"Apparently not. He's all grown up. Matt is going to help us at the beach house if he has time," Bailey told him.
He was barely done saying that when Gwen announced, "It's done. Matt is meeting you at the beach house."
"You work fast," Bailey told her and he got Matt's number from her so he could confirm things with him. He only vaguely remembered Gwen's brother. It was going to be interesting to have his help.
"Matt is helping out with a furniture delivery so he might be late. Don't hold it against him," Gwen was saying.
Bailey texted Matt to see if he needed to change the time they were meeting him. He got a quick reply. "Matt says he'll be on time."
"Typical Matt. That boy is overconfident." Gwen said with a shake of her head. "He takes on too much. He's such a hard worker. I don't know where he gets it. Our whole family is deadbeats."
Joey was frowning at her though he probably didn't understand what that meant. Gwen reached over and ruffled his light brown hair a little and now Joey smiled.
Bailey knew Gwen's home situation wasn't great. Gwen had started working seriously in high school so she could save up to move out and get her own place. And she talked about wanting her brother to live with her too. "Maybe you've been a positive influence," he said. "You're a good big sister."
"This is why I stayed in touch with you," she said. "Always saying nice things to me. Now I better get back to work."
Once she left, Joey looked at him questioningly. "You don't have to go to work, do you, Daddy?"
"Not today. But we are going to the beach house and we might do a few things there," Bailey told him. "You want to walk or drive?"
"I want to drive," Joey said then he giggled.
"You want to drive? Yeah, we'll walk," Bailey decided.
Chapter 2
The sun was bright and the only clouds in the blue sky were the fluffy kind. It was a perfect beach day. Joey was kicking sand, stomping on waves as they made their way along the beach to Grandpa's house to meet Matt.
"Matt is gonna help us clean up," Joey said like he was still trying to wrap his head around Matt being Gwen's little brother but not being little and what exactly was going to be happening at the beach house. Bailey barely had a handle on that himself, but he knew it was going to be a lot of work, and sad too.
The beach house was just ahead and Bailey could feel his chest tightening at the sight of it, memories coming back. Grandpa sitting on the porch that faced the ocean, often fiddling with something he cheerfully claimed he was going to fix up but which was probably beyond fixing.
Grandpa always called the place his beach shack, but it wasn't really. It looked perfectly nice from the outside, a one story house, painted white with shutters on the windows. The inside was the problem. Bailey was about to warn Joey that there would be a lot of stuff in there and not to touch anything without asking, but he forgot to speak for a minute as he caught sight of who was waiting for them.
Bailey saw an absolutely stunning young guy standing on the porch. He was tall, blond and beautiful with a perfect, muscular body. That couldn't be Matt, but he was waving to them and he was wearing a t-shirt that said AAAron's Moving, with three A's. That must have been him.
Jumping over the porch railing, Matt bounded over to meet them halfway. After moving furniture he had that much energy? Bailey was in his late twenties, and this guy was making him feel old. He was undoubtedly fit.
"Hi, I'm Matt Hanninger," he said and he shook Bailey's hand very energetically. He shook Joey's hand too though less vigorously.
"You want to introduce us to Matt?" Bailey asked Joey.
Joey was up for it. "OK. I know how. This is my daddy, and I'm Joey." Then he added, "Your shirt has a lot of A's. I know the letter A."
"Hey, you're smart," Matt told him with a grin then he turned that grin on Bailey too.
"I'm Bailey. Thank you for making time to help us out,," he said, but otherwise Matt left him speechless. He just wanted to stand there and stare at him.
He was blindingly gorgeous up close, and his eyes were so blue. Matt asked, "Do we go in now?"
That reminded Bailey that maybe he should stop staring, and they should get inside and get started.
Joey disagreed. "We should play on the beach. We only got to walk."
Matt said, "I wouldn't mind taking a dip. I got all sweaty."
Yeah, Bailey had noticed that his t-shirt was kind of sticking to him a little bit. He made a decision and told Joey, "OK, you can play, I'll dip my feet in the waves, and Matt can go for a swim."
