Page 5 of Restored By You

I do, too, but it’s the truth.

I swallow and grab two longnecks from the fridge. I pop the tops and hand one to my brother. We drink and eat in silence, neither of us wanting to dive into all the reasons why we’re single, why I’ve stopped dating altogether, and why Levi can’t seem to stop searching for his elusive The One.

We finish eating, and the second I start to clean up, Levi is making himself scarce. “Thanks for dinner,” he says and promptly yawns. “What time do you need me to meet you at the resort tomorrow?”

The urge to tell him not to bother is on the tip of my tongue. I love my brother to death, probably more than the rest of ‘em, but sometimes…his priorities aren’t in line with the growing company we’ve had since we were sixteen: Montgomery Construction & Lumber.

Too young to know what the hell we were getting into, and too dumb to realize how smart we were for doing it.

“Eleven. And don’t be late. This is a huge opportunity for us. It’ll look good for both owners to be there.” I’ve always handled the bulk of the business—the quotes, the scheduling, the books, the accounts—while Levi shows up where he’s needed.

The guy can do it all with his eyes closed as far as construction is concerned, and he’s one hell of a carpenter. But if you ask him his password to his bank account, or where he parked his truck when coming out of the grocery store, he’ll stare at you like you have three heads.

We’ve lived together our whole lives; we know each other well enough to acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses. When to push and when not to. I don’t hold any of them against him.

Although, his desperate need to find love is getting out of hand these last few months.

“You got it.” He stretches and heads for the stairs. “Night, bro.”

“Night,” I say, scraping the grease off the pan into the trash before washing it.

I’m just turning off the lights to head up when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I groan, “Fuck.” Fishing it out, I glance at the name on the screen. Brow furrowed, I answer. “Hello?”

“Hey, Rhett,” Callie rushes out on the other end. “I’m so sorry to be calling you this late, but it’s an emergency.”

I straighten and head for the door. “What’s going on? You guys all right?” I tug on my boots, bending to stuff the laces in the sides before grabbing my keys off the hook.

“We’re fine,” Beau grunts, revealing I’m on speakerphone.

I pause, hand on the doorknob.

“Everyone is fine,” his fiancée says. “Sorry, I probably should have led with that.”

“What—”

“My friend, Shea. She just bought a fixer-upper in town; it’s right down the road from you,” she tells me. “And she, um, well, I’m not sure what the heck she did, but now there’s water running down the stairs. We think it might be a pipe, or the bathroom, or—I have no idea; I’m not a plumber.”

I tilt the phone away from my face and take a deep breath. Neither am I, I want to argue, but instead—being the brother always on call—I say, “What’s the address?”

Callie rattles off the address, three houses down from mine. “I’ll be there in five,” I say and hang up before she can thank me.

The drive takes less than five minutes. One, actually. I pull into the gravel driveway behind an expensive-looking black SUV with California plates and kill the engine. The house is lit up, every light blazing, which tells me whoever’s inside is either panicking or trying to see the full extent of the damage.

I grab my tool bag from the truck bed and head for the front porch. The wood creaks heavily under my boots, and I note that the boards need replacing. Through the window, there’s movement inside, but I can’t make out details.

I knock, then wait.

Muffled voices greet me. Something along the lines of, “Can you just—” followed by a distinctly teenage groan of, “Fine, whatever.”

The door swings open to reveal a lanky kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, in a crisp, white hoodie and expensive sneakers that have never seen a speck of dirt. He’s got dark hair flopping over his forehead and the kind of bored expression that suggests a flood in the house ranks somewhere below watching paint dry on his list of concerns.

“You the plumber?” he asks, monotone.

“Contractor,” I correct. “Rhett Montgomery.”

He shrugs like the distinction means nothing. “Cool. She’s freaking out upstairs.” He steps aside, gesturing vaguely toward the chaos beyond. “Good luck with that.”

I step inside, and the first thing that hits me is the smell—old wood and dust. The second is the sound of rushing water somewhere above my head, followed by a string of creative cursing.