I shake my head as I stand. “Why am I not surprised? Somehow, you’re the only one who gets away with it. At least, without getting your hand smacked.”
“Gotta have quick reflexes, big brother.”
She waves her hands toward me showing me just how fast she is. She’s not, but she doesn’t realize she could get away with murder because she’s the baby. Not that we made life easy for her growing up. She was the smallest and knew how to press our buttons.
I don’t think she realizes how much she got on our nerves back then. Not that she would care. She takes up space no matter where she goes and I admire her for that.
“You are such a dork.” I turn back toward the path from the house. “You’ve got, ten minutes. If you aren’t at the house, I’ll send reinforcements.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I steal a quick glance over my shoulder to see if she’s going to move, but she’s literally waving me away. That is not what I expected. I’m not sure why, though. I guess I thought she’d stand and follow after me like she did when we were kids. A part of me misses it, even though it was annoying back then.
She always wanted to hang out with her big brothers and sister. Now…she does everything she can to avoid us, except for Parker and Paula. Piper is right, though. I need to live my life and not devote all of it to Starlit Fields. The only problem is, I don’t know how.
One
Peter
If one more person comes in this building I’m going to lose it. Every year it’s the same thing. People all of a sudden realize it’s New Year’s Eve and rush to grab the alcohol they forgot to purchase for their parties.
The fact they’re making bottles of wine fall off the shelf isn’t the problem. It’s the part where they wait until the last possible second to come in. Now would be a perfect time for Pierce to look at being stocked in stores. We can do other things to bring people to the winery. I know Piper has some ideas. She was telling me about them in the Fall.
“Peter, we need three more bottles of sangria.” Phillip hollers from the backyard of the main building. He’s lucky I have the door open and can hear him.
“I’m coming with a whole case. Give me a few seconds.”
“Speed it up.”
Pfft. He thinks rushing me is going to make me move faster, he has another thing coming. I’m ready for the day to be over so I can go home and play video games.
“We should have closed early today.” I grumble as I load a case with bottles of sangria. Piper needs to stop telling our followers it’s her favorite. We can barely keep it in stock.
Lifting the case I head toward the door. I probably should have grabbed a dolly to take in more. But…the less time I spend in the main building the less I have to interact with people.
There is a line to the door when I walk into the main house. Am I surprised? No. Not in the slightest. The only plus side to us being this busy today is the rest of the day will go by quickly. I can’t rest when I’m running crates back and forth.
“Peter, can you jump back here and help me get this line moving?” Piper asks as she takes a credit card from a customer.
Of course she’d ask. Where are literally any of our other siblings? It’s funny how all of them have disappeared when we have a full house.
“Do you really need me? I was going to grab a few more crates to get us through the day.”
Instead of answering, she glares at me. Point taken. You’d think she’d be nicer to me since I was the one who took care of her when she was upset with Beau and our eldest brother a few months ago. But, I know if she’s asking for help, she really needs it.
I set the crate of wine against the wall and rush over to the other kiosk. Piper knows I’ll do anything to help her out after we’ve bonded over the past few months.
She’s been trying, unsuccessfully, to get me to take time off work and have fun. She even has Miles on board. Not that he’s complaining too much. It means more time playing pool and watching him try to hit on women. While funny, it’s not how I want to spend my time.
“Which of our fine wines can I get for you today?” I ask the customer who moved lines. She stares at the list of wines taped to the counter.
“Let me look over the list really quick.” She says without meeting my eyes.
The only thing they don’t seem to understand is I love working. It’s the one task I’m good at. Besides working helps me forget I have no life. Even if it means working with Pierce.
I still haven’t forgiven him for keeping Dad’s early retirement a secret. Or, the fact him and Beau were pretty much lying to Piper. She’s working toward mending that hurt with our brother after already making up with her boyfriend. Me? It’s not that easy.
Geez, could this woman make her selection any slower? No wonder the line is so long. People have no clue what they want. Or, maybe they don’t know what we offer.
