Page 156 of For Better or Hearse

“Are you okay?” Tessie asks, her brow pulled low in confusion.

“I am.” Ash forces a smile. “Are you?”

“No. I am on strict nonmoving orders.”

“From who? The doctor?”

“No. Solomon. He won’t let me out of bed.” She smiles. The look is full of love and amusement and annoyance. “So entertain me. Tell me everything about Nathaniel. Did you get one last vacation lay in?”

Ash flushes. Nathaniel leans against the wall, smug. Arms crossed, eyebrow raised.Well?

She shakes her head. “It actually, uh, didn’t end like I thought it would. I kinda, maybe, sorta smuggled something back with me.”

Tessie wrinkles her nose. “Can you do that? I thought that was illegal?”

“No.” Ash lets out a breath. “Nathaniel. I smuggled Nathaniel back.”

An ear-splitting shriek pierces her ear drum. Tessie’s phone tilts, then lands with a muffled thud on the comforter.

Solomon’s rushed boot steps echo through the phone, his panicked baritone of a boom. “Tess?”

The phone’s righted. Tessie’s laughing, waving Solomon off. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Returning to the camera, she jabs a manicured nail at Ash. “I demand proof of life.”

Solomon appears on the screen. Scowls. “You know what? I’d like to see him too.”

“But I get to interrogate him,” Tessie argues.

Ash tosses her head back and groans. “No one’s interrogating anyone.”

Tessie levels Ash with a look. “Show me.”

Eyes flicking to Nathaniel, Ash nods her affirmation. Then she turns back to her cousin. “You’re a pregnant pain in my ass.”

Tessie sticks her tongue out.

Nathaniel steps up beside her. “Hi.”

Ash’s face flushes as he curls a big hand around her neck. The touch of him is calming. It’s the perfect reminder to her mind, her heart, that she’s made the right decision. Because she’s obscenely, disgustingly happy. All her emotions are screaming at her to admit it. That she’s down bad for this man.

“Oh my God.” Delight shines in Tessie’s wide brown eyes. She waves. “Hi.”

“He lives, he breathes, he annoys. He is Nathaniel Whitford.” Smirking, Ash shrugs. “He’s obsessed with me, so I kept him.”

Nathaniel laughs and kisses her shoulder. “She isn’t wrong.”

Despite her cavalier words, she can’t keep the stupid smile off her face. Now that everyone knows about them, it feels too good to be true.

Tessie’s eyes narrow. “What are your intentions with my cousin?”

A grunt of agreement from Solomon.

“Tessie. Stop,” Ash commands, covering her face. To Nathaniel she says, “She’s an angel among us, but she doesn’t know much about minding her own business.”

Nathaniel chuckles.

“Ash,” Tessie breathes. “The universe did its thing.”

Her face heats. “Yeah,” she says, looking up at Nathaniel. “It did.”