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The moment she showed us the branding ideas, with one name possibility of T. Wilder and Co. or The Wilder House, Sheila started crying and gave an enthusiastic yes.
Ivy was the money and the connections, Poppy would manage the store once it opened, and my sister Greer and I would be the ones filling the store. Home decor, artwork, design services, and—thanks to me—custom-built furniture. I did it for years in London, so I was happy to stick close to what I loved.
“Fine with me. As long as I have something to do.” I set my empty coffee mug in the dishwasher and knocked the door shut with a press of my hip. “I’ll head over there now.”
Cameron paused. “Poppy told me about bringing Harlow to your house.”
“Of course she did.” Immediately, I could feel the defensive prickles along the back of my neck, because my brother never let it drop in high school that Harlow and I were just friends. We’d come to more than one shoving match because he was a dick and couldn’t believe that we’d never … anything.
A memory of my dad turning on the hose in the back of the house and spraying us both down when the shoving got a bit too heated for his liking hit me like a two-by-four to the back of my head. Never yelled at us. Didn’t punish us. Just sprayed us with ice-cold fucking water, smiled when we finally stopped, turned off the water, and walked away.
There was no one to separate us now, though, and that had my chin jutting out defiantly even though he couldn’t see me.
“You okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” I said tersely. “Everyone ask you that when you see a friend from high school?”
“No,” he drawled. “Because I never had any friends like her. But okay, we can pretend it’s not a big deal.”
“Cameron, I mean this with utmost sincerity.” I stopped and made sure he was listening. “Fuck off. It’s nothing. She was my friend then, and she’s my friend now.”
And miracle of miracles, my brother dropped it. We discussed the plan for the week, and I tossed the phone onto the counter when we hung up.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy, though. Later at the shop, I stood next to the desk while Ivy sketched out some head-scratching designs that I tried to make sense of.
“And where are these going again?”
She made a puzzling gesture with her hand like I could see the invisible picture in front of us. “Lining the wall. I want people to be able to browse styles of table bases and chair backs but not have it take up space in the store itself.” She stood, holding up the paper, but her chicken scratches made me tilt my head in confusion. “See?”
“Is that a dead body?” I asked.
She sighed dramatically. “You just need to make all the table bases but not affix them to tables, Ian.”
“Ahh.” I walked over to an existing order and picked up the base. “So you want this, but sliced in half, so we can mount it to the wall?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Probably harder than it needed to be,” I mumbled.
Ivy smacked my stomach. “Don’t be a dick.”
It went unsaid between us, but I’d sort of been a dick to Ivy since the day she showed up in town. I’d never quite been able to explain it, but whenever someone new came into the orbit of this family, I felt like one of those junkyard dogs that met any unfamiliar face with their hackles raised.
Ivy had been oddly similar, unwilling to relax around our family until she’d been here for a bit, and my stubborn-ass brother didn’t back down. Now they were in love, blah blah blah, and I’d buried the hatchet with the intimidating blond woman currently bossing me around. We weren’t close, but I respected her. Liked her, even. This was why I kept it to myself when I made an offer on the house she was selling. I refused to guilt her into cutting me a deal if a better offer was on the table.
Turned out, there wasn’t. So when I walked into the closing, her jaw dropped open, and the satisfaction I felt at shocking Ivy warmed the cockles of my cold, distrustful heart. Another few months of having to deal with each other, and maybe Ivy and I might even be friends.
Idly, I flipped through a couple of her sketch ideas for the store. It would be a while before it was ready, but even I had to admit, I was getting excited about this new phase of our family business.
“And you want these now?” I asked. “I didn’t think we’d have a building to fill for at least eight months.”
She stared down at her giant stack of binders, flipping pages and scrawling notes in the margins with her fancy pen. “Website,” she said in an offhand tone. “I want that up and running a couple of months before the storefront opens. Then we can focus on building a social media presence.” Her attention moved from the papers to me, and the evil glint in her eye had me shifting. “Just wait until I make you guys do TikToks.”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I said evenly.
She merely smiled. “We’ll see. Oh, and I can’t wait to meet your friend. Poppy told me all about her. Cameron said he’s curious too. I mean, you’re like, nice to her, right? This is something I have to see.”
My eyes narrowed. “If anyone comes near my house tonight…”
