‘What do you mean?’
Caleb tipped his head like he was studying him. ‘You seem different.’
‘Different how?’
‘Happy, I guess? Even more so in the past few days. Like something changed.’
Something like Daisy telling him she loved him. Something like officially going from a fake relationship to a real one. But he wasn’t about to admit to his brother that this whole thing started out as a ruse concocted at least in part to keep him off Elliot’s back.
‘I am happy,’ he said instead.
‘Confident, too.’
A woman screaming his name every night did wonders for his self-esteem. Another thing he wasn’t confessing. He was close with his brother, but maybe not that close.
Instead, he just shrugged and kept walking toward the front of the inn. He was ready to be done for the day so he could go see the woman responsible for this newfound happy confidence.
‘Daisy must be good for you,’ Caleb went on. ‘You weren’t like this when you were with Leigh.’
‘Really?’ That gave Elliot pause. He’d been happy with Leigh, hadn’t he? But had she made him feel confident?
‘Yeah, I mean I liked Leigh, but you seem… better now than you have been in a long time.’
Maybe he’d been happy with Leigh at first, but his brother was right, it had been a long time since he’d felt like this. Those last few years of his marriage, he felt like he’d been clinging to something that just wasn’t working.
‘Thanks, I feel better.’
‘Good.’ It was Caleb’s turn to land a hearty pat on Elliot’s back.
‘So, you can stop acting like a mother hen around me now.’
Caleb laughed. ‘Maybe. But I’m not making any promises. Old habits die hard.’
Elliot just shook his head. He didn’t really expect his brother to ever stop being a nosy bastard about his life, but maybe he could return the favor. ‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘You gonna ask Vivienne out?’
Caleb stumbled over his feet before shaking it off and feigning disinterest. Elliot was having a very hard time keeping a straight face.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not? She’s cute.’
‘She’s fucking gorgeous.’
Elliot’s eyebrows rose as a furious blush worked its way up Caleb’s face. His brother never blushed. He didn’t get flustered over women. Elliot was dying to tease him about it, but the man actually looked too pitiful to mock at the moment.
‘But that’s beside the point,’ Caleb said, attempting to school his features and failing terribly. ‘She wasn’t interested and there’s plenty of gorgeous women out there.’
‘Mmm.’
If his brother felt like he had the first time he’d seen Daisy, then avoiding Vivienne would be a lost cause. He just hoped Caleb didn’t fight it too hard. He was as stubborn as he was charming.
But a perk of being the younger brother was that Elliot didn’t make a habit of worrying about his brother’s love life.
‘What does that mean? Why are you looking at me like that?’
