Page 134 of Best Kind of Trouble
“It was worth it,” she says, getting up from the chair and opening the globe-shaped bar sitting beside it. “I’m going to drink your best whiskey, and then I’m bringing the rest of the bottle home for Travis.”
“I have a feeling I know what this is about,” I say, closing the door behind me. It’s a natural escape route, true, but I suspect my little sister is going to yell at me. No way do I want to get verbal smackdown from the half-pint. My weed-dealing neighbor is just the right amount of scared of me, and I’d like to keep it that way.
“Aren’tyoua genius?” Hannah murmurs, filling one of the glasses stored in the spherical mini bar nearly to the brim.
“Are you going to pour one for me too?”
“As if.” She glares at me. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I have.”
She takes a long sip of her drink, shrugs, then says, “Asking you to leave your job felt like the bigger request, but you barely flinched. You seemedexcitedto get yourself fired. But you only waited a few weeks before trampling all over your promise to leave Briar alone.”
I don’t deny it. Instead, I sit on the couch and pat the cushion beside me, reminded of when she was a little kid and we’d watch cartoons together.
“Nope,” she says, coming over to stand in front of me. “But I’m good with looming over you.”
“Only with a lot of imagination could you call that looming.”
She stomps her foot, and I sigh.
“Yeah, I’m a bad brother, but there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“You’re sleeping with her,” she says, putting it out there, the way she likes to do. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other, and there’s no way you wouldn’t have gone for BabeinBoots999 unless you were getting it on with someone better. She was a total hottie with a body.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She admits to her catfishing scheme, and I shake my head ruefully, because if I’m a madman, my sister’s a madwoman. Our baby brother’s probably in some deep shit if he ever falls in love.
“Admit it,” she says, nearly sloshing her drink with an exaggerated hand gesture. “You didn’t answer her because you were already sleeping with Briar. I told you not to. You promised me.On pain of death.”
“Don’t kill me just yet.” I rub my forehead before looking up and meeting her eyes. “I…I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but we’ve been working together, spending a lot of time together, and she’s…”
“Yes, she’s gorgeous,” Hannah fumes. “I knew that all along, hence why I asked you to make me that very important promise.”
“It’s not like that.” My voice rises with every word. “I’m in love with her, dammit. I didn’t try to be. It just…happened. It was inevitable.”
A moment of silence lingers between us, full of unspoken words that could ruin or save everything. Then Hannah throws back half of the whiskey in a single gulp, sets her glass on thecoffee table, and sinks into the chair. Frowning, she says, “You got drunk on Christmas again. I called you. I could tell you’d been drinking.”
“It wasn’t about Julia. I feel more at peace about what happened with her. I was with Otis. He gave me his blessing.”
“Jesus Christ.” She shakes her head, her red curls flying. “I was gone for less than a week.”
“Maybe you should leave town more often,” I quip.
“Does Briar love you back?”
I sink back into the couch cushions and run a hand over my beard. “I really fucking hope so. I kind of screwed up.”
She groans. “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the whole Tinder thing to her this afternoon, huh? In my defense, I only had a suspicion. I was trying to pump her for information.”
I have to laugh, but then I confess what happened earlier this week and tonight. I tell her about the problems with the brewery and Don Sterling’s hope that Briar will fail. By the time I’m finished, her glass is empty.
“I’m not happy about this,” she tells me, triggering a sinking feeling inside of me. I meant what I said to Briar earlier: I want Hannah’s blessing, not her permission—but I want it bad.
“But I hope I will be,” she finishes, her gaze hooked on mine. “I hope it’s going to be the best thing in the world, and you’ll have a dozen babies?—”
“Yeah, that’s a big nope.”
