Page 87 of Feel It in the Air

23

GUS

“You did what?!”

Brenna blinks, shaking her head, the pitch of her voice rising with her half question, half exclamation. Sitting straight up in the leather guest chair across from the desk, jaw still slack, disbelief and bewilderment taking over her features, she looks between me and Milo, who’s sitting in the chair next to her.

My brother reaches over, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze, the corner of his mouth quirking upward in that shit-eating smirk of his. There is no denying he’s a smitten kitten when it comes to this girl—woman, Brenna is an adult now—and he does not care who knows it. Watching the two of them, it’s hard to argue they aren’t perfect together. Even if looking at Brenna I do still see the little girl in pigtails who used to follow Milo and Brandt around everywhere, rather than the very grown-up woman sitting here discussing business plans with me.

I smile, choosing to take her reaction as one of gratitude rather than something else. “You knew the Hayes legal team was going to review the purchase contract⁠—”

“Yes, to make sure that it was standard and that everything was on the up-and-up and I wasn’t somehow getting screwed.”

“That’s what we did. This was just an extra step.”

“Or six,” Milo mutters.

I shrug. Because yes, he’s right. It was more than a standard contract review. That said, we Hayes take care of our own, and Brenna is one of us. Even if she wasn’t romantically attached to Milo, she’s the sister of his business partner and the daughter of the head of payroll. She’s part of this family. We were not going to throw her to the sharks.

“Did you not want me to make sure that all the i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed?”

“Knowing you, we’ve got i’s dotted, t’s crossed, ducks in a row, poop in a group, and whatever other stupid cliché you can think of,” he quips.

Fucker…

I roll my eyes, knowing that deep down, he really is grateful. We may be on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to personality, but we’re still brothers. On top of that, Milo isn’t a bad businessman. Actually, he’s a damn good one. He’s built Southern Brothers from scratch, creating and maintaining a huge brand and business, on top of the extras they’ve taken on with the local establishments. He knows what’s important, and the concern has been in his eyes that Brenna is getting in over her head with this purchase. This is my way of easing the worry.

Picking up the thick folder from my desk, I hand it to Brenna, careful not to let anything fall out of it.

“Look, we all know Brenna is going to end up a Hayes,” I start, trying to get this conversation back on track.

Brenna whips her head up, the shock on her face impossible to hide. As is Milo’s. Although he’s a lot quicker to accept my statement, chuckling and smirking even more. Fair enough. I deserve that. These last few months have shown me a lot of new things. Margeaux has shown me. Including the discovery that sometimes age really is just a number.

“And when that happens, the drugstore will be marital property. So, the smart thing is to determine now the best way to handle this acquisition. The good news is that the contract that Hovland had drawn up is pretty standard—no weird language or requirements. So, from there, it’s just how you want to handle it.”

Leaning over, Milo flips through a couple of the pages on Brenna’s lap, his eyes going wide as he scans the documents.

“Also, we’ve verified that Hovland does also own the building itself, so we will need to make sure the contract is updated to include it in the sale of the business. It’s zoned for partial residential too, by the way. So the upstairs could be converted into an apartment if you wanted.”

Whipping his head up, Milo locks eyes with me, his mind going to exactly where I knew it would. I nod, confirming his silent question. Something I’ve been looking forward to since Percy mentioned residential zoning. Milo loved every second of designing the loft that he shared with Brandt for years in the Southern Brothers warehouse turned bar. And I can already see the wheels turning in his mind, designing a place for him and Brenna.

“Wow…this, this is a lot,” Brenna mutters. “I mean, I knew it was, and that this whole buying the store is crackerjacks, but…wow. And I never would have thought about the building…”

“That was all Margeaux, so thank her, not me.”

Pride swells inside me, loving that I can brag on my girl. She deserves all the credit and more for that brilliant move, and I wish I could shout it from the rooftops that it was her idea. There are a number of reasons I can’t, but I can at least share with these two. And soon enough, she and I won’t be a secret anymore.

“I will.” Brenna nods.

“As for the rest of it, it’s a lot, but again, it’s nothing weird or predatory. I won’t lie though, the taxes are messy either way you go. That said, it’s not something we can’t handle. It’s why we have Ernie after all. But it’s all broken down in there, including recommendations from Ernie and Percy on how they think the best way to approach it is.”

“Percy gave his opinion?” Milo asks.

“That’s why this took so long.”

That’s a lie. Sort of. It’s part of why it took so long. The fact that I didn’t have it in hand until the day he came back didn’t help anything, but it’s not like he was around to review it before then anyway. Nonetheless, it took him another three days to go over everything and then write up his thoughts to present to me. Hence why we’re sitting here on a Friday instead of having this for them earlier in the week.

To be fair to the man, he did come back after two months of personal leave after the death of his mother to a pile of work, plus another massive contract issue that spans multiple departments. My asking him to review a contract for something that is technically outside Hayes’s scope of business at the moment was calling in a huge favor. His completing it as fast as he did should probably be considered something just short of a miracle.