SETH LOVELESS, reads the small, blocky screen. I roll my eyes.
“WHAT?” I shout, not bothering to pick up the receiver.
“COME OVER HERE!” a voice shouts back. “PLEASE.”
The phone stops ringing. I walk the seven feet from my office door to Seth’s and lean against his doorway. He’s in his office chair, leaning back, hands laced across his midsection like he’s a movie villain about to say I’ve been expecting you.
“I called because I was trying to be polite,” he says.
“You could’ve just walked over,” I point out. “I just did that and I’m fine.”
“Yeah, but I needed you in here,” he says, and shifts his computer screen toward me.
It’s… a spreadsheet? A flow chart? There’s also a graph.
“Tell me you didn’t redo the brewery spreadsheet,” I say, darting a glance at my younger brother. “You can’t just do that without—”
“Chill, I didn’t,” he says. “Take a closer look.”
I lean in until I can read the small text on the screen, and I realize something: the spreadsheet is full of names and times. Up in one corner, the only two things in that column, are DANIEL LOVELESS and CHARLOTTE MCMANUS.
“What is this?” I ask, though I half-suspect the answer.
“This is my analysis of your engagement announcement,” he says, swiveling in his seat to face his screen. He looks incredibly smug right now.
I fold my arms and wait, because apparently, he thinks he really is a Bond villain and wants to explain his entire evil scheme to me.
“I thought the timing and manner of your engagement announcement was kind of strange,” he says.
“I explained that,” I say, patiently, readying the story that Charlie came up with. “We weren’t going to tell anyone yet, but then at the hearing—”
“Nah, that’s not it,” Seth says, waving one hand at me. “Because that happened at what, approximately eleven-thirty in the morning? Yet the first confirmation of the engagement from you is hours and hours later, at Mom’s house, at approximately eight p.m.”
“Why do you know this?”
“I asked Eli and Levi.”
I want him to get to the point, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking questions, so I continue to wait.
“On the other hand, it seems that Mavis Bresley had heard the news and was informing others of it by approximately twelve-thirty that day. I myself heard it from Patricia Yardley—"
“Did you?” I smirk. “Does Trixie know where you’re hearing rumors from?”
“Trixie and I were never exclusive, and besides, we’re no longer seeing each other,” he says, like he’s impatient to move on.
“Doesn’t mean she’s not mad,” I point out. “When do I get to start tracking your rumors?”
My brother Seth is tall, charming, good-looking, and on account of those qualities, he’s been to bed with a sizeable chunk of Sprucevale’s female population.
As this spreadsheet proves, he’s also a huge dork.
“—anyway, I heard it from Patricia around two, still long before either you or Charlie had broken the news to anyone.”
“Congratulations,” I deadpan. “You’ve got the insider track on town gossip.”
“Except I should have known long before that,” Seth says, raising his eyebrows.
He temples his fingers together, really getting into this whole Bond villain thing.
“Even if what you’re saying about keeping it a secret and informing the court due to extenuating circumstances is true, you should have been on the phone telling your family the moment you stepped out of there,” he says. “Not saying anything for hours is highly atypical for you.”
“I’ve never accidentally shared news of a secret engagement before,” I protest.
“Even so, not the sort of behavior I’d normally expect,” he says. “Anyway, I did some analysis, and it turned out that the primary vector of the news was Pete Bresley, who just so happens to be a bailiff at the Burnley County Courthouse.”
“Yes, he was there,” I say.
“Furthermore, this regression suggests that Charlie herself was unaware of her own news until mid-afternoon, though it’s more difficult to pin down an exact time,” he goes on.
“She had her phone off.”
“And finally, there’s the most important data of all,” he says, swiveling back to me. “And that’s that the two of you haven’t been in a goddamn relationship this whole time and I don’t know who the hell you think you’re kidding, Daniel.”
There it is. Frankly, I’m surprised that he waited this long to confront me about it. I can fool a lot of people, but fooling my brothers is difficult, to say the least.
Doesn’t mean I won’t make him earn it.
“Yeah, that’s what secret means,” I tell him. “That people didn’t know.”
“I’m not saying people didn’t know,” he says. “I’m saying that maybe you can tell everyone else you and Charlie have been together for ages, but you can’t tell me that. So would you like to tell me what’s really going on?”
I look at the spreadsheet one more time, and I admit I feel a little bad that he’s clearly spent hours on this.