Page 24 of Never Kiss Your Brother's Best Friend

“Awesome, that’s a great idea! Doesn’t it need a lot of work, though?”

“Definitely, and that’s been part of the hold up. But then Emma had a suggestion to get it moving forward.”

His head snaps my direction. “Emma?”

Oops. I forgot about choosing my words carefully. I was not ready to bring her into this.

“Uh, yes,” I stammer. “We’ve been spending some time together since the wedding.”

Why does telling him that make me nervous? Emma and I are both adults.

Peter tilts his head, “Really. I didn’t know you two were close anymore. Thought you kind of drifted apart after high school.”

“Honestly, we did. I haven’t talked to her in a long time, but when she got dumped at your wedding—”

“What?” Peter yells at a decibel level that is not conducive to catching fish, not that he seems to care at the moment.

I take a deep breath, then start talking a mile a minute. “I forgot you didn’t know about that. Ok. Well, yea, there kind of was this thing. Emma’s boyfriend was a real downer at the wedding. I felt bad he wouldn’t dance with her."

“So, I went over to try to make her smile and knocked into a waiter carrying some full wine glasses. They all fell over and most of the damage landed on Dean’s suit. Did I mention it was red wine? Not a good look. He was not amused. He told Emma he was done and left the reception. That about covers it.”

“Where was I?”

“You were off taking pictures with your new bride. Emma didn’t want you to know anyway. She didn’t want anything to interfere with your day.”

He rubs his hands together, likely considering my flurry of information.

“She left right after Dean, and I followed her out to the lake to check on her. That’s kind of how we reconnected.”

“Well, thank you for checking on her. I feel terrible it wasn’t me. I’m her brother. I should have been there for her.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You know Emma. She always thinks about other people first. There was no way she was going to let what happened to her take any spotlight off the happy couple.”

He smiles, “I know. You’re right. Good riddance. I never liked that guy anyway.”

“Totally agree. He was way too uptight. And he refused to do the Macarena with her, can you believe that? I would have done anything she—”

Note to mouth. Stop moving.

I recover before I set Peter’s radar off again by talking about Emma more than I should. “Anyway, now you’re fully caught up. How about we do some fishing?”

“Nice try, Sterling. I think I’m still missing some details from the week. How exactly did you go from that to Emma being part of some idea for a shelter?”

Man, I thought people were supposed to be quiet while they were fishing. But suddenly Peter is a chatterbox. I know him well enough to realize he’s not going to let me off the hook. So here goes nothing.

“Funny story, really.”

Peter moves closer to me and folds his arms across his chest. I don’t love his body language right now.

“I was working at the summer festival and saw Emma and her friends. Being the gentleman I am, I went over to say hello. While I was talking to Emma, a stray puppy got tangled in our feet.”

I am definitely not adding the part when I end up on the ground with his sister for the second time in a matter of days.

“We saw the dog was injured and decided to take it back to my clinic for treatment. That’s where we started talking about the need for a bigger shelter. I told her about buying the warehouse but not having the funds to renovate. She came back to my office the next day with an idea of how to get the town involved in raising the capital we need to make it happen. Now, you’re caught up.”

I’m glossing over the part about going to my parent’s house for dinner. Details of how many times we’ve been together this week are probably not going to be helpful at this point.

I flash him a big smile and hope we’re done talking now.

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