"I thought I'd surprise you all," I said, unpacking the food from my bag.
"You're hardly ever over here," Meg said.
"'Cause she's with her boyfriend!" Minnie said, giggling as she opened up the deviled eggs I'd brought. "Yum!"
"And I have sandwiches. I brought your favorite," I said, waving Meg's sandwich in front of her nose.
"Ugh, fine."
"She's hangry," Rose told me, pulling out plates and napkins. "And she's mad she had to see Hunter the other day."
"Maybe you could give him another chance," I said carefully, scooping out some pasta salad on my plate. "It doesn't sound like he's moved on, and neither have you."
"I could move on if I wanted to," Meg said. "There are a lot of eligible guys in Harrogate now."
"You never go on any dates," Rose scoffed.
"I'm busy," Meg said, forking some salad onto Rose's plate.
"Can you come swimming with us tomorrow?" Minnie asked me.
"I have an early start to a long day tomorrow," I said. "I'm doing the rendering for Archer's convention center. Apparently whoever is approving it said it didn't have the human touch."
My older sister pursed her lips. "Amos didn't like their renderings. I'm on the decision committee." She frowned. "You know, Hazel, Archer probably hired you because of me. I bet he thinks I'll give them the job because of that."
I felt a tear prick my eyes.
"Sorry," Meg said, seeing the hurt on my face. "I didn't mean it like that. I know you're a good artist. But you can't trust those Svenssons."
20
Archer
"Hazel's doing the paintings!" I crowed, walking into the large home office. "Did you hear?" I asked Hunter. He grunted and didn't look up from his screen.
The man was crazy organized. In the office was a whiteboard with his neat handwriting. A large calendar that was color coded and tabbed hung on one wall. There was a bookcase with identical gray binders that each had one of my brothers' names on it. I went to the shelf and pulled mine.
"Don't touch that," Hunter ordered. Garrett was at his desk, studiously ignoring me.
"It's my binder. It has my name on it." I flipped through. "You don't have a section in here about how awesome I am."
"I'm not going to give you a pat on the back for doing your job," Hunter said. "Speaking of, I hope you made it clear that you weren't hiring Hazel because of her sister."
"Uh… I didn't even think of that. Surely she knows I hired her because of how good a painter she is."
"I'm not sure we should trust his judgement on anything," Garrett said, standing up. His military-short hair made him look dangerous in the evening light. I thought Garrett and I were on somewhat good terms, but I realized as he advanced on me that maybe we weren't as good as I thought. "Did you think I wasn't going to find out?" Garrett asked, his tone clipped.
"Find out about what?" I asked, slowly backing away.
"Mom." He stuck his tablet in my face. There was video footage from the parking deck of me and Merla Vee hugging.
Hunter stood up. "After everything that happened in the last few months, you do this?"
"I'm sorry I can't just cut out people I love, unlike some people," I said angrily. "I believe in second chances."
"This is more than a second chance," Garrett said. "You've been giving her tens of thousands of dollars."
"It wasn't that much!" I protested.
