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NORMALLY, BRIT WORE little more than sweats to family breakfast, but something nudged her to dress cuter this time. Maybe it was the possibility of Cord being there. Not that it mattered. At this point, he had seen her at her scrubbiest. What did she care? But still, she turned a circle in her walk-in closet in the sea of blacks and grays with an occasional shock of white. Her wall of shoes and handbags to the back of the closet is what provided the color. She selected a Grecian style dress with twisted straps that showed a little cleavage in front and scooped to reveal her tattoo in back. It was a maxi dress, but it was knotted at one knee for a flash of leg. She kept it casual with a turquoise pair of sandals. Her makeup she kept clean and fresh with only mascara, tinted moisturizer, and lip gloss as if she had just woken up like this. After scrunching her hair with some texturizing spray, she was ready to go.
Strange nerves crept up as she readied herself to enter her father’s house. She knocked while she pushed the door open. “Morning.”
An unwelcome sight greeted her—Saffron passing Cord a stack of plates, and the two of them going side by side to the table to set it, laughing as they went.
“Good morning.” Brit let the door slam behind her.
Cord turned around, and his eyes scanned the length of her body. Score one for Brit.
“Morning!” called Barbara from the kitchen.
Lonnie stood up from the couch and pecked Brit on the forehead. “All three of my girls in one place. It’s a dream come true.”
Brit went to the massive modern kitchen, sat at one of the stools at the butcher block island, and watched Barbara chop onions across from her. “Where’s Lander today?”
Barbara swung the sizable knife, and Brit sat back to dodge it. “Touchy subject?”
“He went into the office early to deal with this Vincent stuff. He also is supposed to have a meeting with J.J. Mack today, but J.J. wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. That’s all Abednego needs right now is two flaky artists to deal with. Don’t get me wrong. J.J. seems charismatic from what he was saying, but then again, so did Vincent, and look how that turned out.”
Brit grabbed Barbara’s wrist and eased the knife out of her hand. “I agree. Usually I have better instincts, but I was so excited about setting him up with Daisy that I was blinded.”
“Wow.” Cord came up from behind and leaned his backside on the island next to her.
“Wow, what, sir?” Brit stabbed the cutting board and smirked at Cord.
“Hey, watch what you do with that thing. Can’t trust either Byers woman with a knife, can you?” He backed away from the island. “Does this mean you’re giving up matchmaking?”
“Yes, no. For now, for Daisy. Probably not forever. You need a boyfriend, Saffron? Random hookup maybe? Because you may not want to ask me.”
“You found the perfect match for me,” said Barbara, regaining control of the knife.
“I’m starting to think you and Lander were a fluke,” said Cord.
“Hey!” Brit swatted at his arm, and he did an exaggerated wince.
“There’s nothing wrong with being single.” Lonnie pointed at Saffron and Brit with the spatula he had picked up to flip the pancakes on the stove behind Barbara. “Saffron, you don’t need to rush into anything. You’re young. Same goes for you, Brit darling. Sow your wild oats.”
“Jeez, dad, shouldn’t you be telling us to wait until marriage?” Brit popped a raspberry in her mouth.
Barbara laughed. “He already knows that ship has sailed. Left port, circumnavigated the globe, set a world record for speed of said journey, and came back again.”
Brit chucked a raspberry at her sister, but she missed, and it whizzed past her father’s ear and bounced off the wall behind the stove and into the pan.
“If you wanted raspberry pancakes, you could’ve just asked,” said Lonnie.
Popping another raspberry in her mouth, Brit muttered, “Barbara’s traversed the globe far more times than I have.”
She wondered what Saffron’s number was, and wished they were close enough to ask. And wishing her father wasn’t there, so she could gossip with Barbara to see if she knew. Saffron was staying uncharacteristically quiet on the subject.
“Table set?” asked Lonnie. “These flapjacks are stacked and ready to go.”
“I can take them to the table, Dad.” Saffron scooted by Brit, her long light hair swinging, giving Brit a whiff of clean shampoo smell as Saffron passed. Cord flinched like he wanted to help her, but he leaned back on the island again to get out of her way as she passed.
At the table, Lonnie settled in, pouring syrup and shoveling a piece of pancake in his mouth, ready to have a nice family meal complete with family small talk. “Saffron, where’s your first interview today?”
“Um.” She put down her own fork and wiped her mouth before she answered. “It’s at this manufacturing company down the road. It’s at one o’clock, so I have some time to prepare, which is good. You know, gotta make a good first impression. This is my first interview post college.”
“You’re going to do great. I’m very proud of you for pursuing such an ambitious field. You’re not going to be some one-hit-wonder rock star like your old man.”
“You’re a business owner, Dad,” Brit reminded him.
“A prestigious one,” added Cord. “At this point, you’re more famous for your club than your music career.”
