Page 57 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

“Yep,” I said, handing it to her. “I caught you skipping breakfast again.”

She pulled out the cold brew and regarded it like a holy relic. “If you’re not careful, I’ll start expecting this every day.”

“Consider it a line item in the operating budget,” I said, and tried not to look at how her fingers—smudged with sharpie—wrapped around the bottle.

She dropped onto the chapel steps with a grateful groan, uncapped the coffee, and took one of those slow, reverential sips that made me momentarily forget the concept of restraint. For three seconds it was just the sound of birds and the weirdly erotic way she experienced caffeine. Then she opened the protein bar, bit off half, and made a wordless sound of gratitude.

“You understand you’re aggressively boyfriending me, right?” she said, once her mouth was clear. “You’re like…outpacing the actual boyfriend bar by miles.”

“Because I brought you a snack?” I asked, my tone infused with innocence.

“That’s not all you’ve done.”

“I fixed a railing,” I downplayed.

“You alphabetized my spice cabinet,” she pointed out.

“It was a mess,” I defended.

“You bought my son a new hat and boots.”

“His didn’t fit.”

“Dean.”

I had no defense. Even if I could have conjured one, Felicity’s phone rang with the Bangles 80s hit “Manic Monday.” She glanced at the caller ID, lip curling as she thumbed it to speaker. “Hey, Jim, what’s up?”

I caught only half the conversation, but the gist was the entire wedding party had arrived a day early, the mother of the bride had strong opinions about vegetarian options, and apparently, the Ramirez’s’ rehearsal dinner was now a full-catered production with floral centerpieces and a cellist, effective immediately. She pinched the bridge of her nose, rolled her eyes at me, and mouthed thank you as she held up her drink before jogging down the chapel steps, cold brew in hand, already in crisis mode. I admired the efficiency. I admired everything.

She was pulling away in her SUV when I felt my brother’s gaze boring through the side of my skull. Dawson, who must have been out working on the property, pulled up in a golf cart. He moved with that old lineman grace—compact, heavy, a little battered by a decade of farm work and a decade more of never talking about feelings. He sat beside me, picked up a piece of loose gravel, and started chipping away at the cement post with it.

“You know Mom’s already planning the wedding,” he stated flatly.

So was I. When I’d asked Felicity if I should reserve the ranch for a December wedding, I was only half-joking.

“Yeah, your wedding,” I deflected.

He tilted his head, not responding to my Uno Reverse card reply. My oldest brother didn’t say much, he didn’t waste words, it was something I’d always respected about him. But he communicated very strongly what he was feeling. Right now I felt the accusation in his silence.

“Nothing is going on,” I lied through my teeth.

“I’m just wondering if you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“She’s a woman, not a timeshare.”

“She’s got a lot on her plate.”

“And?” With each statement my brother made, my defensiveness grew.

“And you’ve never met a problem you didn’t want to fix.”

I turned to him. “She’s not a problem.”

“I didn’t say she was.”

I remained silent and hoped my brother would drop it.

He didn’t.