Page 12 of Thanking Her Brother's Best Friends

Chloe went inside, packed the box, and brought it back to me. I walked over to the counter and handed it to them.

"Just two?" the girl hollered, her eyes widening. "Man, that's really cheap. We can't review you like this."

"You won't need to. But you will be paying for those pastries," I replied pleasantly. "You see, this shop has in-built surveillance, which will have captured your statement regarding your followers. My assistant has checked your socials. We happen to understand your real footprint is something else?"

The girl blushed. "Look. We're sorry. We're just... Okay, we're not influencers. That's not... that's not my boyfriend. We just... we live in a trailer park in South Boston, and we got thrown out of our home a couple of days back. I used to make money working bars, but they won't take me ‘cause I got debt back there. And we're just really hungry, man. We know you do good Samaritan shit, so we—"

I sighed. "So you decided to come here and lie? You'd have done much better with the truth."

The girl looked down and shuffled her feet. I gave Chloe a resigned shrug. "Pack them a box of donuts. And get some coffee in their system."

"Thanks, man," the girl said, her tone whispery with gratitude. "We really appreciate it."

"Try leading with the truth next time," I replied.

I went back inside to wrap up the work we'd done this morning.

The menu was looking good, and we'd launch the new creations tomorrow. I had to get some pictures taken first, and I liked to do this myself.

"Guys, you can take the day off," I called out to the team. "Not you, though, Chlo. I need you."

"Oh, ma'am, for the love of a vacation!" Chloe replied, flailing her hands dramatically. "Will you not give me a sock? I would be a free elf!"

"Stop with theHarry Potterreferences. You've already got Ollie asking when he'll get his letter to Hogwarts."

"You tell him he has to wait in line. I still haven't gotten mine yet."

Over the next hour, we worked on accounts and settled some dues. We finished setting up the menu, and I took some photos. Chloe was the tech whiz, so she handled putting them online on our social media channels.

"Whoa, ten minutes, and we already have over fifteen thousand likes, Sel," she gushed as I finally took a long sigh and poured us two cups of coffee. "It's going to be a busy promotions day tomorrow."

"I can't wait, honestly."

"Hello, anyone here?"

The rich baritone that sounded through the room and echoed where we stood made me almost spill my coffee all over the floor I'd just cleaned.

Say what you will about being a multi-millionaire with a world of assets. I had this thing for clean surfaces, and it extended to my needing to clean them myself.

"What the hell is he doing here?" I asked Chlo frantically. "And why the hell do people not understand what aClosedsign means these days?"

"Who's here?" Chloe replied, walking to check on the new entry. "How did you recognize his voice..." She trailed off, but the smile on her lips became prominent.

"Look at you! You knew it was that hottie from your brother's wedding! You even have his voice memorized. That's so cute.

"I swear, I'm gonna be the maid of honor at your wedding, Sel. If you pick Abigail over me, I'm gonna—"

"Oh, shut up." I hastily cleaned the front of my apron, which had collected a generous smearing of buttercream in different colors we'd been experimenting with.

"Do I look civil?" I asked her. In my head, I pictured a frenzied antelope running around the room.

Chloe snorted in response. "You've been running around this place like a hot mama all day, Sel. You don't look civil, but you do look cute. Like, a murdery-kind of cute. He could be into that."

"I hate you."

"But the real question is, can you live without me?"

I muttered something about shoving confetti up somewhere and trudged out of the back of the shop to glare at Aiden Brown, who met my fiery gaze with a perfectly charming smile.

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