Page 67 of Family Bonds: Carter & Avery

The kids' art classes didn’t start up again until the first week in November and she figured that Laine did that on purpose, on top of needing a break herself. Avery was missing the Monday night with Carter and they had to settle on the two hours for Thursday the past two weeks as it was.

“I’ll talk to Seth when we bring Adele home,” she said.

“Alright, kids,” Laine said. “Does everyone have their names somewhere on their pieces?”

There were several yeses to that.

“Then pick up your stations. There is a trash can at the end of the table and when you’re done, go wash your hands in the back so you don’t stain your parents’ cars,” Laine said.

Avery watched as the kids did as they were told. “This was perfect timing.”

“How did it go?” Laine asked. She’d told Laine she was meeting with Grayson today and why. She’d never told Laine the amount of money, just that she had a lot and needed to figure it out.

“It went well. I met Rex and Hailey.”

“Getting to know the family,” Laine said quietly as she was gathering the kids’ projects and putting them on a cart.

“It’s not like that,” she said. “I need a lawyer too and Hailey recommended someone for me from her firm.”

“I’m picking on you. I’ve heard she’s no-nonsense.”

“She is, but she’s funny too. It’s not even close to being finalized and I’ve got a lot of material to read and look over, but it’s a step.”

“Taking steps is what gets you moving forward,” Laine said. “It’s got to start somewhere.”

“I know,” she said. Which reminded her once again at some point she was going to have to tell Josie that she was seeing Carter. It was getting harder and harder to find the time to be with him because she felt like she was hiding it and shouldn’t be.

She wasn’t doing anything wrong and it wasn’t a secret. Her staff had made a few sly comments but hadn’t come out and asked her if she was dating Carter. Thankfully no one did it around Josie.

The two girls came out a few minutes later and she got their jackets for them, drove to Adele’s house and went in.

Seth verified the trick-or-treating and that he’d pick Josie up at the clinic at five if that was okay.

It was more than okay for her because there is no way she’d be able to get out earlier with as busy as she’d been.

“Are we doing anything today?” Josie asked her when they were driving home.

It was barely noon at this point. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Do you want to go get some lunch?”

“Can we go out to lunch?” Josie asked.

“We can do that if you’d like,” she said. Josie rarely asked for anything. And if she did it had more to do with her art.

“I’d like that,” Josie said. “It’s like a girls' time for us. Like when we got our nails done.”

It seemed like so long ago they’d done that and she hated time was getting away from her. “Then girls' day it is. Lunch and getting our toes done again.”

“Yay!” Josie said, doing a fist pump in the backseat.

Life finally felt like it was coming together.

22

Depended On Him

“Imet your girlfriend today,” Grayson said when Carter walked up to him at the pub by the water facing Plymouth. It was slow in here for a Saturday night and that was exactly what Carter wanted. A quiet beer with his brother because he couldn’t be with the woman he was dating.

His girlfriend, as his brother had said. “You did?”

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