He sat down on the massive ottoman positioned at the end of Fiona’s chair. He sat the present down on his lap and smoothed his palms over the crinkly wrapping paper. Yes, he was still drawing this out—he was an asshole, remember—but he was also processing the fact that this really was the last gift from their grandmother that any of them would get. There was no way he could do this without taking at least a few seconds to say thank you to Grandma Betty.

The air shifted behind him as Fiona scooted forward, wrapping her arms and legs around him from behind before she laid her cheek against his back. She knew. Everyone in the room knew, which was why they’d stopped giving him shit and telling him to hurry up and open it already.

He slid his fingertips under one fold of the wrapping paper, unsticking the tape, and repeated the process until the paper fell away in his lap, revealing a plain white box. He lifted the lid, pushed the bright green tissue paper aside to reveal the mystery present, and started laughing.

…

Griff

Dixon’s face was all soft and squishy and fucking smiley when he stopped doing the hyena giggle and looked down at the present. It was a look that in all their time growing up together, Griff had never seen on his cousin’s face—especially not when he was about to bask in his winnings. Something was up.

“What is it?” Griff asked, craning to get a look at what was inside the open box.

Dixon shook his head and pulled out a knitted red, green, and white Christmas sweater that was roughly the size of his head. Stitched into the middle of it in green were the words “Great Grandma Loves Me.” Then he turned the sweater around to reveal the words “Beckett Baby Number One.” Griff had already put the clues together before his cousin pulled out a second sweater identical to the first, except it said “Beckett Baby Number Two.” Fiona reached into the box after that and picked up a third sweater with the words—yeah, no shocker—“Beckett Baby Number Three.”

It took all of about three seconds for Griff to put the pieces together. He looked over at his fiancée, Kinsey, who was giving him the you-see-what’s-happening look because, of course, she worked the whole thing out half a second before he had. They had a quick silence go between discussion about it, and then he grunted his agreement with her assessment. Grandma Betty definitely wasn’t done with the oldest Beckett cousins quite yet.

“You know what this means, right?” Dixon asked as his focus ping-ponged between Griff and Nash.

“Another bet,” Griff said as he shook his head, because there was no use fighting the inevitable.