“Sorry, man. I don’t know what to tell you. We’re on back order.”
Greg Olsen had sung a different tune when I’d initially placed our order for stock with him. He’d been all too happy to take my business. That was months ago, though, and apparently the supply chain took a hit when a barge crashed in the Panama Canal.
“So, how long are we talking?” I asked, resigned to the inevitable. “We’ve got a store to open, and I’d like there to be something for people to buy.”
“Another three weeks, at least.”
“Talk about cutting it fucking close.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s the best I can do.”
“Guess that’s true,” I said begrudgingly. “I appreciate you telling me straight.”
“Of course.”
“Keep me updated if—” I broke off as the door swung open with a crash and my brother stormed inside. “Greg, I gotta go.”
“You’re not going to believe what happened!” Branson exclaimed.
I took in my wild-eyed brother and disconnected the call. It wasn’t like him to be dramatic. He was the even-keeled one of the two of us. I was the one hopping from job to job, never quite finding the right fit.
He had given up a lucrative career in sales to open this sporting goods store with me, with the caveat that we open it in Granville so that he and Caitlyn could be closer to her family. It’d been a lifelong dream of mine, so I’d leapt at the chance.
“You look like Caitlyn just called off the wedding,” I joked. “Everything okay?”
“No, it’s not fucking okay.” He gestured wildly. “I’ll be lucky if Caitlyndoesn’tcall off the wedding!”
Whoa. That was unlikely. Caitlyn and Branson were two happy peas in a pod.
“Take a breath and tell me what happened,” I said. “I’m sure we can work everything out.”
“I wish I knew.” He inhaled a deep breath, his tense face slowly relaxing. Better. I didn’t particularly like the wild, manic-eyed look on his face. Or on mine, for that matter, since we were identical twins. “We went to the wedding planning meeting today, as planned.”
“Yeah?”
“And the wedding planner flipped out on me! Said he couldn’t work with us. Just quit out of the blue, and I told him,like you can’t just quit without an explanation, you know? And he told me to come clean. Come clean about what, bro? I’ve never met this dude before in my life.”
Uh-oh. Branson had never met him, but I was starting to wonder if maybe I had.
“What was his name, by chance?” I asked as casually as I could.
“I don’t know, man. Simon or Sawyer or, um?—”
“Silas?”
“Yeah, that’s it!” His eyes widened. “Wait, how do you…” He trailed off as he realized. “Fucking hell, Bry, did you really have to fuck my wedding planner?”
“How was I supposed to know he wasyourwedding planner?”
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “The town’s the size of a postage stamp, but you met a wedding planner and didn’t consider the fact he might be working with Caitlyn?”
“I kind of had other things on my mind.”
He groaned. “For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me your dick torpedoed my wedding!”
“First off, we had a really nice date. Stop being such an asshole. I really like this guy. It wasn’t just about sex.”
“It never is with you,” he grumbled.
