“Yeah,” Eve says hesitantly. “Is that okay?”
I want to say no. No, you can’t come because I’m not allowed to tell you about my fake boyfriend, and the very idea of lying to you makes me want to combust into a million tiny pieces. Also, she’d never buy Knox and me as a couple. My sister knows me better than anyone.
“Of course!” I say a little too eagerly.
My heart starts to beat rapidly against my ribs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she could hear the terrifying Jumanji sound that plays before something bad is about to happen.
Eve is quiet, which makes beads of sweat prickle at my hairline. If I’m like this now, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like having her here in person…I might need to ask Knox about the policy on pausing our little arrangement.
“Okay,” she finally says, relieving some of the pressure building up behind my temples. “I tried to get Eli to cometoo, but he’s being a jerk. I wanted to do some sibling bonding time. I feel like we haven’t all hung out in forever.”
“Not since the awkward Easter dinner at Mom and Dad’s place,” I cringe, remembering how my mom likes to start a fight with me every time I visit. She used to lay off when I’d bring Patrick around, but my little buffer was no more.
“Yeah,” Eve replies, her tone tightening from the shared memory. We Bennett siblings don’t have the best relationship with either of our parents. After years of being pitted against each other to win their affection, we finally gave up and decided to form an alliance. Now, Eve and Eli are two of my closest friends, which makes my stomach churn even more when I think about my double life.
I’m about to answer Eve when I hear a ding at the front of the store. Now my pulse quickens for an entirely different reason. “Hey, I’ve got to go. Kn—my friend is here to help me with that furniture delivery.”
“What friend?” Eve asks, not missing a beat.
“You don’t know them,” I respond, my answer coming out rushed. “Love you, Eve. I can’t wait to see you next weekend. Bye!”
She rattles off a quick and restrained goodbye before I end the call. I take a deep breath, hoping to calm myself before dealing with another issue.
But said issue has no boundaries and makes me almost jump out of my skin when I hear, “Who are you excited to see next weekend?”
“Oh, sh—” I almost say before making eye contact with a three-foot-tall child with gorgeous blond curly hair that isn’t that different from the chaotic curls poking out from underneath Knox’s hat. “You scared me,” I say, clutching my chest.
Knox crosses his arms and arches a brow, not letting me off the hook from answering his question. Even the little guy looks up at me with an expectant gaze. Yikes, there are two of them now.
“Relax,” I say nonchalantly. “That was my sister. She’s coming to visit for the weekend.”
“Okay, good,” Knox says, his shoulders relaxing with relief.
Before I can question his response, the boy clutches Knox’s jeans and tugs at them. “Oh, right,” he says, looking down at his groupie. He bends down to the kid’s level, making my ovaries clench in a funky way. “Milo, this is Emery. Emery, this is Milo.”
I crouch down to their level. “Hi, Milo,” I say, reaching out a cautious hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
He looks up at me with two piercing green eyes, and every mean bone in my body becomes nonexistent. I am just a pile of fluff that will do anything in my power to make this small human happy.
“Hi,” he says with a smile. “Em-ree.”
“You can call me Ree,” I suggest with a gentle smile. “That’s what my brother and sister call me because they could never pronounce my name when we were young.”
“Ree?” Milo asks cautiously.
“Yep. You’ve got it.”
“Or Bambi works too,” Knox says with a wink. I shoot him a nasty glare before rising back to my feet and walking over to the dolly sitting in the corner.
“Is this where you’re working?” Knox asks, taking in the space with a concerned wrinkle spreading across his forehead.
I pause what I’m doing to follow his gaze. Yeah, this place is kind of a dump. I’m using it as a makeshift workspace for now, but in a perfect world, I’d have more time to renovate it and turn it into an area that elicited more creativity and less hoping a spider wouldn’t jump out to ruin my day.
“It’s a work in progress,” I murmur, grabbing the dolly and wheeling it over to the armoire sitting in the middle of the room.
“Right,” he says, scratching under his chin. His eyes dart to Milo walking around curiously and he’s able to redirect the kid before he crashes into a stack of discarded wood. “That piece looks great, though. It doesn’t look anything like the piece of junk I hauled here the night your truck broke down.”
I cringe remembering the domino effect of events that landed us here. “It wasn’t a piece of junk. It just needed a little bit of love and an extra coat of paint,” I say, admiring my handiwork, “but thank you for the half as—wow, I really need to work on my swearing.”
