Page 92 of Always Salty

I smiled as I saw my lawyer pull up beside us and snapped a few photos of the imbecile on his phone, breaking the law. “No, you sure didn’t.”

When in doubt, look intelligent.

—Keely to Copper

KEELY

I was tired of sitting on my ass.

Or my ass was tired of me sitting on it.

Either way, I got up and stretched, hating the way that my power suit felt like it was suffocating me.

“Where are you going?” Copper asked in amusement.

I looked over at him and elaborated, “I was going to see if there was anything to eat in the breakroom.”

“The only food in the breakroom is other people’s,” he pointed out.

“So…” I trailed off.

He grinned and stood up. “Come on, let’s go to the hospital.”

“What?” I asked.

He threw his arm around my shoulder and replied, “Chevy’s at work today, and I know there’s a pretty good little coffee shop in there that has excellent pastries. And it’s only a few blocks away.”

It was true.

Castanon Enterprises was fairly centrally located.

It was fifteen minutes away from the lake where my brothers lived. A five-minute walk from the hospital. A ten-minute walk to my—now Copper’s—apartment. And a two-minute walk to the Krispy Kreme on the corner.

Originally, they’d found this building because I was supposed to be working at the hospital with Chevy, and it was closer to everyone. But then I’d quit and went to work at the sleep center that was well over twenty-five minutes away.

“You just want to see the cute patient care tech that Chevy was talking about yesterday.” I laughed.

“I want to see her because she intrigues him,” Copper pointed out. “Chevy doesn’t get intrigued often, you know.”

That was true.

It took a lot to get Chevy’s attention.

But that was likely his genius coming out.

Chevy was the hardest brother I had.

Not because he was a bad brother, but because he was just so smart that it was hard to relate to him sometimes. Plus, he couldn’t understand when you didn’t get something that he could. It was highly frustrating to him that we weren’t on his level, and sometimes he couldn’t see past the gap in our intelligences.

Chevy was a great brother.

Truly, he was.

But Chevy was also socially challenged on top of everything else.

Needless to say, Chevy even mentioning this girl was enough to intrigue all of us.

I couldn’t blame Copper for wanting to go visit.

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