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“Yeah,” I snapped. “My point is it should be Matt.”
“He’s doing press or something—”
“I don’t care,” I snapped.
“Yeah,” Paul said with a laugh. “I can see that. Come on, let’s just get this done.”
I didn’t like Paul being reasonable while I was being unreasonable so I shut my mouth and dragged the hose from the barn to the pump.
The water pump that we had to use was about seven million years old and it took at least four hands to make it work. Paul screwed the hose onto the attachment and I put my gloved hands over the metal pump and leaned with all my weight against it to get it to move. And then I had to use all my might to pull it up. Paul helped and after a few minutes it was moving pretty easily. I uncoiled the hose and walked it over to the pond, to spray water all over the ice so it would freeze nice and clean for another day of skating tomorrow.
Paul came over and stood next to me.
“That’s good ice,” he said, and I laughed, my shit mood vanishing.
“How are you doing with all of this?” I asked. “I know when you were hired we never expected to be fighting so hard to keep the place alive.”
“It’s a place worth saving,” Paul said.
“How are you getting on with my sister? I know she can be…prickly.”
“I like prickly women,” he said, and something in his voice made me look over at him.
“Are you and my sister…?” I shook my head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. But just maybe, watch your nipples.”
“She can do whatever she wants to my nipples.”
Well, would you look at that. Paul would seem to have it bad for my sister. I wondered for a second how that would work. She had a whole life in NYC and Paul was absolutely not an NYC kind of guy.
But that was none of my business.
But I couldn’t help being jealous. The girl I wanted was living in my house. The other day I went into the bathroom to find pink lacy thongs and bras drying over my towel rack. This was not sustainable.
“Lexie’s working out,” Paul said and I nodded. She was working wonders at the front desk. Managing all the guests and the all the visitors that came to the inn looking for Matt or just some Christmas magic. She was doing this whole thing with the kids, too, that Dad said was making parents extremely happy.
She’d added fancy cheese to the afternoon cocktail hour.
“It would be awesome if she would stay. But that’s her decision,” Paul said, and my shit mood came back.
“The pond is good,” I said and walked away to stop the pump and unhook the hose.
But because I was distracted I unhooked the hose too soon and freezing cold water splashed all over my pants and soaked my feet.
This fucking day. Only one thing to do. Well, two. Find a drink and find my brother so I could pick a fight.
“You’re drunk,” Matt said to me when he let me into his cottage. Of course the asshole was staying in the biggest, nicest cottage we had. Though, I had to admit, they could use some work. If we were keeping the place I’d put it on the list for next year, but that was still up in the air.
“I’m hardly drunk,” I said.
“You fucking look drunk.” He stepped out of my way, which was like an invitation to enter in Neanderthal language. “You certainly fucking smell drunk.”
“I splashed freezing cold water all over myself flooding your pond,” I said and collapsed on the couch. “Which, let me tell you, is way beneath my paygrade. You better be paying for this place.”
“That explains your look.” I was wearing mismatched shower flipflops and athletic socks and someone’s sweatpants. Lexie had given me a whole bunch of clothes from the lost and found, biting her lips so she didn’t laugh in my face.
I wanted to bite her lips. I wanted to bite every piece of her. My wife.
“And of course I’m paying for this place. If you’re here to start a fight, I’m gonna have to decline, brother.”
“You never decline a fight.”
“I’m trying to change my image.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
“Yeah.” He sighed like he had something on his mind. But I wasn’t here to counsel him. I was here for a fight, and if he wasn’t going to fight me, then we were talking about my life.
“I got married,” I said.
“Yeah. I met her. She’s fucking hot, Ethan. You’re punching way above your weight with her.”
“I know, and she’s smart and funny and how can I not remember marrying her?”
“You’re a lightweight, Ethan. I’ve been telling you to avoid tequila since you were sixteen.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Sign the paperwork and let her go.”
