Chapter 7
seven
. . .
piper
Pins and needles. That’s what I’ve been sitting on for days. Every time I bump into my eldest brother, I ready myself for a confrontation. Parker said he was pissed, but he hasn’t said anything to me.
Still, I creep around every corner to make sure he isn’t in the area. It’s kind of sad I have to do that while at work with my own family, but I don’t want the confrontation. The fight that would come about isn’t worth it. At least, not right now.
The desk is covered with various papers and I have to sort through them before I can get any work done. We really need two desks in this room. One for me and one for everyone to put their crap on.
A piece of paper slips from the pile. Is that a parking ticket? These fools should know the company isn’t paying for those. I scan the name for who it might belong to.
Philip. Of course it is. He thinks because he’s one of the middle kids nobody will notice when he does crap like this. When Mom took care of all the admin stuff, she probably let it slide. Well, guess what, buddy. I’m not mom.
Maybe I would have swept it under the rug if he had spoken up during the meeting last week, but I’m feeling particularly petty today. He’ll find a nice surprise in his truck when he gets off work.
Now that all the paperwork is sorted and where it’s supposed to be, I can get to work on the orders. The queue is full. I don’t remember the last time we had this many orders outside of the ones we do for a few bars in the area. They aren’t all to one place either.
It looks like people have found us. This is a reason I put a maximum number of orders we can take at a time.
Though I never thought we’d actually get this many at once.
Maybe my stories did what they were supposed to and brought in business.
I haven’t been tracking it, so I can’t be sure.
It could also be because parents need a reprieve from their busy schedules now that school is back in session.
Actually, the latter makes sense. The stories were days ago.
If we were going to see a bump in sales it would have happened then.
Maybe Pierce is right. My time may not be better spent finding new ways to engage with our audience.
I refuse to tell him that. The last thing I want to hear is I told you so.
“Hey, sister.” Philip pokes his head into the office. “Did you get that thing I put on your desk?”
Funny how he doesn’t mention it by name. “That depends. What exactly are you looking for?”
The thing in question is sitting to the left of my keyboard. I guess I won’t have to put it in his truck after all.
“It’s a piece of paper about this big.” He holds his hands up in the air showing a small rectangle. “It needs to be taken care of soon.”
“Oh,” I pick up the ticket. “You mean this?”
“Yes!” He comes further into the office. “Can you get that paid today?”
“Did Pierce sign off on it?”
“W-what?” Sweat beads on his forehead. It could be from being outside, or the realization he’ll have to go to our big brother. “Dad never signed off on them.”
“How many tickets have you gotten, Philip?”
“A few.” He shrugs his shoulder and sits in the chair across from the desk. “Mom always paid them so I never had to worry about it.”
“Maybe you should slow down.” I glance down at the ticket in question. “And maybe not park in front of a fire hydrant.”
“I wasn’t even parked that long,” he groans. “I had to run into the hardware store to get some screws. It was like two minutes.”
“Long enough for an officer to see it and give you a ticket.” I hand it over to him. “If you can get Pierce to sign off on it, I’ll get it paid. You know how he’s been with getting expenses approved.”
There is definitely fear in his eyes. He knows good and well our brother would never.
If anything, he’d rip him a new one for having so many.
If I paid it without his signature, it’d be my ass on the line.
I’m already on his list of people he’s annoyed with.
There’s no way in hell I’m making that worse.
“Fine.” He stands and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He’s definitely paying it himself. Even he’s scared to approach our big brother. I don’t blame him one bit. He stops before leaving the office. “Are you leaving early today?”
“Why would I?” There’s nothing on my calendar. I double check to be sure.
“There are some wild storms that are supposed to come in. I think Pierce is going to call it an early day for everyone.”
“It’s not like we live far from the winery.” My grandparents had a massive plot of land and each of us has a piece. Even Paula, though she refuses to build a house on it. That may change now that she’s with Tristan. “All of us can get to our houses in like five minutes or less.”
“Whatever it is has him worried.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Do you want me to check with him?”
“No,” I shake my head. “I’ll ask him. I need to take him all these orders anyway.”
“Okay. Let me know what he says.”
I nod and he walks out the door. It only takes a couple of minutes to print the orders, and before long I’m heading into the metal building that stores our bottles of wine.
“Here are the orders for today.”
Pierce glances over at me and notices the stack in my hand. “That looks like a lot.”
“It is. I don’t know what happened but these were all in the system when I logged in this morning.” I hand them over to him. “Oh, and Philip mentioned something about leaving early today.”
“I guess he wanted you to pay for the ticket I saw on the desk yesterday while he was there.” There’s nothing my brother doesn’t notice. Of course, he already knew about it.
“Yep. I told him you had to sign off on it. He took it and I guess he’s paying for it himself.”
“As he should.” Pierce pulls out his phone and taps on the screen a few times before showing me the radar. “But yeah, we’re probably heading out early. I don’t want any of us to get stuck in the storm. They’re calling for tornadoes.”
