Page 25 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

I motioned for her to come in and jogged into my room to slip on my T-shirt. Then I came back into the living room and enfolded Charlie into a huge bear hug.

“Ew, gross. You’re all sweaty,” she squealed, but she hugged me just as tight. “Missed you, cuz.”

“I missed you too.” I pulled back and took her in from head to toe. Charlie had always been my very favorite cousin. She was five years younger than me, which meant she was too young to be involved in any of the family drama. I could do no wrong in Charlie’s eyes. After Charlie’s dad died when she was nine, and her mom had to get a second job to make ends meet, I babysat her every summer until I moved away after high school graduation. Babysat was a loose term, since she spent more time keeping me and Shiloh out of trouble and alive than any of our parents knew. As I got older, she became my sidekick and adorable wingman. What girl didn’t love a guy whose sweet younger cousin sang his praises. If I rewarded her exaggerations of my greatness with an endless supply of milkshakes? At least it got her eating again after grief wrecked her appetite.

“When did you get so old?” I asked affectionately as I pressed my finger into a nearly non-existent wrinkle between her eyes.

She pushed my hand away with a scowl. “Around the time you got ugly. What the heck happened to you?” She motioned toward my bruised nose.

“Rosie Forrester.”

Her face lit up with a delighted smile. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me this story.”

“You know her?” But even as I asked it, I rolled my eyes. Of course they knew each other.

“She’s one of my closest friends,” Charlie said.

As I told her about my fateful meeting with Rosie’s broom—laughing along with Charlie even though I hadn’t thoughtanything about it funny when it had happened—I felt lighter than I’d felt in months.

She ended up staying for a late dinner of cheeseburgers from Jonah’s Grill. Food delivery had come to Winterhaven. Wonders would never cease.

We settled at the kitchen table, and my eye was caught by the blinding glint of light from Charlie’s hand. “I can’t believe you’re marrying Greg Marshall.” I bit into my lettuce-wrapped bacon cheeseburger and with one taste was transported back to being a teenager. Jonah made the best burgers in the world, and if there was one thing I missed from Winterhaven, it was this.

She waggled her ring finger before dipping her fry in ranch. “Eight months and counting until the big day.”

I made a disgusted face before I could help it. “Wasn’t Greg the kid we TP’d when you were thirteen? And we stuck rotten bananas in his shoes.” The bananas had been Shiloh’s brilliant idea. Hudson tried to convince us not to do it (“You don’t even know for sure those are his shoes”) but we had to do something with the bananas accumulating in the backseat of my car because my mom kept insisting I take one to school even though I hate bananas. It had been fate.

It had also been revenge. Greg had asked Charlie to the middle school dance but then backed out when a more popular girl asked him a few days later. Charlie had been devastated.

“I was twelve, but yes. One and the same,” she said. “I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for the bananas, so thanks for that.”

“I’d do it again. Tell him to watch his shoes.” Greg Marshall. I hadn’t seen him in a decade, and I still knew she could do so much better than him. “And to watch his back too,” I added for good measure.

“You and Rosie, I swear.”

I raised my brows. “Has Rosie also stuffed rotten food in his shoes?”

“No, but she would in a heartbeat.”

My respect for Rosie rose several notches. “She would do this to Greg specifically, or to anyone?”

“Both. I mean, anyone she hates, but also yes, him specifically.”

I set my elbows on the table and leaned closer, intrigued. “Why does Rosie hate Greg?”

She covered her face with a groan. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“You did, though. So you can’t leave me hanging.”

Charlie gave me an annoyed look and then set down her half-eaten burger with a sigh. “She thinks he’s a taker, and I’m a giver, and that he takes too much, and I give too much.” She sat up straighter with a defensive expression. “But she doesn’t see the side of him I do when it’s just the two of us.”

Red flags were waving in the wind. But we weren’t as close as we used to be, and I didn’t know how she’d take any criticisms toward her fiancé from me. I didn’t want to alienate one of my few allies in this town.

But I was definitely stocking up on bananas.

“So when did Rosie move here?” I asked.

She shot me a grateful expression at the change of subject. “Not long after you left. Maybe eight or so years ago.”

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