Page 84 of After You Returned

“In my defense, he thought I was German. I just rolled with it.”

“Until the reporter asked if it would be easier to conduct the interview in German. Then, you panicked.”

Kai frowns. “I didn’t panic.”

“You ran out of the room screaming ‘I have ze diarrhea’.”

Kai shrugs. “Maybe it was true.”

“This has been fun. But I need to prepare for my meeting with Eli.” I try walking around my brothers to my office but Zane stops me.

“I need you to sign off on this marketing plan.”

“I don’t—”

He slaps a pen in my hand. “Sign it.”

I glance down at the clipboard. There’s nothing to sign. It’s a blank piece of paper. “Why are you…” I trail off when I realize my hand is now covered in blue ink.

“Exploding pen prank.” I roll my eyes. “Not very original.”

I hand him the pen and clipboard before making my way to the restrooms. I rinse my hands under the water before pumping soap onto them. I lather my hands up and scrub them but when I go to dry my hands, I notice they’re now bright red.

What the hell?

I wash my hands again but it doesn’t do much to diminish the red coloring. In fact, my hands now have a distinctive rainbow color.

I march out of the restroom intent on finding my brothers to give them a piece of my mind. I don’t have to go far. They’re waiting in the hallway for me.

“Ha!” Zane points at my hands. “It’s a rainbow of flavor.”

Kai claps. “This worked out better than I expected.”

“You’re both assholes.”

“Assholes who should be working,” Rhett hollers from his office.

“Spoil sport.” Kai sticks his tongue out at Rhett’s office.

“I saw that!”

“You didn’t see anything. Because I didn’t do anything.” Kai hurries toward the distillery area. “I need to go check on a … something. There’s something I should be checking on.”

Rhett stands in his doorway and watches Kai scurry away. “You two get back to work.”

I hold up my hands. “This isn’t my fault.”

Zane chuckles. “You shouldn’t have bragged about winning the prank war.”

“It’s not bragging if it’s true.”

And it is true. My brothers are too busy falling in love and having offspring to worry about the prank war. I can multitask. I can convince Hazel to give me a second chance while winning the prank war against my brothers.

“Whatever,” he mutters before stomping toward the nursery. “I’m going to visit Adele.”

I still can’t believe there’s an actual nursery in the distillery offices. Two years ago, I would have thought the nursery was a prank. Now all my brothers are paired off and either have children or want to.

I used to think my brothers were lame but when I found out Hazel might leave the island, I realized I was the lame one. Pushing her away because I was miserable. Because I thought I wasn’t worthy of love after I screwed up the career I’d always dreamed of.