Page 12 of The Last Time

“Did I?”

“Kyle invited Avery and Layla.”

“I still can’t believe Kyle and Avery are together,” I say as I work on connecting the new pipes.

Kyle is another buddy we grew up with, and Avery is friends with my sister Layla.

“Yeah. It’s weird to have her around all the time. And you need to talk to your sister, man,” he grumbles in frustration. “She flirts with every guy that looks at her.”

I sigh. “I’m not trying that again. Last time I did, she nearly bit my head off for ‘cock-blocking’ her. I don’t need my sister talking to me about cocks, so I vowed to stay the hell out of it.”

“She’s a piece of work.”

I smile as I listen to him vent about my sister.

After we get all the pipes replaced in the basement within a couple of hours, we take a seat to catch our breaths. The more difficult part of this process will be the first and second floors, where we have to cut holes in the drywall to change the pipes. We lucked out that the basement wasn’t finished.

“You wanna go grab some lunch before we start on the next floor?” Josh asks as he lifts his hat and wipes the sweat off his forehead.

“Definitely. Where do you wanna go? The café?” I ask.

I see him stiffen at the suggestion, then try to cover it up. He gets weird every time I suggest the place. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s something going on between him and my sister. That, or he just hates the food and doesn’t want to say it.

I think about my sister’s food for a second. Nah, there’s no way he hates the food. Her food is better than any expensive restaurant I’ve ever eaten at.

“Aren’t we meeting up with the guys there for dinner tonight?” he points out.

Damn. He’s right. They like to meet up at least once a month. I try to get out of it, even managed to successfully for a year after Lauren passed, before Josh started forcing me to go again.

“I forgot. You just wanna grab something fast?”

“Yeah. Let’s go. I’m gonna die of a heat stroke if we don’t get some food and water in me soon.”

We walk up the stairs and out the front door but are blasted with a loud sound coming from the front porch. As I descend down the stairs, I see Charlotte using a machine sander as she moves it around the railings of the porch.

The woman is covered head to toe in sawdust. When she notices us standing there, she switches the sander off and turns toward us with a smile on her face.

“What’s up?” she says cheerfully.

“What in the hell are you doing?” I blurt out as I look at the mess.

That’s not exactly how I meant it to sound, but she isn’t wearing a mask and is probably inhaling so many dangerous chemicals right now.

“Um, I’m sanding the wood so I can stain it.”

“You do know there’s a piece of equipment that goes to that sander to collect the dust so it doesn’t fly all over you, right?” Josh says to her.

She rips off her sunglasses and drops her shoulders. “Are you serious?”

Josh chuckles. “Take a look in that box. I’m sure it’s in there.”

He points to the box that was holding the sander. She obviously just purchased it and has no clue what the hell she is doing.

She peeks inside and pulls out the small cloth pieces that twists onto the sanding device. “This thing?” she questions as she holds it up.

For the first time in forever, I feel a smile, wanting to break free at how damn cute and innocent she looks right now.

“That would be the one,” Josh says. He steps toward her and grabs it from her hand.

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