Page 8 of Fake It Till We Fall
“It’s going to happen,” Reid said. “Better you do it on your terms instead of?—”
“Not going to happen.” I pushed up from the stool. “Besides, I’ve got work to do tonight. Real work.”
“More lights to untangle?”
“No,” I answered my smart-ass brother. “Ollie called earlier and asked me to prepare some extra financial reports for the store.”
That got their attention.
“What’s that all about?”
I shrugged. “No idea. He didn’t say. You know, Ollie, he’s always a little short on details.”
“You think he’s going to sell?” Ethan asked. “If he wants reports, I bet that’s it.”
I agreed with my brother. The kind of reports he wanted led me to believe that’s exactly what he was getting ready to do.
“He should have retired years ago,” Reid said.
He wasn’t wrong. A few years back, when Ollie had broken his hip, I thought he might retire then. Instead, I got a promotion to manager, and he took a big step back. In fact, he continued to step further and further back, and it wasn’t unusual to go entire weeks without seeing him in the store.
But he still took a lot of pride in it, and I knew how much of Ollie’s identity was tied up in his hardware store. Because it was turning out to be the same for me. I’d worked there so long, it was hard for me to imagine doing anything else.
“Have you ever thought of buying it?”
Ethan’s question caught me off guard. Of course, I’d thought about it. A lot. In fact, it’s all I’d been thinking about since he’d asked for the reports.
But I’d never mentioned it to my brothers. After all, there was no point getting my hopes up about something that wasn’t likely to ever happen. There was a big difference in thinking about buying a store and actually doing it.
If I told them what I was thinking, I knew they’d be supportive. But they’d also be overbearing about it. I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.
So I lied. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I’ve been a little busy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Reid gave me a strange look. There was a good chance he knew I was full of shit. We never could lie to each other. Thankfully, he didn’t call me on it. Instead, he shrugged and said, “So, you’re going to hide behind spreadsheets instead of facing Harper?”
“Exactly.” I slipped my parka back over my sweater and turned to leave, throwing a wave over my shoulder.
I’d learned long ago that there were things I could control, and things I couldn’t. Harper Bennett and the way she still got to me landed squarely in the second category.
Chapter Three
Harper
I’d run out of time. Despite my plan to get the Christmas decorations up, I had an unexpected response to my help wanted ads, and ultimately, interviewing and hiring had taken priority over hanging lights and wreaths.
But I’d run out of excuses, and I knew if I didn’t get them up promptly, I’d be hearing from Tilley Beckett about it. Or worse, Erin would go over my head and call Grayson herself to get the job done.
Neither was an option.
It was a bright, bluebird afternoon. The type of day where you had to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from the blinding reflection of the sun off the snow, but could still see your breath.
I dragged two boxes out front and assessed the situation.
Grandma hadn’t changed much of the decorations over the years, only bothering to freshen up a few things. But we still had the pine bough that would be draped along the window, with twooversized red bows on either side and the massive wreath that hung on the door.
Easy.
I pulled the massive pine bough from the box and noticed the upgrade of twinkling lights that would require an extension cord to be strung from one side of the storefront to the other.
