Page 46 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Mavis?” the barista said, holding up a to-go cup.

“That’s me,” she said, then smiled brightly. “It was lovely talking to you. I’ll have to talk to my grandson and see how many boyfriends he has. I thought it was just the one, but maybe… Anyway, have a lovely day.”

“What the fuck was that?” I asked Van as she walked away.

“Spluttering that you’re not gay as loud as you can is shit and homophobic,” he said with a shrug. “As long as she wasn’t trying to set me up on a date with her grandson, I’ll be fine.”

“Fabulous even.”

We both stared at Gage, his deadpan delivery alerting us that something was up. His lips quirked up just slightly as he clicked his fingers through the air in the way we’d seen the drag queens do on reality TV shows.

“Gage?” the barista said.

He sashayed over to the counter, paid for our drinks, and then we all walked out of the cafe at a much more sedate pace.

“So, the fact that Van looks like he got a facial from a pink unicorn aside,” I said as we got to the car, “what do we do? We were supposed to let Kendall know how we felt last night and she was asleep. I wanted to give her flowers.”

Van’s smile faded.

“I was going to make her breakfast.”

“And I think we just need to let her work this out of her system.” Gage settled against the side of the van. “If she didn’t give a shit, she wouldn’t bother pranking us at all. She’d just hang out in her room until she found somewhere else and moved out. Fuck, she would’ve already done that.”

“She had that call about the place,” I reminded him.

“On the weekend.” Gage was always such a serious prick. This smug look was a whole other thing. “We need to persuade Kendall to stay by the weekend, and today is…”

“Tuesday.” I said, feeling a wave of disbelief. It couldn’t have just been two days since Kendall moved in, but it had been.

“We need her to decide to stay by Saturday, and I’ve got a plan,” he replied.

“What?” The other two cracked up the moment I barked that word, but it didn’t stop me asking again. “What plan? Gage?” He walked around to the driver’s seat of his van and got in, but I just jerked the door open. Gage looked me up and down with a faintly amused expression. “Gage—”

“Just don’t be home when Kendall finishes work,” he said then jerked the door shut. “You either, Sparkle Tits.”

Van took a surreptitious look down the front of his shirt as I stood there, fucking fuming. Gage threw the van into gear and took off, waving as he went.

“I’m gonna hear the words Sparkle Tits a million times today, aren’t I?” Van mused.

“I promise to enforce a beer tax every time someone says it if you get on board with this.”

A ‘beer tax’ wasn’t the actual government excise, but a building-site tradition where if you committed one of the many agreed to sins, you had to pay for your crimes in beer for the rest of your crew.

“On board with what?”

But as Van asked, I put a call through to the bakery where Kendall worked. I’d already got the contact details of the baker himself, and when Chris answered the phone, I smiled.

“Chris’ Bakery.”

“G’day, Chris,” I said. “This is Connor Woods. We talked yesterday.”

“The bloke from the building site up the road? What can I do you for?”

“I wanted to put in a big order. It’s my turn to feed the crew, and after we sampled some of your lovely food yesterday, I thought you might be the man for the job.”

“I usually get people to put in big orders at least a day in advance, so I’ve got enough time to make extras.” I could hear his barely suppressed sigh. “As I told you yesterday.”

“I understand that, and I’m prepared to pay double to make it worth your while.”

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