7. Transparent as Saran Wrap #2
“Holy shit,” Dylan piped in, slow to catch the vibe but quick to amplify it. “You really do like her.”
I could feel the heat rising up my neck, and I hated it, hated that my body would betray me so easily.
“No, I don’t,” I repeated, this time with the tight, clipped efficiency of a man reciting a password under duress.
Damon sidled up to me, adopting his most faux-concerned brother voice. “It’s okay, man. We all have feelings. Some of us just…act on them instead of treating them like a math problem that needs to be solved.”
Dylan cracked up at that, damn near choking on the peanuts he was tossing into his mouth. “If you ask me, it’s about time Dean caught feelings. Maybe then he’ll stop micro-managing our schedules, budgets…lives.”
I wanted to defend myself, but I knew it was pointless. They were sharks in the water smelling blood. And this time it was me who was bleeding. That’s how it was with my brothers, the more you tried to hide something, and the more joy they got dragging you into the center of the ring.
“Why don’t you want me to take her? Are you jealous?” Damon asked, and the only reason it stung was because it was so blatantly untrue.
“No.” My denial was immediate, and even to my own ears, it sounded defensive.
“Oh shit. You're doing the jaw thing,” Dylan pointed out, tapping his own chin in demonstration.
“I don’t have a jaw thing,” I argued, but Damon, Dylan, and even Dawson all nodded as one.
“You definitely have a jaw thing,” all three brothers simultaneously confirmed.
My phone buzzed with a text from Gavin Valentine asking if I was still up for poker night, but I pretended it was work and I used it as an excuse to eighty-six my way out of this conversation. “I need to get back.”
I turned on my heel and made directly for the exit, but not before catching Dawson’s look, half amusement, half concern. That’s how I knew it was bad. The oldest Lockhart brother only worried when you were in real trouble.
“Hey, don’t go getting all emo on us!” Damon called after me. “A little competition never hurt anyone!”
I didn’t look back, knowing he was just trying to bait me. There was no way he was seriously interested in Felicity. That would require Damon to be serious, something he did not have the emotional bandwidth to be.
As I tried to block out the interaction, I beelined for my office. It was the one place that I had semi-privacy, not that my brothers or mom ever respected it. I closed the door and leaned against it, breathing out a slow, measured exhale that did nothing to steady my pulse.
To try and get some control back, the first thing I did was mentally replay the last two weeks’ worth of interactions with Felicity, cross-examining every word, every glance, every half-smile she’d thrown my direction.
If my brothers had noticed something, maybe she had too.
Maybe everyone had. The thought made me want to plant my head through the drywall, but I settled for pacing tight circles around my desk.
I didn’t like Felicity. That would imply a softness, a vulnerability, an opening in the armor I’d spent years constructing around my life. What I did have was…an inconvenience. A minor, low-grade, background noise of interest that I had neither the time nor the inclination to address.
She was new to town, she worked for me, and she was not my type. She was too…upbeat and perky. My type had always leaned toward the intellectual. Not that she wasn’t smart, she clearly was. So far, she’d outperformed any expectations I’d had for her.
Felicity Foster was smart, and not just street smart or people smart.
I believed, from the short time I’d known her, she was smarter than most people gave her credit for, and certainly more perceptive than Damon, who basically operated on instinct and impulse.
Yesterday, she read over the business plan I’d written for the new hay barn for fun, it wasn’t in her job description, and she’d handed it back with a single sticky note reading, “Have you factored in the new zoning laws for ag buildings? Happy to review if you want a second pair of eyes.”
I was impressed. I had factored in the new zoning laws, but the fact she was aware of them was impressive.
She worked for the ranch, and although there was no policy against workplace romance, it wasn’t anything I’d ever consider.
It was unprofessional and just a bad idea all around.
Although, there were six couples, working for us now, that met at the ranch, started dating, and were now married. But they weren’t me.
I didn’t do serious relationships.
And the biggest reason nothing could happen was that she had a kid—and not just any kid, but a four-year-old whose favorite pastime was making up jokes about farm animals and following me around the property as if I was the world’s tallest duck and he was my duckling.
Somewhere between the second and third lap around my desk, I became acutely aware of how completely my brothers had played me. Not just Damon, who lived for the thrill of instigating shit, but all of them, even Dylan with his “just happy to be here” routine.
I’d spent my whole life being the responsible one, the level head, the guy who read the fine print, paid the taxes and didn’t get attached to anything that could get messy. So when had my life gotten this messy?
I sat down, hard, in my office chair and let my head drop into my hands.
For several minutes, I just sat there, letting the silence crowd out the barnyard sounds and my siblings’ voices in my head.
The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that the best possible move was to go full scorched earth: avoid Felicity at work, avoid her outside of work, and avoid Maverick, who was at least as dangerous as his mother if not more so. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
That was the plan.
Yes, my brothers had caught me off guard, but I was nothing if not disciplined. I would snap back into my usual routine, keep things professional, and before long, Felicity would just be another name on the payroll. Maybe the kid would get bored and start following Damon around for a change.
The idea of Maverick being Damon’s shadow, not mine, should have been a relief. So why did the thought of it feel like getting kneed in the balls?
It didn’t matter. Those were feelings, and feelings change. I had a plan, and I was sticking to it…even if it killed me, which at this point, I wasn’t ruling out.