat him.”

He thrusts an arm high in the air, and everyone cheers and claps.

April cups her hands around her mouth. “Go, Hamiltons!”

Not to be outdone, Mitch shouts, “Touchdown!”

Pamela takes her turn. “We’ll show him who’s boss!”

“Whoop whoop!” Cousin Katie calls out, since she seems to have inherited some of her mom’s spirit. Or maybe she’s just not worn down by young ones yet, like April’s sister and her husband.

Because all Cory manages is a halfhearted “woohoo” as he offers a piece of toast to Davey, who swats it away. Tess is now breastfeeding the baby, and her eyes are falling closed.

Tess’s eyes. Obviously, I’m not looking that closely at the baby while it’s latched on to April’s sister’s boob.

Watching April’s family is like staring at a Rube Goldberg machine, when a silver ball slides down a chute, then slaps a buzzer that sends another ball curling down a twisty coil. You can’t look away from a Rube Goldberg machine—it’s mesmerizing. So is watching the Hamiltons. If they only knew that family get-togethers when I was younger included strategy sessions for how to avoid my mom’s opioid-addicted sister, who’d try to get other family members to nab prescriptions from their docs.

“I have complete faith in the Hamiltons.” Josh stops, scratches his chin. His brown eyes twinkle with mischief. “After all, let us not forget what we have pulled off over the years.” He gestures grandly to April, a proud look on his face. “Sixteen years ago, my youngest made the Hamilton win possible with her astonishing ability to eat watermelon and a whole pint of ice cream in under four minutes.”

My eyebrows shoot into my hairline, and I mouth, You’ve been holding out on me.

She nudges my side with her elbow.

Her father then points to Mitch. “And my son led us to victory in cornhole twelve years ago. May he do it again.”

“Hear! Hear!”

Josh Hamilton rattles off more victories over the years, giving everyone their due, it seems. “For those of you joining us for the first time, you might be wondering why we do this.” He glances at me, meets my gaze. “The answer? Bragging rights, of course.”

Everyone laughs. I join in, too, with a chuckle.

“And of course, the trophy itself would be a wonderful thing to gloat over and lord over Bob’s head. But there’s more at stake. The winning family will receive five thousand dollars from the losing family to donate to a favorite charity. I think we’d all agree that’s the biggest prize of all.”

“Absolutely,” Pamela says as I reach for my coffee and take a drink. “I have a list of worthy causes we can donate to, and I’ve already researched each one to learn the charity’s rating.”

Of course she has.

“But because I want the prize badly this year, I’m upping the ante,” Josh says. “If we win, I will award an additional five-thousand-dollar cash prize to the all-around winner, who earns the most points and individual victories to lead his or her team.”

My mug of coffee nearly slips from my hand. I straighten. My ears perk up.

Cory drops his fork, and his eyes widen to pizza pie size.

Tess shoots him a stare. “Shhh.”

He talks out of the corner of his mouth. “Babe, that’s good money. We can use it for the college fund.”

“The baby won’t be going to college for eighteen years, Davey for sixteen. We have enough.”

He huffs, and turns his focus back to Josh, and I want to jump in and say to Cory, Dude, I understand. Believe me, I understand completely.

Josh sweeps his arms out wide. “So this year, as the Moores descend on the other half of my darling bride’s lovely B and B in a few minutes, may they enter with a spirit of camaraderie, but also with a quake in the boots because we will kick some summer reunion butt.”

The crowd goes wild. Hoots, hollers, cheers, and yippee-ki-yays.

I’m still sitting here, slack-jawed, awestruck, and amazed that there’s money on the table that wasn’t here before. As the family scatters to the kitchen, yard, and sitting room, I pull April aside. “You were right. Your family reunion is indeed a little different. A cash prize is awesome.”

She stares at me as if I’ve said something outlandish, like the earth is ending in 270 days, when an asteroid hits it. “It’s not really a cash prize.”

I wave my arm in the general direction of her dad. “But your dad said it was.”

She laughs and rolls her eyes. “But it’s really intended for charity. You’re generally considered a doucheberry if you don’t give it to charity. I mean, who would keep that?” she asks, and it’s not a real question. It’s a rhetorical one, because she laughs, shakes her head, and is so completely amused by the thought that someone would keep it.

I’m slack-jawed in a whole new way now.

Because she lives in a world where no one has any need to keep that kind of jack.

She drops a hand on my arm and tells me she’s going to see if her mom needs help. She strolls into the kitchen, and I stand alone.

From the doorway, I stare at the Hamiltons. A happy, successful, well-funded family.

An egg farmer, a baker, a boatbuilder, a B and B operator, a son working with his father, a body painter. They can all afford to laugh at five thousand dollars. It’s nothing to them. It’s funny money. It’s money to win in a game, and toss at a charity. They can shrug it off.

I burn with frustration. It courses through my blood. I grit my teeth, then grind them. They play with their kids, and plan their games, and can do this all for what? For fun. For sport. For games.

To toss around five Gs like it’s Monopoly money.

I could use five large to get out of debt. To be free. To start living life on my own terms for the first time in fourteen years. Or really, ever.

Does that make me a doucheberry? Maybe it does. April says that like it’s the worst thing to be. If so, give me the Doucheberry Award. I can live with that. I’m a damn charity. A gal is chasing me down for money she gave my brother nine years ago. All I want is once and for all not to have to worry about money. To hop on my bike, ride away, and not think twice about who’s chasing me.

Money has defined me since my parents died.

Money has been the thing Heath and I chased. We needed dough, and we figured out how to get it faster than by working the fry basket at a fast-food joint.

We were con artists. We were scammers. And, for a while, we were kings.

Looks like our very first scam is one of the events on the schedule for this afternoon.





Chapter Fourteen

Theo

Bob has three sons and a truckload of grandchildren of all ages. They descend on the inn an hour after breakfast, and Pamela throws open one wing of the B and B to them. This place is spacious, more than twenty rooms, she’d told me.

When his tree-size sons stride out to the back lawn for the first event, I can see why they’ve dominated arm wrestling the last several years. Bob’s got strength on his side. But even if you don’t have cannonballs for arms, you can kick unholy ass at arm wrestling. A little speed, a little technique, and some brains are all you truly need.

Heath knew all that when we were kids, and so he started using me in arm wrestling competitions when I was fifteen and he was seventeen. Impromptu shit on the Jersey Shore boardwalks during the summers, when frat guys from the local colleges were drunk and daring.

I was his ringer. He’d hustle me, and set up bets with the Budweiser-swilling, swim-trunks-wearing, BMW-driving crowd. The college guys always took me on, thinking they could win.

I’d let them win the first time, of course. Sometimes the second, too. That’s how we reeled them in. I’d take a couple for the team, putting up a short but valiant fight, grunting and groaning, and Heath would lay all the money down on me, then groan and curse when I lost.