Page 149 of How to Prevent a Fumble

“So you guys have this room, we have the one down the hall, and I’m assuming the other two have found theirs,” Isla tells us, looking back down the hall.

Emmett had disappeared to the other wing of the house when we first got here, and Heidi had been bringing Elara’s things to their rooms as I made my way over here.

Briar checks the time on her phone. “Do you know when we’re meeting up for dinner?” she asks.

Isla looks at me.

I shrug, and she sighs. “You were supposed to be planning these things, Dummy.”

“I paid for nearly all of it, I figured you guys would come up with the plans. I’m just here to hang out,” I defend, my hands up in front of me.

She considers this. “That’s fair. Let me talk to Owen and everyone and see what they think, and then I’ll plan the rest of our week, unless you want to help me do that?” she asks, looking at Briar.

She smiles a little. “Sure, that would be great,” she tellsmy sister, sitting on the end of the bed with her hands tucked between her thighs.

“Great. We don’t have any food in the place tonight, and since the big guy over here didn’t plan anything I highly doubt we have a chef or anything arriving for meals, so I’ll look up places to go tonight at least.”

Briar nods as Isla takes out her phone, already scrolling as she walks off in the direction Owen disappeared.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I enter the room finally, closing the door.

Silence greets me as Briar looks at the ground.

“You okay?” I ask her, concerned.

“I just haven’t been on a trip like this,” she informs me, her voice low.

“Really?”

She nods solemnly. “Well, I don’t think most people go on trips likethis,”she gestures around the room. “But my brother doesn’t really go on vacations, and certainly not any that I’ve been on. And I never went on any with Tony.”

She’s right about Owen. He’s always been a little more of a homebody than any of us, and I think the furthest he ever went was New York City last year with my sister while I went south with a girl I had just met.

Not my finest moment, that’s for sure.

I’m surprised that she had never been away with Tony, though, considering how the guy loves to fling money around.

“He never took you anywhere?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Nah. Not even for our honeymoon. He was always too busy with business. He would go away once in awhile for it, but I’m not positive it wasn’t just to cheat on me, if we’re being honest with ourselves.”

I purse my lips, not knowing how to respond to that.

“Well I want you here with me,” I tell her.

She nods, looking unsure.

With a sigh, she gets up, looking around. “Your publicist texted me the other day and said that we need to post at least four photos together on this trip, and we need to get photos of my ring,” she says, holding out her hand.

The large ring takes up half of her finger, but it’s as small as we could go without articles coming out about how I’m hurting for money because of whatever drug problem they want to give me this week.

“We can do that,” I tell her, spotting my suitcase in the corner and heading toward it.

“It’s a perfect time to really milk this, that’s for sure,” she tells me, her hands on her hips as she watches me.

I still.

“Milk this?”

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