That’s the last thing I want to hear. “I should probably pull all my candles out when I get home just in case we lose power. Are the backup generators ready to go here?”
“Yeah. I’ll probably stay here tonight in case anything goes wrong. Do you want to help me get these orders packed up so we can get them sent out before it hits?”
Not really. Packing orders means I’ll be stuck with my least favorite family member. But he’s right. We need to get these orders out unless we want angry customers. “Sure.”
I cross my fingers, hoping he doesn’t say anything else. Storms make me uneasy as it is, and the last thing I want to do is get into another argument with my brother.
The sky is dark and the winds are already picking up when I pull into my driveway. We managed to get all the orders shipped out and I’m grateful Pierce let us go home early. I need to mentally prepare for tonight.
As soon as I’m inside, I grab my phone out of my bag. I may be avoiding him a bit lately, but I need to make sure he’s aware of what the weather is doing.
Piper
There are supposed to be bad storms this afternoon into evening. Please tell me you’ll be home before they hit.
It only takes a few minutes for a response to pop up.
Beau
Yep. We’re leaving in about an hour or so. I should make it home with time to spare.
Piper
Good. Be safe on the roads.
Beau
I will.
Now, I need to find all my candles. I haven’t been home as much and haven’t had them burning like I usually do.
It doesn’t take me long to go through all the rooms and gather as many candles as possible onto the coffee table.
The lighter is sitting to the side of them should I need them.
I hope the power doesn’t go out. Living in the middle of nowhere with neighbors at least a mile apart, it can get very dark without any sort of light source.
I may or may not have grown out of my fear of the dark.
A few moments later, I pull the mega bright flashlight my grandpa gave me out from under the sink.
Between this and the candles, I should be set.
A small part of me wishes I would have gone to one of my brothers’ houses for the night.
But I’m still annoyed with them. Pride will be the death of me, I swear.
Food is next on the agenda and I preheat the oven to cook a frozen pizza. It’s a comfort food, and I don’t have to worry about it going to waste. It’s also quick and doesn’t dirty many dishes. A double win for me.
The leaves on the trees outside my kitchen window are swaying in the wind. I can hear them brushing against each other, and the house, and I know it’s going to be a bad storm. After sliding the pizza into the oven, I get any other supplies I might need.
The blanket from the foot of my bed, my pillow, and a stuffed animal Beau won for me at one of Asheville’s festivals.
I’ve had it since high school, and while it may be well loved, it never strays far from me when I sleep.
A small flashlight from my nightstand gets moved to the bathroom for a light source since it’s at the end of the hall.
Ding. My dinner is done and I rush to pull the pizza out of the oven and slide it on a plate. Once it’s sliced the way I like it, I grab it and a bottle of water before heading to my sofa.
With my phone plugged in and the TV playing one of my favorite romcoms, I dig in. The only thing that would make tonight less stressful is Beau sitting beside me and making fun of me for taking so many precautions. It’s all in good fun and I miss it.
No, Piper. You need to stop focusing on Beau.
My intrusive thoughts are right. The only way to keep thoughts of kissing my best friend at bay is to look for a date.
I grab my phone and open one of the dating apps.
The first guy to pop up is one I’ve been on a date with before.
I really need to remember to block the duds.
He was nice enough. We didn’t really have any chemistry, though.
As I’m swiping through, a crash of thunder sounds around the house. That strike of lightning must have been close. Another boom and the front door swings open. What the hell?
I move to go close it and make sure it’s locked, but Beau is standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t leaving for another,” I glance at my phone. “Thirty minutes.”
He takes a step in and closes the door behind him, locking it for good measure. “Why isn’t the door locked?”
“I forgot?” I shrug my shoulders. “But seriously, what are you doing here?”
Him being in my space will make it that much harder for me to try to forget I kissed him.
He glances toward the living room. “I know how much you hate storms, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone.” He gestures toward the coffee table and laughs. “I see you’re prepared, though.”
“Shut up.” I smack him on the shoulder. “I’d offer you food, but all I have is frozen pizza. I can make you one.”
“I’m good.” He grabs my hand and leads me toward the sofa. “Besides, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Nothing good ever follows those words.”
“This is good, I promise.” He sits down and pulls me to sit next to him. “You know how I prepared those marketing plans for you?”
“Yeah.” Lot of good they’ll do since my brother turned down the idea. “Hopefully they didn’t take too much of your time.”
“That’s the thing, Piper. My boss wants me to work on it with you to see if it can be done on a minimal budget. And I could get a promotion out of it.”
“That’s amazing.” It is, and I’m so freaking happy he’s getting this opportunity. But that means I’ll be spending even more time with him. Tamping down my feelings for him over the years has been easy, until I freaking kissed him. Now everything feels awkward. At least, it does on my end.
“So are you cool with moving forward with it.”
“Absolutely.” What else can I say? I’d be a shitty best friend if I said no.
Especially when he’s supported every idea I’ve ever had.
Now I need to figure out how to cast these feelings I have for him aside.
Once and for all. I’ll ask whoever pops up on my dating app next on a date. It’s the only way.