Internally, I shook my head. Now was not the time for those kinds of thoughts.
Finn had started washing up the million pots and pans Hollis had used to create dinner. “You said there were two things. If we’ve agreed neither of us can decorate, maybe we can sort out the second favour.”
Hollis huffed out a breath. “I need to get my stuff from London. There are only so many clothes I can borrow from Ella. I think she needs her wardrobe back.”
Finn glanced over his shoulder. “I thought I recognised the top you were wearing yesterday.”
“As long as you didn’t buy it for her.”
A deep chuckle escaped from me. “It would be funny if you had.”
My best friend shot daggers at me. “The second request I can help with. I can borrow a van from Rod, and we’ll go up and back in a day.”
“It would be much appreciated. Thanks, Finn.” Hollis beamed. “And if we can go soon, even better.”
“Whatever you want, Sis.”
Suddenly overcome by a wave of tiredness, I let out a huge yawn. “Thanks for making us dinner, Hollis. I really enjoyed it. We should do it more often.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t get too used to it.”
“Until you need another favour.” I grinned. “Don’t worry, Princess. I know your game.”
Chapter Eight
Hollis
Ugh, he’s so frustrating.
The banter between Jase and me was as flirty as it ever had been. I couldn’t deny there might be something more to it this time. And it seemed mutual.
Strangely, I’d enjoyed making dinner for the three of us. And even though I had done it for my own gain, knowing they’d appreciated the gesture, too, made it even more worthwhile. Finn and I chatted a bit about the gym and agreed I would do another shift in the coffee shop tomorrow. He wanted me to go over the latest membership figures and see how they stacked up against his targets.
When I got upstairs, I was still wired and not quite ready to sleep yet. I picked up my phone. Scrolling through my socials, I found a few recent posts where Jase had been tagged. Mostly, they were with Felicity Andrews, where she was draped all over him, and the photos had things like #hot, #myboy, #instalove, #relationshipgoals as taglines. I almost laughed out loud. As far as I could tell, they had been a casual thing, and there was norelationshipinvolved. Turning my attention to his account, Inoticed he posted a lot less. There were a few of him on holiday with my brother and Barney last summer, plus some of them at a music festival a few weeks ago. Almost obsessively, I swiped through the holiday pictures, trying not to stare at the ones of him shirtless, in only a pair of shorts. I thought back to the first night I’d arrived and how he’d commented about pictures for myfinger vault. If I wanted something for that, I’d have found the exact material right there. Shaking my head, I forced away those ideas.
This was Jase Dillon.
I’d known him for years.
He was my brother’s best friend.
I shouldn’t be getting any romantic thoughts about him.Should I?
But it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore how my feelings towards him were changing. Jase and Gil were polar opposites, and maybe, I hadn’t acknowledged quite how much I needed that. ButJase?
Of all the people…
Laughing to myself, I forced myself back to my main feed and accounts about fashion and kittens until, finally, I fell asleep.
The next morning, I made a round of decaf, oat, flat whites for the table of yummy mummies, whose number had just increased by another two. It amused me how they always came in ones or twos, never all arriving at the same time. Obviously, getting a child ready to go out was unpredictable, so coordinating with five other mothers would never be easy. And it wasn’t like we were always super busy on a Wednesday morning anyway. Finn and I agreed I would take a midweek shift at the gym’s coffee shop, which gave Tia and Jess the opportunity to have the day off andcover the rest of the week between them. It also gave me the chance to check in on how things were going there.
Once I’d delivered the drinks, I went back to my laptop on the bar and started checking the membership numbers against the subscriptions. It looked like everything matched up and the money coming in was correct. The gym was much more streamlined compared to the garage, which I suspected had to do with Finn setting this up by himself. The garage was a legacy of our father, and while he was a wonderful man who had been absolutely brilliant at fixing cars, back-office admin had never been his thing. It meant I had to unpick a history of bad record keeping and inconsistent filing there.
“You’ve smashed this month’s membership targets,” I called out to Finn, who had finished up a PT session with a new client.
He grinned. “Your socials are working miracles; I almost have more interest than I do trainers. If it carries on like this, I’m going to have to start hiring new staff.”
“Be careful you don’t overstretch it on the wage bill,” I warned.
