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“Nope. I’ve watched one YouTube video, and that’s going to have to get us through it,” she replies as she continues to stare at her phone. “Though I now realize we, I meanI,probably shouldn’t have cleaned so much of the house if we then going to strip the walls.”
“That’s hindsight for you! And oh boy, this is going to be good.”
We’re getting ready to strip the old wallpaper—a horrible orange-green concoction from the 1970s—from the dining room at Rose Manor. And we’ve got zero clue what we’re doing.
“Hey, have a little more faith. We can do this,” Lacy says jauntily, trying to appear confident despite her worried expression.
She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt with a picture of the Backstreet Boys emblazoned on it, and a pair of cut-off jean shorts that are so short, when she bends over, I can just see the line of her butt cheeks peeking out. As she bends over to dump a bottle of wallpaper stripper into the bucket of water at her feet, I remind myself not to look.
Well… Maybe just a peek?
Ever since Lacy helped me write that song—the one inspired by her old journal—my view of her has shifted. She’s not ‘just’ that girl I lived with for a few months years ago when we were kids, a distant step relative. She’s this creative, talented writer whogetswhat I’m trying to do when I write a song. And it’s kind of sexy.
“I appreciate your optimism. Just tell me what to do,” I tell her.
“You’ve certainly done a complete 180 on your willingness to help out around the house,” Lacy says. “Can you set that up in the corner?” She points to a ladder we found out back and lugged inside for this project.
“Well, after we wrote that song together the other day—with the help of your journal—I realized you were right about cleaning being a good way to break through writer’s block,” I say, as I maneuver the ladder into place and look back to Lacy expectantly.
She’s biting her lip and looking away from me, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“Thanks for your help with that,” I add, wondering if I said something wrong. Is she upset that I used her journal as inspiration? I hope not.
“Hey, if that song is a hit, I expect some royalties or something,” Lacy replies, finally looking at me. “Okay, let’s do this,” she says shortly, bringing us back to the task at hand. “So, first we have to apply this solution and then we should be able to strip the old paper off,” she says, gesturing at the bucket.
She bends over to fill up an empty spray bottle with the mix of water and wallpaper stripper, and I remind myself for the third time that day not to stare at her ass.
“Sounds easy enough,” I reply with a shrug.
“Let’s see. How about I apply the solution and then you follow me and scrape it at the top. We should then be able to just peel off the paper in big strips.”
Without waiting for me to agree, she starts clambering up the old ladder, which wobbles precariously.
“Woah, hang on, let me stabilize that thing,” I say as I step forward quickly to grab the ladder at the base, brushing against Lacy’s legs as I grab the ladder. For a moment, I’m startled by how soft her skin is.
“Thanks,” Lacy replies absentmindedly as she continues climbing without a backward glance.
I immediately curse my decision as I realize that Lacy’s pert ass is now directly in my line of sight. I also silently curse the burst pipe that drenched Lacy’s t-shirt the first day she arrived and made it totally see-through, allowing me a full view of her stunning curves. Ever since, I keep having these little flashes of attraction to her and need to keep reminding myself that she was my step-sibling back in the day.
But she’s not my step-siblingnow, I remind myself. Technically, she’s just a random woman. No familial connection.
“Cool t-shirt by the way,” I remark teasingly as Lacy starts spraying the wallpaper stripping solution along the wall.
“I dug it out of my old wardrobe. The shorts too. Remnants of my teen years.”
Ah. That explains why the shorts are so short.
“Still a fan?” I ask, trying to remind myself that Lacy is—in a way—my sibling by zeroing in on her nerdy little sister traits.
“Are you kidding? BSB for life. Man, you used to tease me about that when we were kids.”
“I remember.”
“I guess they’re notrock’n’rollenough for you, huh?”
“Not really my style,” I reply with a chuckle. “I need a little more grit in my life.”
“Oh, you should write that down,” Lacy says as she turns to look down at me, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “Grit in my lifetotally sounds like something you could work into a song.”
