Page 17 of Nerd Girl

I trusted Gage. If he said we were still friends, nothing more, I had to take that at face value.

6

Sawyer

Sunday afternoons were the perfect time to catch up on paperwork. The world in general was a more subdued place, and that made a great atmosphere for sinking into the mundane.

Or it would if I could force my attention to my laptop instead of staring off into space thinking about yesterday. Again. Each time I let my mind idle, it raced off toward thoughts of Evie.

I’d had a lot of fun, but that didn’t mean I needed to make it into a memory I moved into.

No, I already had those moments from my past that I lived in too often.

I had other properties besides hers that I was here to look at, and the details of those required my attention. I pulled up the list of mostly older businesses and family farms, spread across multiple towns and counties,

All of these were near bank foreclosure for whatever reason. All in small towns that were on the edge of a boom of growth. My job was to figure out which were worth the buy, so we could resell the land right as the prices soared.

Evie’s place was different though. Not unique, but rare. We already had a buyer, but it was someone who hadn’t been able to or hadn’t wanted to go to her directly. Given that said buyer was local, on top of everything else I’d learned about her yesterday, she may need to learn to choose her friends better.

Details like that weren’t my problem though—I just had to get her to sell to us. Not just for the commission, but this was me proving to my father that I was the son he needed to sign the business over to.

It was a little late in life for me to play this card, and I’d missed out on years of chances thanks to…

A pain stabbed me in the chest, a spear penetrating my soul, and I turned back to work. I’d take daydreaming about Evie over this ache, any day.

My phone rang, and my brother’s name flashed on the screen. Not the distraction I wanted, but probably the one I needed. Especially if he thought he’d gloat about sending me to the biggest little truck stop of a town he could think of.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Hey.” Hudson’s voice was warm. Friendly. Amused. “How was Wendover?”

There it was. “Absolutely loved it.”

“Really.” There was Hudson’s shock. “You win at the tables or something?”

I had gambled… Though not in the way he meant. “You could say I won big.”

“Uh-huh.” In a single grunt, his interest had vanished. “You’re not going to vague me into asking for details. If you don’t want to share, I don’t give a fuck.”

I may tell him the story eventually. Like, as part of the story about how I landed this property. “Fine. What’s up?”

“You know what’s up.”

I grunted and sank in my seat. Not this again. “Tell me why.” He’d been trying to talk me out of making this deal since I made the plans.

“I told you why.”

Because it’s a bad idea.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to cut it for me. “Give me the real reason.”

“There’s no better reason than that,” Hudson said.

“This whole I need to succeed so Daddy loves me more motivation of yours is really childish,” I said.

Hudson was silent for a moment.

“You’re right, it is. And you’re too old to be doing it,” he finally said.

---