Page 56 of Business Casual
“I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s overwatering them,” he mutters quietly. “They’ll be dead in a week.” He sighs and shakes his head, a smile edging at one side of his mouth. “And yes. Mom wants you at family dinner. She said she’s worried about the things she’s hearing on the phone tree.”
I stand straight. “The phone tree? I haven’t heard anything from the phone tree since before the wedding.”
It’s been like a gnat buzzing in my ear. Usually, I get at least seven texts a day. I even tried starting my own message chain, but I got a disconnected voice mail from Matty that sounded suspiciously like Gus’s voice when I dialed the number. The phone tree has been inactive. I can’t figure it out.
Beckett grunts. “Lucky you.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“I heard about the brown sugar lattes, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
It is not. I narrow my eyes. “Have I been kicked off the phone tree?”
I better not have. I’ve earned my spot. I pass on messages faithfully no matter what I’m doing. I once stopped a client meeting so I could lock myself in the bathroom and call Matty about the two-for-one sale on fish tacos at the little stand by the coast. I take it very seriously.
“You can ask my mom about it.” Beckett tosses a shovelful of dirt over his shoulder. It narrowly misses my shoes. “At dinner.”
I prop myself up with my shovel. Nova and I have texted a few times since I rolled my way out of her bed, but I’m not sure where this falls on thehow to behave after a one-night standspectrum.
“Will, ah—” I scratch at my chin. “Will your sisters be there?”
Beckett doesn’t look up from his shoveling. “At family dinner?”
“Yes.” I drag out the word until it’s seven syllables long. I am not doing an excellent job of playing it cool.
Beckett grunts. “Yes. My family will be at family dinner.”
“And your mom wants me there?”
“That’s what she said.”
“You’re sure?”
Beckett straightens with a huff, thoroughly done with this conversation. He nudges his hat up so I can appreciate the full force of his glare. “You can come willingly, or you can disappoint my mother when I drag you in through the back door. Those are your choices.”
There’s an implication with the second choice. That disappointing his mother will result in another action as well. Potentially with the knuckles of his left hand.
“I’ll come willingly.”
Beckett goes back to digging his hole. “Good.”
?I’m fidgeting.
I’m fidgeting and I can’t decide which book to buy. What sort of book says,Thank you for having me over to your home for family dinner, I don’t know what to do with an invitation like this, but I’m grateful all the same? A thriller? A paranormal romance? Something nonfiction?
“Why don’t you just bring flowers?” Alex calls from behind the counter, his nose buried in another regency romance. He’s barely said two words since I strolled in here.
I pick up a copy of a book with a giant cat on the cover and flip it over, skimming the back. It might as well be in a foreign language. Nothing is resonating right now. My brain is static, my thoughts tumbling over one another. I’ve sufficiently overthought this dinner invitation to death.
“I want to make a good impression. Any dope can bring flowers. Mrs. Porter likes books.”
“You bring my grandmother flowers all the time.”
“That’s because your abuela loves flowers and you should bring people the things they like.” Alex makes a face behind his book. “Don’t pout because your grandmother likes me better.”
I decide on the cat book. At the very least, she’ll appreciate the cover. At the worst, she can drop it in the Little Library I know she has outside of the salon she works at. I whistle and toss the book across the room. Alex catches it right before it smacks him in the face and rings it up.
“Make a good impression,” he mutters. “Like they don’t know exactly who you are.”
