“I hear you’re seeing Bobbie this weekend.”

My mother was one of the few people who could make me pause my work. Then my irritation at being interrupted was accompanied by guilt over feeling annoyed. I reminded myself that both feelings were a colossal waste of time and energy, which was something I was loath to indulge in.

“She called you?”

“Of course! She’s so excited to see you! You really don’t call her enough, Brian.”

I highly doubted that my sister Roberta, whom most people called Bobbie, was waiting for my arrival with breathless anticipation. Then again, she was helping to organize the retreat activities, so god only knew what I would be walking into.

“Don’t forget to compliment her to her boss.”

“Jesus, Mom, she’s not trying to get a Girl Scout badge. My opinion doesn’t mean anything.” Except for the fact that I was bringing thousands of dollars to the hotel and conference center this weekend, booking a dozen rooms and pre-paying for food and liquor.

“And she’s supposed to be an adult now,” I added under my breath.

“She still needs our support, Brian.”

I bit my tongue—literally. Like I hadn’t supported her in the dozens of jobs she’d had and lost over the years? Like I hadn’t supported her by paying her rent more often than not?

Somehow, at the age of twenty-eight, my younger sister was still flitting from job to job and from one loser live-in boyfriend to the next. She was habitually under-employed. Actually, she’d had an extremely successful career for a while as a sofa surfer and mooch—but our mother still thought she farted rainbow sparkles like a unicorn.

Every time Bobbie and our mother got together, they talked about how nobody understood her, and that was her explanation as to why she still didn’t have her shit together. My mother, bless her gullible heart, always nodded and patted her hand in sympathy, then slipped her a hundred bucks to make sure she ate properly. I knew Bobbie was trying to turn her life around, but I would believe it when I saw it.

Mom might be proud of my little sister for getting a guest services job at the small mountain resort, but I was tempted to remind her it was only the most recent in a long line of jobs she couldn’t keep.

Movement outside my open office door drew my attention, and I looked up to see Madeline talking to Aaron, my marketing director. Their heads were bent over an oversized piece of cardboard. As she dropped the end she was holding in order to talk with her hands, Aaron had to make a quick save.

He saw me through the doorway and raised an eyebrow. “You got a minute?” he called out.

I nodded. He had to hold on to the mock-up firmly as Madeline poked at it to make a point. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but whatever it was she was pretty adamant about it.

She stretched while she spoke, as if she were trying to make her words taller than her petite frame. Her clingy green blouse snuck a fraction out of the waistband of her black pants every time she leaned over to point at something, getting ready to make a wrinkled escape.

Her whole body was involved in her conversation with Aaron, which didn’t surprise me. She had a tendency to read a lot of her words out loud, playing with the language and form. I’d almost gotten used to her talking to herself at her desk in my outer office area.

Madeline Jones was one of those people who seemed on the surface not to able to keep a serious thought in that wild red head of hers, but looks were deceiving. She was smarter than most people thought, including herself. I wouldn’t have hired her if I hadn’t believed that. Some people might have time to waste micromanaging fools, but I didn’t.

But the way she rolled her big brown eyes at me drove me absolutely crazy. Most people deferred to me, or at least showed some respect. Her whole demeanor seemed almost flippant, from the way her hair bounced around to the way she took off her shoes and curled her feet under her while she worked. Her desk was a disaster area, and her handwriting impossible to read. She was good, however, at saying “please.” Just not to me.

“Please?”

I shook my head, remembering that my mother was still on the phone. Aaron threw me a pointed, questioning look, and I snapped back to reality.

“Mom, I have to go. I’m really busy.”

“Okay, if you see Bobbie tonight tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.”

I bit back the reminder that I might not even see my sister that evening, because she probably wouldn’t remember. I’d been telling her for years that she should talk to her doctor about finding out if she was attention-deficit, but she always laughed and said she was just scatterbrained.

If she were any more scatterbrained, she’d qualify as the first human clay pigeon in Olympic skeet shooting. It had only gotten worse since my dad died, and that had been ten years ago. It was like he had kept her brain organized, and now she was all over the place.

It was one of the reasons I was anxious for our new app to launch. Happit was going to revolutionize the way people created and kept positive habits. I made a mental note to talk to Madeline about beta testing; I had the feeling she was a perfect candidate. The only thing she seemed to be consistent at was inconsistency.

After an abrupt goodbye to my mother, I sat back in my chair and felt like shit about practically hanging up on her. Well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it now, and it sure wasn’t the first time. Scrubbing my hand over my face, I sighed and stood up. My forehead creased as Aaron suddenly touched Maddie’s arm.

“Aaron!”

Both he and Madeline froze mid-conversation to turn to me.

“I have a few minutes now,” I called out, raising an eyebrow at Madeline.

When my eyes met hers, she blushed and tugged her arm away. The knot in my chest eased a little as Aaron made his way to my office and I watched Madeline return to her desk. Only then did I notice that her feet had been bare the whole time. The polish on her toenails was a soft pink.

“Yo! Gage!” Aaron sat in the chair in front of my desk as I stood there staring into space. He snapped his fingers and I looked down at him.

He slid a mock-up across the desk. “This is for the race sponsorship.” I could feel his gaze on me as I scanned the ad. “Maddie’s great,” he remarked.

“Yes, she is.” I wasn’t sure about that color for the tagline.

“Has a good eye.”

“Uh huh.” I rolled back in my chair, assessing the ad from further away.

“Smart girl,” Aaron added.

“Mmmm.” Maybe if we moved the logo to the other corner…

“Banging body.”

“Phenomenal. Wait, what?”

He sat there smirking at me with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Madeline is under me, Aaron,” I reminded him as I wrote on a sticky note.

“Oh, really?” His grin grew. That was the problem with hiring friends. It was a little harder to instill respect in someone who’d beaten you at beer pong once upon a time. But I’d be damned if I let him poach Madeline for his department.

Aaron wasn’t just an employee; he was an old friend. We’d met in a business class that he’d taken after a knee injury derailed his college football career. He prided himself on an effortless Afro and easily had the most tattoos of anyone I knew. Usually they were covered up by a preppy button-down shirt, which never seemed to fit his broad frame.

“You can’t have her. She’s mine. This is okay,” I said, handing back the board, “but I made a few notes. See if you can get me a revision early next week. It doesn’t need to be dry mounted.”

“Do you hear yourself, Gage? ‘She’s mine, you can’t have her!’” he mimicked in a brusque, caveman-type voice. “Og want.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees. “Does somebody have a little crush?”

“Crushes are for teenagers, Aaron. I grew out of that around ten years ago. I meant she works under me, and she’s turning out to be a valuable asset.”

“Ah, but you didn’t say no, did you?”

Clearly he wasn’t going to let this go until he got it all out of his system. Better here than at the retreat this weekend. I frowned. “Seriously? She. Works. For. Me. I don’t dip my quill in the office ink.”

“You don’t dip your quill in any ink. Your quill might as well be back on the damn bird. Dude, have you had a girlfriend in the last five years?”

“I do fine,” I said shortly.

Maybe I hadn’t had a girlfriend in seven years, but there were a handful of women over the years that were happy enough to hook up once in a while. Although it had been a while, they knew the score and didn’t play games, which I appreciated.

I wanted a woman who was confident, goal-oriented, and ready to commit—someday. Right now I was too busy.

And Madeline Jones—despite her objective attractiveness and the fact that she smelled like cinnamon—wasn’t my type.