Page 4 of Somebody To Love

“How many times do I have to tell you guys, Penny is not your personal IT department. She’s our website designer. Stop using her as your private company computer girl.”

Light blue eyes, the same color as his, narrowed. “First of all, she’s a woman, not a girl.”

He knew that. They may be best friends, but he was also a man and very aware of the fact that Penny was a woman. Just because he’d never done anything about it didn’t mean he never noticed. He valued their friendship too much to risk ruining it with something as stupid as hooking up. Everyone knew getting naked with a friend always ruined the friendship.

“Second,” his sister continued, leaning back in her chair, and propping her feet up on the table. “Ace had her fix the office computer last week, so if you wanna bitch someone out, go talk to your twin, Jackasson.”

“Dammit!” He hadn’t known Ace asked Penny for help. Hell, he hadn’t even known there was a problem with the computer. He’d told his siblings to stop asking Penny to fix things that weren’t in her job description. The woman had an IQ off the charts and was a magician with anything computer related, but she was also sweet as sugar and didn’t have the heart to tell anyone no if they asked for help.

“I’ll talk to Ace, but as for you,” he pointed a finger at her. “Try turning it off and back on again before you harass Penny. And get your feet off the table. Were you raised in a barn?”

She huffed when he pushed her feet, dropping them to the floor with a sigh. “No, I was raised in the trenches of alpha masculinity, forgive me if I have less than feminine mannerisms.”

Being the only girl with three brothers, Charlie had a point. Their childhood had been full of roughhousing, tree climbing, dirt, and more roughhousing.

“What’s got your panties in a twist today, brother dear?”

He could have reminded his sister he did not wear panties, but he knew she was needling to get a rise out of him. Charlie’s favorite pastime was torturing her brothers.

“Nothing, I’m swamped. I need to replace the sensor on the proofing tank because it’s on the fritz again, Ace wants me to check out a new farm up near Loveland because he thinks our wheat guy is gouging us, and I have to pore through all these applications to hire a serving staff in the next week.”

She snorted. “You realize all this work is your own fault.”

He gave her his best wanna say that again look that had made grown men quake in their boots, but it did nothing to deter his obstinate little sister.

“You’re the one who gave Del the week off.”

“The guy has been running himself ragged for months. He’s got a wedding coming up. He needed a little break to relax and plan with his fiancée.”

“Duh.” Two thin fingers adorned with dark purple polish on the nails poked his forehead. “I’m the maid of honor. I understand my little brother and best friend are getting married in two weeks. What the hell do you think I’ve been doing with all my spare time lately?”

“Torturing every poor soul with a penis who crosses your path.” Charlie had been pissed off at the entire male species since her nasty break up a few months ago.

“No, Numbnuts. I’ve been helping Cassie pick out flowers, dresses, centerpieces, and tons of other girly crap for her big day. Ugh, why do women get so obsessed over one silly day?”

He could point out that she was a woman and would know the answer better than him, but his sister seemed to be on a rampage, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Besides, how hard can picking a few servers be?”

Obviously, she hadn’t seen the applications. As the accountant for Jacks, his sister rarely dealt with anything having to do with the distillery that didn’t relate to budgets and paychecks. She knew who they employed, but she didn’t have any hand in hiring them.

Lucky her.

“It would be easy,” he said, holding up a stack of applications. “If I was searching through a pile of competent, experienced workers who wanted a job. But every one of these reads like an application to get us into bed.”

Her eyes grew wide as she reached across the table. “No way, for real? Let me see.”

Snatching the papers from his hands, her gaze raced over the applications, smile growing with each new page. When she got halfway through, her lips parted, snorts of laughter escaping her.

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh, come on, BJ. This woman put excellent oral skills under the special skills section. She even added a winky face. And this one put One night with the twins under desired salary.”

Charlie dropped the papers, laughing so hard tears formed in the corners of her eyes. His lips curled. Her infectious laughter got the better of him as a chuckle escaped.

“Okay, it’s kind of funny.”

“Freaking hilarious,” she panted, trying to get her amusement under control.

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