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Sisters work it out, Amie plays well in small groups, and Beth’s Virgin ass, finally!
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Any hopes I had of sleeping in were destroyed with the cacophonous pounding.
I looked over at my alarm clock and growled when I saw it was a few minutes past 9.
Heathens.
As the pounding continued, I knew I’d get no more rest. I struggled through my morning ablutions and a little more ready for the world, headed out to find out what the bloody blue blazes was creating such a racket.
There was a crowd just outside the house, sawing and hammering away. Exiting through the plastic sheathing in the living room, I found Jim at the center of things, with Joe and his youngest brother Eric working off to one side. Even the girls were hard at it, providing extra hands where required. I saw Beth and Robin hauling wood from the backyard, Debbie and Amie were holding boards in place while the guys looked to be framing the walls. I was a little surprised to see Amie there, after the little escapade we’d had before I left. Even the tykes were at work, tasked with picking up the scraps and even given some holding and measuring jobs.
I’m not much of a craftsman, but fortunately we had Eric’s professional help, and I’d worked with both Joe and Jim before, building garages and porches, and this seemed to be pretty much the same. It was a pretty big space, now that I looked it over, and Jim confirmed it was 28′ by 20′, big enough for our new dining room, and an additional family room. It nearly ran the entire length of the house.
“It’s about time, slacker,” Jim ragged me. “Now we can have two teams. You’ll work with me; we’ll leave the pros the hard stuff,” he added, nodding toward Joe and his brother, who didn’t do much more than give me a nod.
“Not ’til he’s eaten something,” Debbie announced from behind me, placing a bacon and egg sandwich in my hand.
“Jesus, Debbie. He’s spoiled enough, already,” Jim said.
I shut up and ate, wondering what this was costing me – in dollars and in favors. Looking around I saw that the sills had already been lined up and drilled and they were laying out the walls on the ground and framing them complete before standing them upright.
By the time we broke for lunch, we had nearly finished the walls. Karen had showed up, from God knows where, and together with Debbie had setup make-shift tables in the back yard.
Once again, at lunch, I recounted a bit of my tales of Spain, while we discussed the progress. Joe was seated next to me, and leaned in. “Who’s the new babe with the glasses?”
“Amie? She was here when we did the original work,” I reminded him.
“I thought so. Any chance of an introduction for Eric? He’s smitten.”
That would be nice, I thought. And it would help get her sights off of me. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Eric was acting tongue-tied and nervous, bracketed by Beth and Robin, while the girls grilled him. With a couple of sandwiches in me, I drew Beth aside, and got her buy-in. We agreed to push the two together.
It was fun to watch the interplay, as most of us worked to get the two together, while trying not to be overly obvious. Since they were the only ones not in some kind of relation, it wasn’t too hard. And he wasn’t a bad looking guy. Hell, none of Joe’s siblings were.
By the time we called it a day, we had done the lion’s share of the work. The walls and trusses were up, and the exterior sheathing was in place. An interior wall nearly bisected the space creating a 20′ x 13′ dining area and a 20′ x 15′ family room. Still a lot of work to do, but most of the rest could be done a little at a time, with the exterior elements at bay. It had seemed like we’d built a really strange roof on the extension, and I figured they were making attic storage space, but Robin and Eric explained that the idea was to make it easy to extend the upstairs if we ever felt the need. Extend the upstairs? With the new addition we were already looking at over 3000 square feet. Never mind the exterior buildings.
When Debbie took a dinner head-count, Joe called home, and instead of abandoning us, convinced Cathy to come by, and bring the kids. By the time we’d cleaned up, covered the windows and the exterior side door, Debbie had our meal ready, and Cathy was hard at work beside her. There was still some light left, and with such a big crowd, we ate outside again, this time a huge spaghetti feast, with what looked like about a hundred meatballs, although Debbie assured me there were only 30 or so. Only. Each one looked like a meal in itself, nearly the size of a baseball.
Our efforts at pushing Amie and Eric together seemed to be paying off, as they sat together and chatted, with Beth seated by Eric on the other side, and playing matchmaker. Debbie and Cathy were bracketing Joe, and the teasing looked relentless. At one point he almost spit out a mouth full of food, and I wished I was close enough to hear more. I was between Beth and Karen, and with Jim and Robin seated a good bit away it seemed like as good a time as any to work on the ‘Sisters Issue’.
“What’s the latest on you guys and Robin?” I asked, innocently enough. “I know the three of you are together behind closed doors a lot. The “sharing” thing working out?”
“Jack, I don’t want to talk about that here,” she said softly.
I laughed aloud, “Look around, nobody even knows we’re alive.” I nodded toward Debbie, on Karen’s far side, and at Beth beside me. “They’re too busy giving the Howard boys a hard time. So spill.”
She heaved a sigh. “It’s not bad.”
“I bet Jim’s loving it. Going from nothing to you two wild things.”
“Well, we’re not quite all the way there yet.”
“Not ‘all the way’? What does that mean?”
“Damn you’re nosy! It means that he doesn’t get to fuck her,” she said so softly I could barely hear her. “She gets to help, but that is it.”
“Really. And how long do you think that’s going to work?”
I was surprised to see her blush. “I don’t know. It’s just so hard to take that next step. I’ve come close a couple of times, but I just can’t do it.”
“Maybe tonight would be a good time. Make it a sort of reward. And make it clear you’re in charge,” I encouraged her.
“Could you help?” she asked, unexpectedly.
“Help?”
“Yeah. You know, if you joined us, you could make it happen, and it wouldn’t be all on my shoulders.”
“Karen, as tempting as that sounds, I don’t think Beth or Debbie would look kindly on my adding your sister to my ‘friends with benefits’ list.”
“Why not? She’s the only one here over the age of 10 you’re not screwing already?” She pointedly looked around the table, and I realized she was almost right. So far I had been with every woman at the table, at least once. Her sister’s little scene the day before was the only one she didn’t know about.
“I still think you’d be better off doing this one on your own.”
“Please, Jack. If you were just there, it would be so much easier for me. You know I can’t say no to you.”
I closed my eyes and stopped to ponder the complexity of my life. I turned to her and gave her a hug. “I’ll see what I can do, Ok? No promises yet.”
She reached over and put her hand between my legs. “Thanks Jack. You’ve always come through for me. As far back as I remember, you’ve used me, and even abused me, but you’ve never let me down. Well maybe that civil war thing, but that wasn’t your fault.”
I leaned in to Beth to see how things were going over there. “Progress?”