Page 21 of Brenna, Brat

“It’s his company, his very successful company,” Campbell answered. “He has to keep an eye on everything.”

I assumed he meant that the answer was yes, his father was watching each step and misstep that his son took. “Why did you want to work for him?”

“I mean, why wouldn’t I?” he asked me back. “It’s a great opportunity. He expected it, too. He expected Carrington and me to work there and then to take things over. He keeps saying that he wants to retire so that he can enjoy life, because his own dad died young. He has a girlfriend and he wants to travel with her. She’s closer to his age than mine,” he explained, “so don’t get that nauseated face again. My mom is just having fun.”

“But…”

“I don’t like it either,” he said. “Now, let’s return to the most important topic, and you explain why you didn’t text me.”

“I thought we had settled that. I was busy.”

“With the melted gum,” he noted, and I nodded. “I need to know details. That’s not enough information to help with my approach.”

“So that the next woman you meet will answer you?” I asked, irritated.

“So that you will, Brenna.” He sat back and bumped into another guy. “Sorry,” he said, and scooted closer to me.

Was he really interested? I looked at him, trying to figure out what was going on. It had to be the whole challenge thing, that I presented an obstacle to him being the best-liked person in the world who never struck out with women. It couldn’t be real, because I certainly hadn’t done much to garner his interest. I hadn’t acted nice, as Addie would have, or mysteriously weird, like Grace. I wasn’t successful like Sophie, who had managed her own business, and I wasn’t take-charge, do-it-all Nicola. I certainly wasn’t anything like Juliet.

“I don’t mind this kind of thing,” I said grudgingly.

“What do you mean? You enjoy drinking in dirty bars?”

“I enjoy…you know. I enjoy hanging out,” I answered, irritated that I’d had to admit it. “This is nice.”

“Good to know this is all it takes,” he said, nodding. “I had a flower delivery set up, but I’ll cancel it.” He laughed, so I knewthat he wasn’t serious. But I did like this kind of thing, us talking, and we continued to do it for a while.

The next day, I explained my absence to my sister. “I understand that you drove me, but I didn’t need a ride home from you. I got one from a friend,” I told Nicola. I had texted her that information the night before but she wasn’t satisfied with my reasoning.

“Which friend? That man whose sister was trying to steal Sophie’s husband?”

“Sophie wasn’t married to him at the time,” I pointed out. “Carrington and Danny were dating and then they broke up before he and Soph…never mind.” I had no idea why I would have defended that woman.

“Are you seeing her brother?”

“No,” I scoffed. “Hold on, someone’s buzzing my apartment.” I looked out the window at a delivery person and forced up the sash. “You can leave it there,” I called to him. “I’ll be right down.”

“How’d you two meet?” my sister asked as I locked my apartment door and then descended the stairs.

“Campbell came into the gallery and bought a sculpture. I got my boss to pay me a commission on it, too.” I had done that by refusing to find the contact information for the insurance agent until she agreed to fork it over, and until I had the actual money in my hand. I opened the front door of my building. “Holy Mary.”

“What?” Nicola asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” It was strange, that was all. There was a huge vase, all full of flowers.

Chapter 5

Ilooked around. It wasn’t bad; it wasn’t great, either. It didn’t have all the natural light that I had wanted, which had been in bold on my “must-haves” list. It was on the top floor which meant more stairs in my life, and the stairs in this building were in a poor state of repair. The whole building was in that poor state, in fact, and it also wasn’t located in a great area. One of my other must-have items had been “walking distance from work or apartment” and this place definitely wasn’t. However, due to how run-down and cruddy the neighborhood was, there was plenty of street parking and that was good.

I sounded like Addie, looking for the positives where there weren’t too many. But there was one really, really big plus: the price. I could afford this, because the rent here combined with what I paid on my studio apartment was well short of what an ideal atelier would have cost. I could have this, continue to live elsewhere, continue to pay for the gas I’d need to drive betweenthe two places, and continue to eat. Those were all actual, real positives.

I looked around, picturing a high table where I wouldn’t have to bend to sketch designs and cut them out, space for several machines, bolts of fabric organized in a rack, and shelves with neatly labeled baskets for all my sewing notions. It was dirtier in here than in the gallery after the gum melt, but at least it was freshly painted and I could clean. I couldn’t move it to a new location in the city, but I could make it work.

“I’ll take it,” I said to the agent, who couldn’t have given one crap. I had to practically twist her arm into renting it to me, but after a while, I was the proud lessee of a new sewing studio, where Brenna Curran Designs—

Brenna Curran Designs? That sucked. I needed to think of a better name for my label, something cute and pithy like how Chic had used her name, doubling the Cs of her initials to make a stunning logo. “BC” just sounded like an era of ancient history, or a way to prevent pregnancy. Why hadn’t my parents thought of my bad initials when I had been born? Of course, as the fifth of six girls, my name had obviously been well down on the list of what they were able to agree on.

My unfortunate initials hadn’t been on their minds twenty-four years ago, and there were certainly bigger things to deal with now. My father had moved out of the family home (which had belonged to his parents, so he’d lived in that place for his whole life). My mother was still there but Grace, who had been holed up in the girls’ bunkroom on and off for years, had left, too.Sophie had visited Dad several times at work and reported that he seemed to be doing ok, but our mother?

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