Philip. Of course it is. He thinks because he’s one of the middle kids nobody will notice when he does crap like this.When Mom took care of all the admin stuff, she probably let it slide. Well, guess what, buddy. I’m not mom.
Maybe I would have swept it under the rug if he had spoken up during the meeting last week, but I’m feeling particularly petty today. He’ll find a nice surprise in his truck when he gets off work.
Now that all the paperwork is sorted and where it’s supposed to be, I can get to work on the orders. The queue is full. I don’t remember the last time we had this many orders outside of the ones we do for a few bars in the area. They aren’t all to one place either.
It looks like people have found us. This is a reason I put a maximum number of orders we can take at a time. Though I never thought we’d actually get this many at once. Maybe my stories did what they were supposed to and brought in business. I haven’t been tracking it, so I can’t be sure. It could also be because parents need a reprieve from their busy schedules now that school is back in session.
Actually, the latter makes sense. The stories were days ago. If we were going to see a bump in sales it would have happened then. Maybe Pierce is right. My time may not be better spent finding new ways to engage with our audience. I refuse to tell him that. The last thing I want to hear is I told you so.
“Hey, sister.” Philip pokes his head into the office. “Did you get that thing I put on your desk?”
Funny how he doesn’t mention it by name. “That depends. What exactly are you looking for?”
The thing in question is sitting to the left of my keyboard. I guess I won’t have to put it in his truck after all.
“It’s a piece of paper about this big.” He holds his hands up in the air showing a small rectangle. “It needs to be taken care of soon.”
“Oh,” I pick up the ticket. “You mean this?”
“Yes!” He comes further into the office. “Can you get that paid today?”
“Did Pierce sign off on it?”
“W-what?” Sweat beads on his forehead. It could be from being outside, or the realization he’ll have to go to our big brother. “Dad never signed off on them.”
“How many tickets have you gotten, Philip?”
“A few.” He shrugs his shoulder and sits in the chair across from the desk. “Mom always paid them so I never had to worry about it.”
“Maybe you should slow down.” I glance down at the ticket in question. “And maybe not park in front of a fire hydrant.”
“I wasn’t even parked that long,” he groans. “I had to run into the hardware store to get some screws. It was like two minutes.”
“Long enough for an officer to see it and give you a ticket.” I hand it over to him. “If you can get Pierce to sign off on it, I’ll get it paid. You know how he’s been with getting expenses approved.”
There is definitely fear in his eyes. He knows good and well our brother would never. If anything, he’d rip him a new one for having so many. If I paid it without his signature, it’d be my ass on the line. I’m already on his list of people he’s annoyed with. There’s no way in hell I’m making that worse.
“Fine.” He stands and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He’s definitely paying it himself. Even he’s scared to approach our big brother. I don’t blame him one bit. He stops before leaving the office. “Are you leaving early today?”
“Why would I?” There’s nothing on my calendar. I double check to be sure.
“There are some wild storms that are supposed to come in. I think Pierce is going to call it an early day for everyone.”
“It’s not like we live far from the winery.” My grandparents had a massive plot of land and each of us has a piece. Even Paula,though she refuses to build a house on it. That may change now that she’s with Tristan. “All of us can get to our houses in like five minutes or less.”
“Whatever it is has him worried.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Do you want me to check with him?”
“No,” I shake my head. “I’ll ask him. I need to take him all these orders anyway.”
“Okay. Let me know what he says.”
I nod and he walks out the door. It only takes a couple of minutes to print the orders, and before long I’m heading into the metal building that stores our bottles of wine.
“Here are the orders for today.”
Pierce glances over at me and notices the stack in my hand. “That looks like a lot.”
“It is. I don’t know what happened but these were all in the system when I logged in this morning.” I hand them over to him. “Oh, and Philip mentioned something about leaving early today.”
