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“Fine.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “Come on. I’ll let you have something from my secret stash.”
“Secret stash?! I knew you and Dad eat candy after I go to bed every night. What is it? Huh? Peanut M&Ms? Skittles? Starburst? Oh my gosh, do you have Hershey’s Kisses hidden somewhere?” Chloe neither confirms nor denies her suspicion, and Harper gasps like she’s never heard anything more hurtful in all her life. “You know those are my favorite.”
Chloe is wholly unfazed by Harper’s theatrics. “Uh-huh, come on. You can have whatever you want.”
I hate to leave Grant to fend for himself. Before I head into the kitchen with Chloe and Harper, I glance back one more time. He meets my gaze and nods reassuringly before Luke claps him on the shoulder and points down the hall toward his office.
“So is this what I think it is?” Chloe asks me as soon as we’re out of earshot.
“It could be.”
She stands on a barstool to reach a bag of contraband candy hidden in a cabinet above the refrigerator.
“So that’s where you hide it!” Harper exclaims.
“Yeah, well, not anymore…”
I motion for Chloe to throw me a Hershey’s Kiss. Then she heaves the overly filled bag down from the cabinet and slaps it onto the counter. It’s filled with what looks like Halloween, Christmas, and Easter candy from the last year, at least.
We all go digging.
“Should we be eavesdropping?” Chloe asks, tearing into a mini bag of Skittles with her teeth.
“It’s probably better not to, right?”
“It’d be dishonest,” Harper chides, looking affronted that we would even consider the idea.
“Things are getting more serious with you two?”
Aware of the tiny ears in the room, I simply nod. I can give Chloe details later. “Serious enough that we’re here right now.”
“You really like him?”
I nod, too embarrassed to even meet her eyes. I more than like him. Ugh. What a horrible spot to be in—this feels so fragile and new and horrifying and wonderful and before I know it, I’m rooting through that bag of candy again because it seems like sugar is the only thing that’s going to help get me through the foreseeable future.
While we wait for the boys to finish up their conversation, I regale Harper and Chloe with the details of Josh’s proposal to Sophia. It was a really sweet night, and though Josh kept the engagement party to just family and a few close friends, I’m sure Luke and Chloe will be invited to the actual wedding, so that will be fun.
“I want to go to the wedding too!” Harper says.
“Maybe you can be my date,” I tell her.
I mean…she might have to be if it’s not going well with Luke and Grant.
“What could be taking them so long?” I ask now, my impatience growing.
Chloe smiles at me, recognizing something that I don’t. “It’s sweet, what he’s doing. I don’t think it was totally necessary. Quite frankly, Luke had already started to come around to the idea of you guys dating, especially considering the kind of guy Grant is. But it’s still a nice gesture if you ask me. It makes me like him all the more.”
“So you approve?” I ask, knowing how much her opinion matters to me.
She grins. “Absolutely.”
A door opens down the hall and I go hurtling out of the kitchen with Harper hot on my heels. Grant and Luke walk out of Luke’s office, and I swear to god, there are tears in my brother’s eyes. What?
Before he says anything, he walks over and pulls me forward into a tight hug.
Okay…
“Um, what’s going on?” I look between my brother and Grant as my brother’s arms tighten around my shoulders. I only manage to return the gesture with a light awkward tap on his shoulder, like, There there, now get off me.
No one answers my question.
Luke steps back and shakes his head, smiling wistfully. “You’ll have to bring Grant over for breakfast on Sunday.”
When I look at Grant, he’s smiling. “You ready to go?”
“I guess?”
We say our goodbyes. Harper makes me promise to come over Sunday, and then she tugs on my arm so I’ll bend down and she can whisper in my ear, “I think your boy problems are over!”
Yeah, maybe so, kid.
Once we’re alone out on the sidewalk, I make a show of stopping Grant and turning him to face me so I can inspect him for bodily harm. I lift his arms one at a time, spin him around, pat his thigh, and tell him to “spread ’em.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he laughs and grabs me by the shoulders so he can redirect us toward my apartment. It’s not far from here, only a few blocks.
“No cuts? No bruises?”
He laughs. “No. Your brother and I were just talking.”
“Did he threaten your life or anything? Because I swear he takes his job as my big brother too seriously sometimes. It’s just that our parents are so far away—”
