“Hi, Guys.” Jessie smiled warmly at Sam and me as she slid into the spot beside Courtney. “I’m these two yahoos’ sister, Jess.” She indicated her brothers with her hand as she introduced herself to Court. “You must be Courtney?” Jessie grinned when Court nodded in confirmation, but didn’t slow down long enough to let her say anything. “You gotta love small towns. You can’t get away with anything. I mean, you innocently try to stalk some guy at work, and your brothers show up and catch you.” She elbowed Court in her customary, outgoing way, and Court just shook her head at me, smiling. Jessie was one of those people that you just couldn’t help but like, right from the start.

She had evidently said some keywords that raised her brothers’ protective instinct radars because they both said, almost simultaneously, “What guy?”

“He’s a single dad that I see sometimes at preschool drop off. We’ve made googly eyes at each other a few times, and I overheard him saying that he worked at this restaurant, so I thought I’d make the first move by coming here. I wasn’t anticipating that half my family would be in attendance.” She rolled her eyes at the last part.

I surmised that Jessie was talking about Joe. He didn’t seem like he would be her type, but what did I know about such things? I looked at Court to gauge her reaction. Would it bother her if Joe and Jessie started seeing each other? I couldn’t catch her eye, so I grabbed my phone and quickly typed a text to her under the table. ‘Are you okay with this??’

When her phone buzzed, Court looked at it and then gave me a reassuring nod. She didn’t have long to absorb the news because just then Joe emerged through the swinging door from the storeroom. His gaze found Jessie almost immediately, and I saw what she meant about the googly eyes. They definitely shared a long, flirty look of mutual admiration as he approached our table.

When he got closer, he finally tore his attention away from Jessie and glanced around the rest of our table. His eyes travelled from Sam to Seth and back again. When the recognition sparked, Joe’s face transformed into a mask of fury. I had never seen laid-back Joe look so angry. “You have a lot of nerve coming here, you asshole,” he spat the words at Sam.

Jessie’s hackles were immediately raised, and she quickly came to the defense of her brother. “Hey! Who do you think you are, calling my brother an asshole?”

“This,” Joe indicated Sam with a look of pure disgust, “is your brother?”