Page 5 of Temporarily in Love

“Who’s that?” Annie asked.

“Who?”

“The pretty brunette Avery’s talking to.”

“Nobody,” I muttered.

Annie eyed me curiously, but couldn’t ask the question she was dying to ask because we had another couple of customers come up to the booth. Lila and her sister moved on, thank god. My brother stood off to the side of the booth, watching me like a hawk.

“You good?” he mouthed.

I nodded, and he walked off with Avery to check out the rest of the festival. Probably to feed her dumplings again like he did last year. They were so gross and in love, but I was glad my big brother finally found his one true love after his train wreck of a first marriage.

Annie took the customer’s order while I got them their beers. She took their money and put it in the cash box. My eye twitched when she put the money in the wrong way. I opened up the cashbox and redid it, so everything was facing the right way.

“Declan, you’re so anal,” she said with a laugh.

Anal, maybe, but I liked things neat and orderly. Things had to be a certain way, or I wasn’t in control, and I had to be in control.

“Thanks for coming to help,” she said and squeezed my arm.

“It’s my job,” I stated flatly, not looking at her.

Instead, I stared out into the crowd, searching for Lila. Because of course I was.

Like me, she was older now, but she still made my heart skip a beat when I saw her. I didn’t know why she was in town. She worked for some big-time tech company out in Silicon Valley, so it didn’t make sense that she was back in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t even a holiday.

I spent the next couple of hours manning the booth with Annie until the festival was over. Nolan and Gemma came back to help break everything down and take it back to the brewery. Gemma was on a roll with getting our name out there since she took over marketing. I hadn’t even questioned her when she asked me to sign the permit applications for the Harvest Fest next weekend. The annual fall carnival in the fairgrounds a couple towns over brought in a huge crowd, so having a booth there made sense.

I should have gone home to get some sleep, but there was still so much I needed to get done. When we got everything back to the brewery, I logged onto my computer and finished up my expense report. I still needed to do payroll, and that couldn’t wait. I needed to make sure everyone got paid on time.

“Dude, go home,” my brother said to me.

I looked up and saw him standing in the doorway of the office. “I got shit to do. Go home and be with Avery and Norah.”

“Nah, I’m finishing the last batch of the new Christmas beer.”

“Yeah, you got a name yet?”

He shrugged. “It’s for Avery. So Avery’s Ale?”

“Booooo!” I yelled at him.

That was why I had wanted Gemma to be the marketing director. She was way better at naming shit. Nol sucked at catchy names.

My brother scowled at me, but that was nothing new. My big brother was the grumpiest person I knew. “Man, don’t be a dick.”

“Ask Gemma for a suggestion. That’s her job. Then she’ll have Felix work on the design for the labels.”

The scowl didn’t leave his face.

“What? I gotta finish payroll. What do you want?”

“Are you okay?”

I furrowed my brow at him. “Yeah?”

Nolan rubbed a hand through his big, bushy beard. I never understood how he dealt with having that thing; beards were too itchy for me. I preferred being clean-cut.