Page 69 of The Body in the Backyard

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m feeling pretty damn joyful myself, and I want to surprise her.”

“Riley is my friend. I merely tolerate you. If this is something that could hurt my friend, I will stop tolerating you.”

It was as close to a threat as Gabe got, and Nick appreciated him for it.

“Understood. This is a good surprise. I hope. I mean, it should be. I think. But the important thing is I have to figure out how to keep it a surprise.”

Gabe crossed his arms over his chest. His forearms looked like bulging pythons. “I would like to consider your request,” he decided finally. “I do not want to do anything that would make me disloyal to Riley.”

“Fine. But think fast, because otherwise I’ll just do it, make a mess of it, ruin everything, and then blame you.”

“That does sound like something you would do.”

Nick sighed through clenched teeth. “Look. I appreciate and respect your loyalty to Riley. It’s something we have in common. So you might as well hurry the fuck up and get on board, because I’m not going anywhere. Riley’s it for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go relieve her ex-husband of a large sum of money.”

With that, he took his coffee and left.

Since it was still early,Nick hit the gym first and ran through a workout on autopilot. All through weight training, he thought about Riley and how she was too good for him and how he needed to make sure she forgot about that fact. When he hit the treadmill, he thought about private detective Nick Charles and was in the middle of wondering whether he should grow a mustache first and then buy a fedora, or vice versa, when his cousin wheeled up next to the treadmill.

“You look confused and pissed off like you’re back in trigonometry class,” Brian observed.

Nick smacked the Stop button on the treadmill and bent at the waist to catch his breath. “Thinking about hats,” he panted.

“You’re a weird dude, you know that, coz?”

“So I’ve been told.” Nick swiped his sweat towel over his face. “Hey. Totally innocent question here. How did you convince Josie you were the one?” His cousin had sowed his wild oats all over the damn place until he’d fallen for Josie.

Brian shrugged. “After I figured out she was the one, I just kept her too distracted to think about what a long shot I was on paper.”

“Did anyone try to convince her she could do better?”

“Literally everyone. Including my own mother.”

“Classic Aunt Nancy.”

“Your actions speak louder than other people’s words. Gotta make ’em count.”

Nick was aware that his actions in recent weeks had spoken up too loud against him.

“Why? You fuck up again already?” Brian asked.

“No, I didn’t fuck up again, asshole.” Unless getting flopped by a chicken counted. “I’m just looking to up my relationship game.”

“Ah, you’re looking to dazzle Riley into forgetting your flaws.”

“Yeah. That.”

Brian pulled a water bottle out of the bag on the back of his chair. “Anytime I’m a dumbass, I just buy Josie a cool new weapon for her collection.”

Nick threw the towel over his shoulder. “You’re really unhelpful, you know that?”

“See, if you were Josie and you just said that, I’d be on the phone with my weapons guy and I’d be out of the doghouse by noon.”

“Men are idiots,” Nick mused.

“Hell yeah, we are,” Brian agreed.

“Hey, do you think I could pull off a fedora?”