Page 36 of Restored By You

He hurries to pull his shoes back on and grabs his phone off the couch. When he passes, he pauses just long enough to say, “Thanks, Shea.” Then they’re off, smiling and chatting as they head straight for the elevator.

I close the door and laugh to myself before the suite falls quiet. It’s barely five o’clock and my whole evening is suddenly wide open.

I could order room service. I could sketch. I could call Callie or put on Fixer Upper and critique it with nobody to hear me.

Or…

I grab my jacket off the hook by the door, knowing exactly where I want to go.

And who I want to see.

Thirteen.

Rhett

I drop my keys on the hook by the door and peel my sawdust-covered hoodie over my head, tossing it in the laundry basket we keep near the front door for this very reason. With my boots off, I stride down the hall to find Levi in the kitchen. Which means he finished early at the resort and decided the best use of his Saturday evening was to construct what appears to be the tallest sandwich in recorded history.

“How’s the inventory?” he asks without looking up.

“Short on the two-by-fours we need for the suite framing. I put an order in. Should be here by Wednesday.”

“Wednesday’s tight.”

“I know.” I move to the fridge and pull out a longneck. “We’ll push the demo back a day, frame Thursday and Friday. We’re still on schedule.”

Levi stacks another layer onto his sandwich. “Jenn’s not going to love that.”

“Jenn doesn’t have to love it.” I lean against the counter and roll my neck, feeling the day start to unknot from my shoulders. “She just has to sign the check at the end.”

He snorts, eyeing me. “Heard you were out late last night.”

I take a pull of my beer. “Yep.”

He picks up his sandwich with both hands and levels me with a look over the top of it. “You gonna tell me what happened, or am I piecing this together from hearsay like everybody else?”

“There’s nothing to piece together.”

Levi stares at me as he unhinges his jaw to take a ridiculous sized bite.

I roll my eyes. “Tyler went missing for a couple hours. Shea called. I helped find him.” I set my beer down. “That’s it.”

“At two in the morning, I’m hearing,” he mumbles around a mouthful.

“Chew your fuckin’ food, man. Christ.” I pick my beer back up as I return to the fridge, pulling out pepperjack cheese to go with the hundred other fixings my brother has spread across the counter.

He chews. “You like her.”

I open my mouth to tell him to stop talking while he’s eating like the child he is when the doorbell rings.

Levi’s brow lifts, asking around another mouthful, “Expecting someone?”

“No. Are you?” I ask, and he shakes his head. I set the beer and cheese down and walk back down the hall, running a hand over my jaw. Best guess is it’s Ma or Pop, but they each have a key. And my brothers and Lily all know where the spare is if they need to get in.

I pull open the front door and—

Shea is standing on my front porch, curls loose around her shoulders, cheeks flushed from the cold. She’s got her hands shoved in her jacket pockets and she’s gazing up at me with a strange confidence I haven’t seen since we went over the original plans at the bar last weekend.

She doesn’t give me long to process her being here before she suddenly closes the distance between us.