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“Chris, is that you?” Sean asked from the other room. “Dude, I forgot. Come on in. Sav made spaghetti.”
Chris wiggled his eyebrows at me as he walked past, heading into the dining room with my family. I blew out a frustrated breath and stomped back to my chair, ignoring how Chris’s muscular ass swayed in his jeans.
“The food’s still warm,” Grampa said. “And Sean was about to make an announcement.”
Sean snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I’m glad you’re here because we wanted to tell you all together.”
Chris annoyingly took the spot beside me, and we exchanged a look.
He winked, and I frowned.
My stupid cheeks heated.
“Go ahead,” Grampa said.
Sean took Nicole’s hand. “All right. Well, I’ll just come out with it. Nicole and I are engaged.”
My gaze instantly shot to her bare ring finger.
“It’s being re-sized,” she explained instantly.
“Wow, congratulations,” I said with a lump in my throat.
“That’s amazing!” Grampa added.
Chris hit a fist to his chest. “Congrats, bro.”
Sean hit a fist to his chest in response. I rolled my eyes at them.
“We want to get married this summer,” Nicole said. “But we still have details to work out.”
Sean nodded, resting his arm on the back of her chair. “Yep. We didn’t want to wait too long, but it was also a spur-of-the-moment thing. I proposed on the trip, and then we bought the ring yesterday when we got back.”
“Yep,” she agreed. “It was an eventful week.”
“Sounds like it,” I said, feeling a cluster of emotions from the news.
I was happy for my brother but couldn’t help the spark of jealousy. Long-term relationships and marriage seemed like far away concepts to me at this point. It’s not that I thought they would never happen, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Not anywhere close to happening, actually.
The conversation shifted back to the usual topics before Sean asked Chris if he was still looking for a new office space. Apparently, Chris’s company, White Oak Construction, was doing so well that they were expanding.
“No, not yet,” he said. “Still looking for a good spot downtown.”
“I might have a place for you,” Grampa said. “I’ve been considering selling the second floor of the bookstore to save money. It’s the perfect space for an office.”
I shook my head. “Grampa, we talked about this. We don’t need to sell. Sparks Bookstore is a fixture in this town that people have loved for years. We just need to make some changes, modernize it a bit, and business will pick back up fast.”
He sighed, running his fingers through his short gray hair. “I know you believe that, but I think it’s time. You’ve seen the sales. We haven’t been in the black in a long time, and I’d rather scale down than lose the place completely.”
I stared at him incredulously, struggling to understand how he could give up so easily. Sure, we were behind on bills, but I had some ideas of how to get us back on track.
“Actually, Jackson, I think that’d be perfect. As long as your asking price is in my budget, of course, I’d love to buy it,” Chris said.
My head snapped so quickly that I got a crick in my neck.
How dare he!
