Page 38 of Caught Up In You

Like I said…one of these days we won’t be interrupted

APRIL 20 AT 11:36 AM

Owen

Are you going to this dance marathon thing?

Wyatt

Grace told me I had to or she wouldn’t be my friend anymore

Are you going?

Owen

Yeah. The practice is one of the sponsors. Save me a dance?

Wyatt

Is that a euphemism?

Owen

Wyatt, you know I’m down to dance with you wherever, whenever, in whatever state of undress you choose

Wyatt

See you at the dance Doc [winking emoji]

CHAPTER 15

OWEN

April 28

This gel is only barely strong enough to tame my thick hair, and despite my attempts, a rogue curl keeps popping free and draping itself over my forehead. It detracts from the polished Navy pilot image I’m going for, but I like imagining Wyatt brushing it off my forehead tonight.

My dad’s girlfriend—and yes, it’s still weird to say that about my father, a bachelor widower for the last twenty-five years—is on the board of a nonprofit that supports women leaving violent relationships. They offer housing, legal and financial support, and counseling. For this year’s gala, Corianne decided to “put thefunin fundraiser” and switch from the usual boring plated rubber chicken dinner to an all-night eighties-themed dance marathon.

Which means that not only do I have to stay up all night, I have to do it in costume.

But it’s for a good cause, and my dad has bent over backward for the five us his whole life. Corianne makes him happy, so I’ll do what I can to makeherhappy. That’s what family does.

Which is why I’m wearing an army-green flight suit and black boots, a pair of aviators perched on top of my head.

I reach for the faucet to wash the pomade off my hands, but when I turn the knob it just sputters and dies.

“Felix!” I shout, already halfway down the hall to hunt him down.

I find Felix on his back on the kitchen floor, his head in the cabinet beneath the sink. The kitchen is a disaster, wet towels surrounding him, half the cabinet doors leaned up against the wall, waiting to be painted.

They’ve been waiting since President’s Day.

My brother has been a tinkerer all his life, from Lego sets as a kid to gathering up the wood scraps Dad had lying around his workshop to make avant-garde birdhouses. He went to school for engineering, finishing his BA and master’s in five years, but after only a month at his first job with a big Chicago firm, he realized a desk job wasn’t for him. So he moved home and became Cardinal Springs’s most sought-after handyman while he worked toward his contractor’s license.

Unfortunately, he spends an ungodly amount of time honing his craft in the little house we share. There’s a newly built deck off the back that still needs staining, our hall bath is partially tiled, and the basement has an in-progress wet bar in the far corner. And that’s to say nothing of our living room, which sports six different paint samples splotched on the wall and an uncaulked chair rail.

My brother is as reliable as they come if you hire him to work on your house, but when it comes tohishouse, his ADHD gets the better of him.

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