and forefinger, Madi pinched the bridge of her nose. “Could you repeat that?”
She could almost feel Sean’s sigh through the phone. “Mom and Dad are going out of the country for most of December. They want to do Christmas tomorrow.”
“That’s ridiculous. I can’t leave the house. They refuse to be on camera. There’s no way I can be at a family Christmas.”
Or did they even care that she couldn’t be there?
For many years, her next-youngest sibling, Mia, bore the brunt of their indifference, but over the last several years, it had expanded to include all of them, especially since the weddings started in May.
“I already talked to Mama Beach. She had a clause inserted about family gatherings. They can be held at the house, video only if our parents aren’t in the room. We have a total of four hours.”
Madi never looked forward to visits with her parents. She loved her siblings, though. “That’s something I guess. Let me talk to Wyatt and make sure he doesn’t have anything going on.”
“You guys are in lockdown. What could he have going on?”
“Sometimes, he has meetings with his trainer or other people from the team. I’ll text you in a little while. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Love you, sis. Sorry to spring this on you.”
Madi knew Sean meant it. All of her calls were recorded, except the ones with her agent and attorney - but only if her discussion with Mama Beach was protected by attorney-client privilege. Plans for the extended Beach family potluck on New Year’s Day didn’t count.
“Hey, Wyatt,” she called as she headed for the office off the front entryway.
He looked up from his seat behind the desk and smiled. “What’s up?”
She told him about Sean’s phone call and the plan for doing Christmas the next day.
The tug on his ear told her he knew she wanted to discuss it further in private later. Everyone else who’d been watching thought it was a nervous tic. Officially, they sat and watched the show with the rest of the world the last two Sunday nights. In reality, they only watched because they had to and as soon as the filming finished, they turned it off.
“I’ve already got something for everyone in your family,” he told her. “I thought of it last week and went ahead and ordered it.”
“Then you’re ahead of me. I probably won’t get anything for my siblings. We can still do our own Christmas later. Sean didn’t mention it, but we usually get together the weekend before or after Christmas. With the premiere and the wedding, we’ll be together a fair bit anyway, but those aren’t the same.”
“I’ve never really had a big family Christmas,” Wyatt mused as he leaned back in his chair.
Madi knew his family history could be readily found online, but she’d chosen not to look it up. He’d tell her when he was ready.
“My dad was an only child,” he went on. “His parents both died when I was a baby. I’m not sure I ever met them. My mom only had one sister. She moved to Europe after high school. We saw her once every couple of years or so.”
“So it was just you and your parents?” She did know he was an only child.
His face froze, though she doubted the cameras would notice. “No. I was raised by my mother’s parents. My parents were killed in a car accident when I was two. It was always just the three of us until my grandfather died when I was twenty. My grandmother passed a couple of years later.”
Madi wanted to walk across the room and hug him tight, but he seemed closed off. “So you’ve had Christmas by yourself the last few years?”
Wyatt shrugged, though to Madi it seemed clear that he was more bothered than he tried to let on. “Just depends. Sometimes I go to a teammate’s house or with a friend.”
She gave him her best grin. “Well, now you have me. I have four brothers and sisters, a ton of cousins, and we all get together regularly. No more quiet Christmases for you.”
He pushed back from his desk and came around to pull her into his arms and give her a light kiss. “I like the sound of that. I always wanted a big family of my own. Four or five kids, maybe. But I figured I would have started the family by now.”
“I kind of did, too,” Madi admitted. “I thought I would have been married for at least