Chapter 11

chapter

eleven

Carter

I have to talk to Cooper.

Something hasn't been sitting right, not since last night.

When I peek in my brother's room, his bed linens are askew, which means he either never went to bed or got up early.

I go down to the kitchen, but he's not there either. He's not playing pool in the den, watching TV, or working out in the home gym.

I finally find Cooper out by the pond, skipping rocks like we used to when we visited Aunt Gabby.

Shit, he's definitely got something on his mind.

"Last time I found you out here all by yourself, you'd just been dumped by your college girlfriend," I say.

He chucks one smooth rock across the water's surface, and we both watch it skip ten times before it sinks.

The sun is peeking above the trees on the far hill, and the mist will soon burn off.

"What's on your mind? You feeling guilty about wanting to date Harmony?"

"No. About the contract."

My gut clenches. "What about the contract?"

"I like her too much," he says. "What if the business doesn't work out and they go bankrupt because we put notions in their head that this could succeed?"

"Hey," I say. "They had notions long before they met us."

"Yeah, but we don't actually believe this thing will be successful."

"Honestly? I don't. But what do we know? Just because we hold the purse strings doesn't mean we know what will work and what won't."

Cooper turns to me. "You have an MBA! And I know how you love to joke that I have a degree in disc golf, but it was actually a marketing degree!"

"Fuck that," I snort. "Have either of us started a business from the ground up?"

"No."

"Well, Aunt Gabby did."

"Yeah, she did."

"And if she were here, she would remind you that for every successful idea she had, she had three other ones who never saw the light of day. And do you know how many businesses she dissolved?"

He blinks at me.

I answer before he can. "Seven."

"Seven!? How do you know that?"

"Because I'm the one who's been poring over the paperwork and the data, brother. The only thing getting in the way of the Mosley sisters is us."

"What are you getting at?"

"We screwed up. We shouldn't be forcing them to locate their shop in Gold Hill."

"Come on, dude. Fate is in the middle of nowhere."

"Let's go, then," I tell him, waving for him to follow me.

"Where are we going?"

I make my way toward the garage. "We're going to take a drive across the state line."

"No way. I'm not going there? I won't."

"You will if you want to pursue things with that girl."

It doesn't take much more arm-twisting to get him into the car, and soon, we're on our way.