Page 233 of Holding On To Good

What was new was that they both now seemed to enjoy it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Willow said, waving Miranda’s words away. “If you heard that, then you can clearly hear this: Any other changes will require a revamp of the timeline. So, if you really do want to be in your new home before Christmas, I suggest you stop messing with my design—the design you agreed to—and let me do my job.”

Over the past three weeks, Miranda had made so many changes to Willow’s plans for Lindstrom House, she was already fifty grand over their original estimate.

And they were only a quarter of the way through the project.

Blowing her budget didn’t seem to be a problem for her.

But blowing J&K’s schedule was a big problem for Willow.

“How refreshing,” Miranda said, “to work with a local business that takes the opposite approach of the customer is always right.”

Willow’s lips twitched. See? If he didn’t know better, he’d start to think that not only did Willow enjoy the bickering and sniping, but that she was actually starting to like Miranda.

That was something he’d never seen coming.

“Fine,” Willow said. “Make a dozen changes. Make a hundred of them and don’t move in until Easter. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not the one living with my mother.”

There was a beat of silence before Miranda spoke again. “Good point. No more changes. Unless,” she added causing Willow’s triumphant smile to dim, “it’s an important one. Like the tile color in Josh’s bathroom. I’ll send you pictures of what I’m thinking.”

“Yay,” Willow deadpanned. “Can’t wait. Goodbye, Miranda.”

Miranda sighed. “So rude.”

“I’m not being rude. Rude would be calling your contractor on a Sunday evening because you want a bigger bathtub. Rude would have been if said contractor let your call go to voicemail instead of answering it. On a Sunday evening.”

“I’ve always admired your work ethic,” Miranda said so sweetly, not one of them bought it. “Goodbye, Willow. Urban.”

“Miranda,” he said.

Willow ended the call. Not five seconds later her phone buzzed with a text notification. Then another. And another.

And another.

Willow cursed under her breath and Urban reached over and took her phone from her. “I’ll hold on to that.”

Another buzz. This time, his phone.

“And I’ll take that,” Willow said, picking up his phone from the console. “Verity. Again.”

Verity had been attending Ohio State for almost three months now.

And had been asking to transfer to Pitt for almost as long.

“She okay?” he asked, slowing to take a sharp curve. Boot Jack Road was long, winding and steep, taking them higher and higher above Mount Laurel.

“She’s fine,” Willow assured him, reading Verity’s text. “She says she went to lunch with Jordan and some of Jordan’s friends from high school and had fun.”

Jordan was Verity’s new roommate. Miles had been right: Verity shouldn’t have roomed with her high school best friend. Two weeks into their first semester, Emory dropped out to return to Mount Laurel and work at her mom’s accounting firm.

That had been his first inclination that for all of Verity’s speeches about how she couldn’t wait for freedom and independence from him and their brothers, making the transition from living at home to living four hours away wasn’t going to be easy.

“Stay strong,” Willow told him, patting his arm. “She’s doing better.”

He grunted. Christ, he hoped so. When she called him crying and begging him to come home—as she’d done several times every week—it tore him up inside. He, Willow and his brothers hadn’t wanted her to come home, figuring it’d be that much harder to get her to go back, but he and Willow had gone to Columbus three times to see her. Toby and Miles had each gone once.

But they all had agreed that she needed to at least finish the semester. If she still wanted to come home after that, they’d discuss her transferring.

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