Maverick glanced over his shoulder and smirked. “Busted.”
His brother’s grin faded quickly when he saw Grayson’s face. He’d been out in the vineyard helping with the last of the harvest when Maverick arrived at the winery this morning, so despite it being nearly eleven a.m., they hadn’t seen each other yet today.
“You look like shit.”
Grayson scowled. “Thanks.” Nice to know his outside matched his inside, because he felt like shit too. He’d barely slept a wink since that run-in with Wren at the library on Friday. Instead, he’d worked himself into exhaustion in the vineyard, picking grapes from dawn to dusk all weekend before falling into bed, where he tossed and turned and cursed the world in general.
He’d been in such a foul mood, he’d even played sick, bailing on his family’s Sunday dinner.
“You still feeling bad?” Maverick asked. Given the fact only a plague would keep Grayson from his mom and Mila’s pot roast, it made sense his brother had bought his excuse for skipping. “Because if so, bro, I can hold down the fort here. God knows you’ve been covering for me a shit-ton the past few months.”
Prior to Ella reappearing in Maverick’s life, his brother rarely took a day off, so Grayson hadn’t minded covering for him while Maverick wooed and won back the heart of his true love, then flew to Seattle for a week to pack up all her things and deal with her asshole family.
Though, the only reason he was in this boat right now was because he’d worked the wine festival so Maverick could plan a bunch of wedding stuff.
“I’m not sick,” Grayson grumbled, walking into the barrel room, leaning on an oak cask filled with last year’s Merlot.
Maverick put the clipboard down, tucked his phone in his back pocket, then approached him, assuming a similar pose across from him, leaning on the same barrel. “You didn’t come to dinner last night because you were sick.”
He shrugged. “I lied.”
Maverick’s eyes widened. “On pot roast night?”
Grayson chuckled miserably. “Yeah. I’ve got some shit on my mind and…” He wasn’t sure why he was hesitating. Maverick was his go-to when he had a problem, and he needed advice.
“Woman shit?”
He nodded.
“Lark?” Maverick asked so quickly, Grayson suddenly realized he hadn’t been as subtle about his feelings for “Lark” as he’d thought. Especially if Maverick, whose head was so far up in the fucking clouds, had managed to notice.
Grayson shook his head. “Not Lark. Wren.”
That response took his brother aback. “Lark’s sister? I didn’t know you even knew her that well. Hell, I don’t really know her, either. Isn’t she the librarian now?”
“Yeah. She is.”
Maverick stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something meaningful. When the silence drifted a few seconds too long, Maverick cracked. “And?”
“She and I worked that wine festival together a few weeks ago.”
Maverick grinned. “I heard.”
Of course, he had.
“Lark confessed to Nora and Remi,” Maverick explained. “They told all of us the tale last night.”
No doubt his family had had a great time, laughing over how he’d been duped by their prank.
“She and Lark swapped places. Played an identical twin joke on me.”
Maverick chuckled. A prank like that was right up his fun-loving brother’s alley. “Good for Wren, managing to pull it off for a whole weekend. She and Lark must be birds of a feather.”
“That’s just it. They aren’t. In fact, they’re pretty damn opposite, if you ask me.”
Maverick looked way too impressed now. “Well, then, even more kudos to her. So what’s the problem? You said the festival went really well, so apart from Wren pretending to be Lark, seems to me it was a case of no harm, no foul.”
“She lied to me,” Grayson replied darkly.
