Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(5)

The entire office was colorless.

I sighed, taking a seat in the chair across from him at his desk like he’d asked. He was still filtering through the file in his hands, so I looked around for something — anything — that wasn’t boring and bland. My eyes settled on a photo of a family at a lake — four young boys, a father, and a mother. One of the boys rode on the father’s back, ruffling his hair with his knuckles as they both laughed. The youngest boy was missing a front tooth, and the other two stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders, and their mother’s hands resting on their necks.

I smiled, thankful there was a human hiding somewhere under that robotic fa?ade.

I knew Logan Becker.

Well, I knew of him. It was hard not to hear the gossip mill churning about the Becker family, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it — and I did. Logan had been in the same grade as I had growing up, but of course, he’d never talked to me. He was too busy dating every girl who’d look his way before dumping her and moving on to the next. And when he wasn’t with a girl, he was with his brothers — probably getting into a fight or finding some other sort of trouble.

I also knew that ever since his father’s death, he and his family didn’t exactly favor mine.

My younger brother, Malcolm, caught on to that fact just as quickly as I did. But where I kept my distance and made it a point not to get caught up in the drama, Malcolm chose to thrive in it, instead. He’d been the root cause of more than a couple Becker brother fights — and honestly, I couldn’t say I blamed any of them for wanting to punch my brother in the nose after some of the comments I’d heard him make.

But that wasn’t me.

I got out of Stratford as soon as I turned eighteen, and if it were up to me, I would have never returned.

Too bad life didn’t work like that.

I stared at Logan’s young face, smirking as I recalled the fact that he’d called me miss, like I was ten years younger than him, rather than his same age. Then again, the way he was dressed in his dark, slim-fitting dress pants and Scooter Whiskey polo, he certainly looked a lot more grown up than I did.

We were both the ripe ol’ age of twenty-six, which — when I was younger — I assumed was the age where you had all your shit together. It took years of struggling through school only to discover that the amount of jobs waiting on the other side of that diploma were abysmal for me to figure out I was wrong.

So, yes, I could admit that I looked younger than him in the current moment, but part of that was on purpose — because I knew showing up for my first day of work at the distillery in what I wore every day would irk my father. The other part was just that I found no reason to dress in a way I didn’t want to. I didn’t care to impress my father or Logan or anyone else.

I had a job to do for my father, one that would give me my own dream in return. That was the only reason I was even in that stuffy office to begin with.

I popped the gum in my mouth, a bad habit I’d picked up after I quit smoking a few years back, as I waited for Logan to say something. At that sound, his eyes flicked to me, to my mouth, and back to the file in his hands again.

His hands gripped it a little tighter.

“So, before we get started, I’ll tell you a little about me and then I’d love to hear a little more about you,” he said, his eyes still on the file. “Then, we can go over your training plan and I’ll take you for a spin around the distillery.”

I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at that last statement.

My father owned the distillery, and every single member of my family worked there — save for my mother, who wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything even close to work a day in her life.

“I’m Logan Becker, as you know,” he started, and I smirked, sitting back in my chair and folding my arms over my chest as he recited what I was sure a speech he’d been practicing. “I’m the Lead Tour Guide for Scooter Whiskey, and I’ll be the one training you over the next few weeks. I started at the distillery when I was eighteen and I’ve been working my way up the ranks ever since. I’m very knowledgeable when it comes to our distillery, to our whiskey, and to our process, so I think you’ll find I’ll be a great teacher.”

I raised my brows. “I’m sure.”

“Why don’t you tell me a little about you?” he asked, dropping the file to the desk.

“Wait,” I said. “Is that it? You didn’t tell me anything about you. You told me how long you’ve worked here, and your job title.”

“I think that’s all that needs to be said right now.”

“Are those your books?” I asked, ignoring his attempt to avoid telling me more.

Logan followed my gaze to where it rested behind him, then faced me once more. “They are.”

“They’re so… organized.”

“I’ve been told I have a touch of OCD,” he offered, picking up the file again. “So, it says here you attended the Tennessee School of Arts for seven years.”

His brows shot up at that, and I knew he was thinking what everyone else did — why so long? But when you’re in no rush to go back home, have nowhere else to go, and art has been your only escape your entire life? Well… seven years doesn’t seem like a long time, at all. In fact, I’d argue it wasn’t long enough.