Lonnie wasn’t sure what to think about that, but he nodded slowly. “That may be true. I certainly wouldn’t mind that. There’s a reason I got out of performing. I couldn’t play that song one more time in my life. It was taking a part of my soul every time I did it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful for what that song gave me, but the songs I really loved—the songs I wrote about the people I loved—never made an impact. It’s hard for an artist. And maybe I could’ve kept trying, but then a lot of other people were getting into nightclubs and restaurants at the time. It seemed like something I’d be good at. So I hung up the ole guitar. Literally.” He pointed to a spot on his living room wall where his guitar stood mounted behind glass with a gold record next to it.
“Hey, if I could sing well enough or play instruments, I would’ve given it a shot. Turns out, I’m way better at this,” said Saffron.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” said Cord. “A woman engineer. That’s a pretty male-dominated field.”
“I’m completely fine with that,” said Saffron with a smile.
Barbara laughed. “I would be too if I were single. I’ll stick with my music man though.”
“Speaking of jobs,” said Cord. He took a swig of milk. “I was thinking with Mike gone so much, maybe Brit could help with booking and scheduling. She did a great job setting up the opening set for the DJ Knight show.”
Brit’s cheeks warmed as all eyes turned to her, but Cord’s words bolstered her confidence. “It was fun. And in turn, I can teach you more about event planning, not that it would interest you in the least.”
“I’d love learning from you.”
His openness caught Brit off guard, and she had no idea what to do except an about-face on topics in case anyone would ask more about it. “So anyway, I wouldn’t mind putting in a few hours at the club during the week, Dad. If you need me. It could be kind of fun. I could get a new business casual wardrobe.”
“I didn’t think there was a dress code at the club,” said Barbara.
“Shhhh.” Brit nudged her. “Just go with it.”
Cord snickered.
“I wouldn’t want to put you out. Don’t feel like you need to help your dear old dad. I can always hire someone new like Cord suggested if Mike is going to be away a lot longer. He assures me that he’s going to stick around for a while though. Mike has many, many great ideas for the club.” He turned to Saffron. “Our general manager, Mike, has just returned from a trip to London, where they have an incredible music scene. His ideas were out of this world good. I told him to implement them whenever he wanted. He has my blessing completely.”
“I think it might be good for Brit to work with you at the club,” said Saffron. “It’s always good to have varied experience. Then again, I may just be spewing what they’ve been banging into me the last four years of college.”
Brit wasn’t sure how to take Saffron’s support. Was she implying Brit had no skills, or was she actually on Brit’s side? Saffron wasn’t showing any sign either way except her big eyes and impossibly long eyelashes blinking between her father and her older sister.
“Well, Brit, my darling girl, I’d be honored to have you helping however you’d like, of course. But don’t feel you have to. If it ever gets too stressful, you don’t have to do it anymore. And Saffron, the same goes for you at your engineering work. I do hope you’ll find something you like in Toronto. Brit!” He exclaimed this last part, and his fork fell to the ceramic plate with a clatter. “I have the best idea. Would you mind terribly giving your sister a tour of the city? Showing her all the best neighborhoods to live?”
She would mind. Terribly.
Saffron shook her head. “No, dad, I can figure it out.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking that tour myself,” said Cord. “If you ladies don’t mind. I’m looking to move when my lease is up in the fall. I’m thinking it’s probably time I settle down and buy a house. It’d be nice to get the tour from someone with such good taste.”
Having Cord as a buffer sounded like a good idea at first, but in the second beat, Brit was suspicious of his intentions. Did he want to get to know the pretty younger sister with the blond-ish hair, or did he want to help his friend (were they friends?) with a difficult situation? Or did he just want to be close to Brit? Or did he just want to be surrounded by pretty girls named Byers? Or, which was the most likely, did he really just need a new place to live and didn’t know where to go? Brit pondered all these options when she realized that everyone at the table was still waiting for a response from her.
“Yeah, Cord. Join us.”
He offered a half-smile, probably unsure of her reaction, and they all returned to their pancakes.
Now, Brit had to decide how to sell the good places to Cord while convincing Saffron that this wasn’t the place for her.
“Oh, Brit, I just got a text from Abednego.” Barbara handed her phone to Brit. “He says the meeting with J.J. is on, and he’s wondering if you and Saffron want to take him to lunch afterwards.”
“Do you mind if we take a rain check on that tour, Cord?” asked Brit.
“Sure.”
Suddenly, Brit was even more glad she had put some thought into her outfit this morning. She wished Saffron hadn’t been invited. The last thing she needed is another cute, young girl around while she was trying to get to know J.J. Especially since she was pretty sure that J.J. was closer to Saffron’s age than her own. “Then I’d love to.” Brit looked at Saffron to get her answer.
“Yeah, totally. I’m in for that. Where should we take him?”
“We’ll figure it out.” Brit handed the phone back to her sister and mentally prepared herself to finally meet the J.J. Mack.