“Penny cooked pumpkin rolls and pot roast for dinner. She even let us make sandwiches, too, if we wanted,” Henry said in excitement.
“If you got a girlfriend, she could cook, and then we wouldn’t have to eat oatmeal for dinner,” Andy complained.
“That only happened once,” I said, “and it was because I was busy trying to keep Nate from sticking his hand in the garbage disposal and the chicken burned. I am far too busy to have a girlfriend.”
“So who was that that you were at dinner with?” Hunter asked.
“A colleague,” I retorted.
Hunter snorted. “You’re as bad as Garrett.”
Garrett froze in the doorway to the kitchen.
My little brothers all let out a collective “Oooh!” Garrett was not someone you crossed. Garrett was the type of man who would act like everything was fine, then one night you wake up and all your furniture is glued to the ceiling.
“What did you say?” he said, slowly turning to face Hunter. “Penny was a temp. Stop implying I took advantage of the situation.”
“Aww, Garrett did take advantage,” Penny said, coming in from the kitchen. The smell of freshly baked pumpkin bread followed her in. “And it was very nice advantage too!” she added, kissing him.
“Parker, since your dinner ended up on your lap,” Penny said, sliding a plate onto the table, “I’m sure you’re still hungry. I made you a plate. We’re all about to eat the pie I made for dessert. And while we eat dessert,” she addressed my little brothers, “we can harass Parker about his date with not one but two women!”
Mace and Josie came home while Hunter was telling Davy to eat his pie with a knife and a fork and not his hands.
“Why can’t we put our office in town?” Weston complained as he and Blade trailed Mace. Remy cut them each a piece of pie. “We need offices on Main Street, near the train station.” Weston sat down next to me and stabbed some of the meat off of my plate.
“You mean convince Greg to release his stranglehold on the real-estate portfolio and give you a building then fight with the city,” Mace retorted. “Good luck trying to convince Deputy Mayor Loring to approve it.”
“That’s why we have the Rural Trust,” Weston said.
“It’s my foundation,” Remy countered around a huge piece of pie. “It’s for investing in the working class, not a slush fund for you all to build your fancy-pants offices.”
“All you’ve invested in is Earnest’s farm,” Hunter retorted.
“And the straw factory,” Remy said.
I clenched my jaw. All last fall, Garrett had complained nonstop about the straws. In order to screw over Hunter—and protect the environment, of course, but mostly to screw Hunter—Deputy Mayor Meghan Loring had banned single-use plastics in Harrogate.
“Parker’s going to help you run that,” Hunter said, “You can’t take credit for it.”
While I had been studiously trying to ignore the issue, I had helped Billy and Oscar design an environmentally friendly bamboo composite for a dart gun. Penny, Garrett’s girlfriend, had discovered that these dart guns made perfect straws. Now they would be manufactured by Remington’s foundation.
“As a scientist, I helped develop the composite material,” I protested. “My part is done. Why do I have to run the factory? Make someone else do it.”
“This factory has to be a success,” Hunter said. “The Thalian Biotech deal is tied to it. We need to make sure it's not going to smell or blow up. We’re having a meeting about this issue tomorrow. Parker, you’ll need to prepare an update.”
“No thanks, not helping,” I retorted, piling roast beef on another pumpkin roll smeared with horseradish aioli.
“At least just help get the factory off to a good start,” Hunter said. “Who else is going to do it, Archer?”
I glared at him.
“You can file a patent. You might even win an award for the composite,” Remy cajoled.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I will marginally help. But I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to the project. I’m very busy as it is.”
“I know,” Mace said brightly. “That's why I hired you a personal assistant. She starts tomorrow!”
3
