Actually, I probably would have still ended up on the floor. She’s pretty insistent on the we’re only friends thing. Sleeping in the same bed would not have been a good idea. As much as I hate to admit it, she may be right. With us working on this marketing plan together, we’ll be together a lot more.
Even though this project is work adjacent, I still need to treat her as if she was one of my clients. Letting her know how I feel about her…how I’ve felt about her for years, would be a conflict of interest. My only course of action right now is to shove all those feelings deep inside. I’ve managed to bury them for this long. How hard can it be?
First things first, I need to see if the electricity is back on. I cross my fingers as I get up and make my way to the light switch. Flicking it up, I wait for the light to come on…nothing. Piper won’t be happy about this.
Shuffling sounds come from the couch and I turn to find Piper stretching. Her t-shirt rises a few inches exposing the skin beneath. Stop it, Beau. Friends only. Remember That.
“Power is still out.”
“Ugh. I hope this isn’t an all-day thing.” She searches for her phone. “I’m sure if I’m out the rest of the family is out, too.”
Her phone is sitting on the coffee table next to the deck of cards. We may have been in an intense game of go fish before we decided to go to sleep. I pick it up and hand it to her. “Here you go.”
She taps on the screen to unlock it and groans. “Yep. Everyone on the land is out of power, including the winery. Apparently, there’s damage outside and Pierce wants us to help with clean up.”
“I hope it’s not a lot of damage.” I run my hand through my hair. If it is, it could set the company back months.
“Pierce’s text doesn’t sound urgent.” She shrugs and sets the phone down. “I’ll head over there in an hour or so. It’s too early to deal with all of them.”
“Did he close the winery for the day?”
“Yeah. At least we got all those orders out yesterday. Hopefully they made it to their destinations okay.”
“What orders? I thought y’all didn’t do a ton of shipments and most of it was walk-ins.”
“It was weird. When I came in yesterday the system had about ten online orders. I helped Pierce get them out the door since we were closing early.”
“Oh. That’s pretty cool.” A small part of me wonders if it’s because of the social media posts. In my gut, I know it’s true. She’ll wave it away as people wanting to wind down.
“Yep.”
I bend down to grab my blanket since it seems the order conversation is over. Just as I’m about to fold the corners together, my phone rings. I have no idea who could be calling me. I check the name and tilt my head to the side. Why the hell is Cole calling me?
“Hello?”
“Hey, man. I don’t know if you’ve checked your email yet, but Mr. Gardner said if you’re affected by the storms that came through last night, you can have a paid day off to take care of things.”
It’s cute how he says Mr. Gardner to sound like he’s equal to the rest of us.
“Oh, okay.”
“Just thought I’d let you know before you came into work. Is it bad your way? We didn’t get much here.”
“I’m actually not sure. I haven’t checked for damage yet.”
“Hopefully you didn’t. Just let Mr. Gardner know what you’re doing.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
I hang up the phone and immediately check my email. It’s not that I don’t believe Cole, but I want to make sure.
Sitting at the top is an email from my boss. I tap out a quick response and shove my phone in my pocket.
Piper glances up at me. “Is everything okay?”
“Yep. Looks like I’ll be able to help y’all with the clean up today.”
“No work?”
