Page 14 of Falling for my Brother's Best Friend

“You’re not doing it right.” Ethel leans over my shoulder, taking the knitting needles and showing me for the millionth time how to get the stitch looser. “Better.”

Grandma Dori rolls her eyes. She’s on her phone with her feet on the coffee table. “Buzz Wheel said you threw up on a tree last night. I don’t think I need to tell you that’s not how a Bailey should act.” She doesn’t make eye contact with me.

“Agreed, but let’s remember all the stupid shit Rome and Denver have pulled.”

“They get the pass. They’re boys, and they don’t run Bailey Timber.” She sets her phone down. She’s not a knitter, so she grabs her pack of cards and shuffles.

“So I’m just supposed to always be on?” Damn it, I dropped a stitch and now I have to go back and fix it.

“I didn’t say that, but in my experience, when someone gets so drunk they’re throwing up, they have issues they’re not dealing with.” She cocks her gray eyebrow my way. I should suggest she get them waxed or threaded, but I don’t because I’m a polite granddaughter.

“I don’t have any issues,” I mumble.

“How’s living with Liam going?”

“Fine. My contractor said that it’ll be another month. I think I’m going to move in with Juno. It’s fire season, so Kingston’s not around much. I can move into his room.”

She shakes her head. “That won’t do.”

“Savannah, I know you’re a little high-strung, but loosen up. Your stitches are going to be too tight.” Ethel hits the tops of my hands because I’m holding the needles so tightly my hands hurt.

“You don’t have to hit me,” I say, but Ethel presses her hearing aid.

“There she goes again, answering the phone.” Grandma Dori shakes her head. “It’s so rude.”

“And you’re one for manners?”

She stops setting up her game of solitaire to give me a look. “I am not rude. I may be direct, but that isn’t the same as rude.”

I hold up my hands. “My mistake.”

“Anyway, back to you moving out of Liam’s house. I don’t suggest it.”

“And why’s that?” I knit a stitch and smile as I get the hang of it a little more.

“Because you two have been chosen to plan the fundraiser for the library extension.”

The needles clink as I drop them in my lap. “What?”

She continues to deal her solitaire game without granting me a glance. “It makes sense. Everyone in Lake Starlight loves Liam, and all the business owners downtown really look up to him. And one of us Baileys has to do it of course.”

“Why a Bailey and why me? I have Brooklyn’s reception on my plate already, on top of everything else I do.”

“Well, Phoenix is interning at Bailey Timber this summer, so she’ll help you there, which should give you more time for the fundraising, and Brooklyn’s reception is right around the corner. The charity gala isn’t for two months. I raised your father while doing all the same things you do.”

My eyes bore into the side of her head. She’s taken it too far this time. But I can’t disrespect her and say my grandfather was running the company that I currently am. She thinks she’s pulling one over on me but being the Thelma to her Louise all these years has granted me inside knowledge of what her true intention is. “You’re meddling and trying to get us together.”

“Believe me, I know better than to meddle with you. This is the most logical thing. That’s all. You’ll keep it organized and neat, and Liam will add his creative flair and secure all the items for the silent auction.”

“Why don’t you do it with Liam?”

She taps the side of her head while laying down a card. “My memory. I’d probably screw it up.”

Her memory is more than fine.

“I smell a scheme,” I say, reaching for my phone.

“If you’d rather, Rachel Quinlan volunteered. I could always tell the board I was mistaken, and she and Liam could work together to make it happen. I’m sure they’d get on.”

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