“People still send in paper resumes?” I ask, flipping through the ten or so he’s got spread out next to him.
“I guess so.” Cash rubs his eyes. I suspect he needs glasses, but he’s vain as fuck and won’t admit it. “Sebastian put up flyers around town with our corporate PO box as the only place to send resumes.”
“How is he only eight years older than me? It’s like he’s stuck in the Dark Ages.”
Cash shrugs. “We weren’t getting anything through the online hiring platforms, so we didn’t have much choice. I’ve been staring at all of these for hours trying to figure out how we can make any of these people a part of our crew, but I’m not having any luck. Seb is going to lose his fucking mind if I can’t come up with at least one hire.”
I clear a space and sit on the edge of his bed, picking up a few resumes and glancing over them. “He needs to relax. Our savings are strong. We have time to get a feel for this place. We aren’t going to have what we had in Aspen Cove here in Catalpa Creek in just a couple of months.”
Cash falls back onto the bed. “You aren’t kidding. I tried to convince him to call the Westons and organize a family fun day. I even offered to let him choose the games. But he said we need to focus on the business right now. I don’t know what focusing more is going to do for us. We already have more jobs than we can keep up with.”
“We need to find a way to distract him.” I drop the resumes on the bed. We can figure those out later. “We could get a dog.”
Cash snorts. “Get your own dog, Deacon. No one else wants it.”
I wave a hand. “I’m not ready to be a parent. Besides, everyone in this family loves the fluffy breeds. They’d love a dog, and it would chill everyone out.”
“What Sebastian needs is to get laid,” Cash says, throwing an arm over his face. “He hasn’t been with anyone since he and Skyler broke up last year.”
“She broke his heart. The last thing he needs is meaningless sex with someone who’ll just remind him of what he’s lost.”
Cash snorts and sits up. “The whole reason he and Skyler broke up is because he chose work over her. I hardly think he’s brokenhearted.”
“You don’t know that.” I get up and pace the small room stepping on dirty socks and worn jeans. Cash is a freaking slob. I really need to get my own place. “Maybe what he needs is to fall in love.”
“Right. That’ll make the big guy all soft and mooshy.” He laughs. “Sebastian isn’t going to change.”
“Maybe. But remember how he was when he was dating Skyler? He wasn’t suddenly nice, but he was around less. There was a hell of a lot less micromanaging.”
“Huh,” Cash says. “You aren’t wrong. But Skyler’s dating someone else in Aspen Cove. No way we can convince her to give Seb another chance.”
I stop and stare at my brother. “How do you know that?”
“I follow her on the socials. We chat about interior design. She just got a new place. That little cottage on Wayfare Boulevard and—”
I’ve stopped listening. “We need to find him someone new. What was that dating site Ryland was talking about?”
“Mate Match. But Seb’s never going to agree to join a dating site, man. He hates the internet.”
I sit next to my brother, papers crinkling under my ass. “So maybe we do the legwork for him. We can set up an account pretending to be him and find him the perfect girl.”
Cash rubs his scruffy chin, considering. He’s putting on a show. I can tell by the light in his eyes that he’s already into this plan. "We should get Levi to do it.”
“Set up the account? I don’t think it takes high-level computer skills to create a love match account.”
“No.” Cash flops back onto his back. “We should get Levi to pretend to be Sebastian and talk to the matches. He’s got that sad unrequited love thing going on with Gentry, so he definitely won’t decide to date all the matches himself. Plus, when Seb finds out what we’ve done, we can blame Levi for everything.”
I pull up the site on my phone and, with Cash’s help, we get an account set up for Sebastian. “It would help if we knew more about our sweet brother,” I say.
Cash snorts. “There’s nothing more to know. All he does is work and watch reality television.”
“What is up with that?” I ask. “He’s obsessed with that shit.”
“I think he enjoys seeing people fail. I’ve heard him mutter about the contestants on that one show where they stick everyone in the wilderness with, like, a toothpick or whatever. He calls them freaking idiots and chuckles to himself.”
“Ah,” I say. “Schadenfreude. I doubt that will win him any interest from normal women, but maybe he doesn’t need a normal woman.” I squint at my phone, trying to read the fine print, but the screen’s too small. “Let’s borrow Levi’s laptop to finish this up.”
Cash gathers up his papers and follows me across the hall and into Levi’s room, where he spreads out on Levi’s bed, while I sit at the desk in front of Levi’s laptop.
