Page 120 of Love Is Brewing

Elias felt horrible for the guy and was trying to ease the fact he was played and set up to take the fall.

West snorted. “I’ll never understand any of that.”

“It’s not for me to understand,” Elias said. “Just know that I took care of it. Mason is satisfied and everything is going on as planned. He’ll be here next week for us to move forward with Fifth Kid Fierce.”

They were just reversing the names for now, but if things continued to go as projected, it might be an annual thing they’d do with the same setup.

It was going to depend on how well the product sold at his brewery.

With the marketing both places were doing, he was pretty sure it was going to be his top seller. Anything that was limited edition normally was.

“That’s good to hear,” West said. “Next time,don’texclude me.”

“Fine,” he said. They hung up after and he walked into his office and got to work.

He was still stewing over the conversation when his phone rang two hours later.

Why wasn’t he surprised to see his mother calling?

He wanted to ignore it, but knew there was no ignoring Aileen Carlisle for long.

“Hi, Mom,” he said. “I’m sure you know.”

“Know what?” his mother asked. “Did you get engaged?”

He sat back and looked up at the ceiling. “No,” he said, sighing. “I don’t think Phoebe is even thinking along those lines.”

Because she didn’t know how long she was going to stay in Southern Pines.

She didn’t know what her future held and that meant he couldn’t know what his did either.

He was working on her and felt he was making a lot of progress, but time would tell.

He just hated waiting.

“Don’t sell her short,” his mother said. “And don’t drag your feet. But if it’s not that, what is it I was supposed to have heard?”

There was no way out of this. Or the fact that his mother would badger him or his siblings to get the answers.

“Nothing major. I had some issues here that I handled with Foster and Braylon.”

“But not West?” his mother asked, laughing.

“There was no reason to bother him with it. I had it under control.”

“Elias. You’re always so worried that he’s being your father and monitoring you and ready to tell you how to handle something.”

“Maybe because he did it enough in my life.”

“Which was wrong of him, but he took on that role,” his mother said. “He has complete faith in most of his siblings when it comes to their jobs.”

“Most times,” he said.

“Elias,” his mother said. “Stop. I know you always think you have to prove everything to him, but you don’t.”

“He told me,” he said.

“Then start to believe it,” his mother said. “You want to be respected, and in order for that to happen, you need tounderstand your brother. You need to realize that family will always come first, business second.”

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