Page 16 of Begin Again

“Yep. Then there is me. The middle kid that just does his own thing.”

That had always been him.

Evan being the oldest and the loudest got the most attention.

Kaelyn, the baby and the only girl, she got a different form of attention.

Christian went about life not caring all that much or taking things as seriously.

He was a go-with-the-flow type.

Yet he couldn’t get the woman in front of him out of his mind since he crossed paths with her this afternoon.

5

Had Her Back

“Are you ready to get to work?” Liz’s father asked when he came in the front door with her sister, Abby, behind him.

“I am. I didn’t know you were helping too,” she said to Abby.

“I’ve got nothing else going on. Besides, I want to see about claiming my room.”

She rolled her eyes at her sister.

She wasn’t opposed to Abby moving in and helping with some of the bills. It’s not like she’d split the costs or anything with her, but having that added income would help her get more work done faster on the place.

Having a guy in her life wasn’t something she was worried about until Christian came over for dinner last night.

Now she was wondering if Abby would be in the way.

Which was stupid over just one night having pizza.

But they did make plans for dinner again tonight. She wasn’t sure how it even happened.

One minute they were talking about his siblings and he was asking about Abby, and the next he said it was only fair if he showed her his house that he was working on.

She was off and hadn’t done much in her life other than work and gobble up all the overtime she could, so she found herself saying yes before she could think of a reason to say no.

“There are three to choose from,” she said. Might as well go along with it. “But the bathroom is horrible.”

Abby hadn’t been here yet, as she was working days and this was Liz’s first weekend in the house. Her sister wasn’t one for manual labor so the last thing she expected was for her to show up here.

Abby left her side and ran upstairs, her father putting his tool bag down. “I’ve got the vanity and toilet in the truck. I picked them up this morning. I hope it was okay to pick them out?”

“It’s fine,” she said. Beggars weren’t going to be choosers and she wouldn’t pick something out that someone else was paying for.

Her father had simple taste like her and she could care less about a toilet. The vanity was tiny enough in that room, so it’d be fine.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“Just another set of hands to guide it will be good,” her father said.

She went outside with him; they brought in the toilet and then the vanity. From the picture on the box, she was already happy. It was simple oak that would come close to matching the trim in the house. The countertop was solid white, the same as a sink. Basic and would allow her to paint the room any color she wanted with the gray flooring.

“Do you want to paint the room first?” her father asked. “I don’t think it will take that long once I pull out the old toilet and vanity.”

“I can do that,” she said. “It’s going to be so nice to have a room done in the house other than my bedroom. I just bought light gray paint. Then as time goes on I can decorate around it.”

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