“So, Silas is jerking you around?” His jaw tightened. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No. That’s not how it is. I just?—”
Branson’s phone ring started up. “Hold that thought. I need to get Bolton to back me up on this because that’s fucked up.”
I huffed with annoyance. I really did not want my brothers dissecting my love life. I was tryingnotto think about whether I’d made the right call with Silas. All I knew was that it was the only call I could make. I wasn’t capable of keeping my distance, and that was on me, not Silas. He’d already told me where he stood, and I’d pushed anyway.
“Hey!” Bolton appeared on my brother’s phone screen in a video call. “How goes it at In The Sticks.”
“We’re not naming the store that,” Branson said.
“Yeah.” I grinned. “Pitching a Tent is much better, right?”
Branson turned to me and said, dead-ass serious, “I thought we agreed on Take a Hike.”
Bolton laughed. “Pitching a Tent. That’s good.”
“I don’t get it,” Branson said.
I motioned toward my crotch, and he rolled his eyes and groaned. “My god. You two are so immature.”
I unwrapped my pile of hot links, pried the lid off the barbecue sauce, and dug in, happy that I’d sidetracked Branson from my personal life.
“Hey, I’m not the one who thought Tracy Robins would want to get busy in the garden shed next to the bags of manure,” Bolton shot back.
“I was fifteen! I was childish because I was achild,” Branson said.
I snorted. “Remember when he called his girlfriend by thewrongname?”
“Hey, that was you!” he protested.
“Was it?” I asked innocently.
“You ran into her when you were covering for me at soccer practice so I could—” He stopped short, eyes narrowing. “Okay, no. I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything.” I speared another hot link. “Except eating this amazing barbecue. It’s not bad for Nebraska.”
“There’s nothing like southern barbecue,” Bolton said. “I was in Memphis for work, and hoo, those ribs were the best fucking shit I’ve had in a long time.”
“Yeah, I miss the pulled pork form back home. Mainly it’s the sauce, though, you know? I think it’s more?—”
“Nope,” Branson interjected. “Enough diversion. We’re talking about it.”
“Talking about what?” Bolton asked, gaze bouncing between us.
Branson held the phone at an angle to capture us both. “Bryson here just got a hookup with the man he’s been pining over.”
“The smoking hot wedding planner?” Bolton asked.
“That’s the one,” Branson said.
“He seemed nice when I met him.”
Bolton had passed through Nebraska for work one weekend before Branson or I got moved here, so he’d caught up with Caitlyn and met Silas, but he shouldn’t have any idea about my situation—unless someone went flapping their gums.
“Have you two been gossiping about me like a couple of nosy grannies in this town?”
“I don’t gossip,” Branson said.
