Page 34 of Stuck With the Billionaire Grump

The last time I saw him was maybe four or five years ago. He was down on the public beach in late October, right after tourist season had officially ended. I remember it because Josie pointed him out and wondered if, in his extremely advanced age, he had gotten a little lost and confused. It was a pretty chilly day to be down on the beach, after all. In the end, however, we agreed to leave him alone, since it seemed he was at least walking along the shore with a semblance of purpose.

I’ve never seen him with anyone else, though. No spouse. No children. No friends, either.

Suddenly, I feel a bit sad.

Tasha, after chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, answers Mabel’s question with a dramatic shrug of her shoulders. “If he really has no family, maybe the town will repossess it?”

Practically in unison, we all look to Sam. The mayor of Mermaid Shores pauses with a handful of jelly beans halfway to her mouth. “Oh, uh, I’m not sure about that. I don’t think towns can do that. The state can, though. If the manor doesn’t have an inheritor, it will probably sit there until the state decides to sell it. Or maybe they’ll allow the town to claim it as a historical monument. We could turn it into a museum, I suppose. Except, last I heard, the place is in almost total disrepair. It’d be a costly project.”

For a minute, we all think on that. It’s an oddly serious moment for a slumber party, but we all care so much about Mermaid Shores that things like this are important to us. Even Brittany, who doesn’t live here, seems invested in the conversation.

“Well, anyway,” Mabel breaks the silence, lifting her glass of bubbling rosé into the air. “Let’s have a toast to old man Beaufort. Rest in peace, beloved hermit.”

“Rest in peace!” we echo, clinking our glasses of various drinks.

Then, because the whole thing feels slightly ridiculous, we burst out laughing.

“And another toast!” Mabel adds, turning to Josie with a bright smile. “To our beautiful Josephine Adelaide Montgomeryandto the wedding that Mermaid Shores has been waiting for over a decade to attend!”

We toast again, giggling as we lean across each other with more gusto and tumble out of our seats to reach out with aclinkof glass. We look like a squirming kaleidoscope in our rainbow of pajamas.

Josie turns to me. “Are you going to make a toast, too, my dear Maidzilla?”

I smirk. “Nope. Mabel covered it. I’m saving all my wordsmithing for tomorrow.”

Mabel winks at both of us.

For the first time in days, I allow myself to relax slightly. The conversation drifts away from dark topics like the death of a local and more toward things like harmless town gossip, who’s dating whom, how wild everyone plans on being at the afterparty tomorrow night, and detailed descriptions of what people are wearing to the ceremony. The dress code is formal, but those are the only guidelines Josie decided to give.

While we gab and giggle, we pick away at the snacks and refill our drinks, testing out the face masks and scented lotions that Brittany brought from her organic beauty supply store.

When the eating and drinking slows, I decide that it’s the perfect time to continue with the rest of my plan for Josie’s final evening as a bachelorette.

“Okay, guys,” I call, hauling out a large cardboard box that I’d stowed in the hall closet. “In honor of Josie’s love of nostalgia, I’ve collected some old-school board games for us toplay tonight. The sort of stuff we might have played at slumber parties in the early aughts when we were all kids.”

Everyone gasps and leans forward to get a glimpse of what’s inside the box. I had to scour yard sales and eBay for weeks to collect them all. Amy pulls outGirl Talkand squeals with delight.

“Oh mygosh,we loved this game, didn’t we, Ruby?”

Ruby laughs and nods. “You were ruthless with the dares, though.”

Mabel takes out a vintage game calledPretty, Pretty Princessand both Tasha and Sam immediately dissolve into chatter about how that was their favorite one to play as children. I had desperately hoped this would be their reaction, since you never really know if a bunch of women in their late twenties and early thirties will actually be interested in this stuff. Luckily, my judgment never fails me.

Lastly, I layMystery Date, a real girly throwback, onto the coffee table and smile at Josie. She’s grinning ear-to-ear, but there’s also a twinkle of emotion dampening her eyes.

Before I know it, she’s throwing her arms around my shoulders.

“You thought of everything, Lu,” she murmurs, her voice muffled by my thick hair. “It’s perfect.Betterthan perfect.”

When she pulls back, I have to blink several times to stop my own happy tears from spilling over. Still, I manage a casual shrug. “All in a day’s work.”

“I actually have another idea for something we could do,” my cousin whispers conspiratorially. “And then we could save the board games for after?”

“I’m all ears, bride-to-be.”

Josie dabs at her eyes to dry the last of her joyful tears, then turns to face everyone. “So, girls, I’ve been planning something kind of… mischievous.”

That gets everyone’s attention fast.

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