The movers were coming out of Cheri's apartment, lugging her dining room table, when a red Ford Transit micro-van pulled up and parked. Cheri was helping me fit the biggest of her paintings in my black Lexus SUV.
Cheri waved as the van door opened. "Hey, sis!"
I stared, stunned, as possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen walked toward me, wide hips swaying provocatively, and held out her hand. Gorgeous smooth skin the color of dark wildflower honey, lighter than Cheri's mocha skin. Curves everywhere, a ginormous booty and large breasts on a five foot tall frame. Greenish hazel eyes shading to brown on the outside of the irises, and a mass of black curly hair cascading to her shoulders. Much bigger and thicker than I'd previously thought could be sexy -- I was hastily revising that sexual algorithm.
She stopped slightly inside my usual personal space -- not that I minded -- and held out her hand. I reminded myself to breathe, trying not to conspicuously stare. Failing spectacularly at that seemingly simple task.
Realizing her friendly gesture had gone unreciprocated an uncomfortably long time, I hastily shook her soft hand. "I... uh..."
Quit fucking staring, you jackass.
Cheri's eyes widened for a micro-second, then a grin quirked at the corners of her mouth. "That's Hunter. He's not normally quite this inarticulate. Sometimes he completes entire sentences. Monosyllabic words, mostly..."
She was still holding my hand. "Alexis." A brief indecipherable look passed between her and Cheri, like they were reading each other's minds.
Whaaat was that?
Alexis returned custody of my hand. "So. How can I help?" she said in a voice like an angel, or perhaps a siren singing and luring unwary sailors onto the rocks.
Cheri pointed at the back of the movers re-entering the house. "Why don't you take down paintings, remove hardware, and spackle, while we load the cars?"
"Gotcha." She took off, her wide hips and huge booty swaying seductively, while I gawked, expecting Cheri to whack the back of my head for ogling her sister, but unable to quit watching.
"Hunter."
"Hunh?"
"Focus. Less droolage. We're burning daylight." She held out her hand, and I took it, headed back inside with her to grab the second biggest painting. Always load trucks big to small.
***
I wedged a box full of brushes, sponges, and paint jars on top of the already packed front passenger seat on my SUV, the rear edge of the box jammed against the windshield. "That's it. No more room."
Alexis carefully shut the rear doors on her micro-van, trying not to damage the paintings completely filling the back. "Done here, too." She meandered on over to join Cheri and me.
Cheri asked me, "You coming back after you unload at your house?"
"Naw, gotta put out some fires at work."
"Do we need to pay the movers now...?"
"I've used them before at work. They'll bill my account."
Cheri shrugged. "Why don't y'all head over while I supervise loading the last of my stuff, then paint my beautiful rainbow walls some boring oatmeal version of white or beige." She grabbed my arm and tapped my wrist. "Like this skin color. Don't get much more acceptably boring than that."
I conspicuously gave Cheri a Strong Ignore, silently counting to five. "You wanna follow me?" I asked Alexis, trying not to get stuck in the vortex of her gorgeous dark eyes.
She handed over her phone. Her contacts app was opened for inputting a new listing. "Gimme your number and address. Case we get separated."
I tapped in the data, saved it.
She took back her phone. Her fingers flew over the keys, and my phone chimed in my pocket. "There. Texted my number." She leaned in, gave Cheri a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll be back for the remaining canvases. Need me to pick up some paint on the way back?"
"I'll be back here first," I said. "Gotta stop by the office today, but if you text me what you need, I'll bring it on by."
Cheri gave me a kiss, and then a hug. "Thank you. For everything."
I let the hug linger, breathing in her perfume with a faint undertone of sweat.
"De nada."
I gave her back custody of her body, and then Cheri embraced Alexis. "Thanks for helping, baby sis," she drawled. "Watch out for this guy. He's a known pervert." She flashed me a Just Kidding look as she broke off the hug.
Alexis snorted, in an endearing kind of way. "Yeah, he seems pretty sketchy. Really slumming here, aren't cha?"
"Hey!" I said. "I'm right here!"
Cheri narrowed her eyes, gave me an amused cool appraising look. "Oh, we're being polite now. Wait til I give her the straight skinny on you when you're not around." She thought a moment. "Well, skinny ass anyhow. Dunno about the 'straight' part..."
"Stiiiiillll here."
"Hush, Pervert Boy." She gave me an affectionate peck on the lips. "Just us girls smack talking."
I rolled my eyes. Kissed her back. Slooowly moved my hand toward her booty, pretending I was going for some public squeezage. Got my hand gently swatted.
"Down, boy."
"Boy?" I said. "BOY? Don't be racist."
Alexis hopped in her micro-van, fired it up. "We gonna leave, or what?"
***
I pulled up into my driveway and parked outside the garage, as the double bay door finished opening.
Alexis' Transit micro-van pulled up to the right of my Lexus SUV. She got out, looked up at my immense limestone clad two story house. "Kind of a tiny house, yeah?" she said wryly in her lovely voice. "You considered getting something bigger, less proletarian?"
I tugged on the rear hatch on my SUV, then looked into her beautiful green eyes as the door motor softly purred the hatch open. "I was thinking about getting something in the gated Reserve area, but five or six thousand square feet seemed a bit pretentious for a single guy," I said, deadpan.
"I admire your modesty. Such a rare trait amongst one's betters." She opened the double rear doors on her van.
As I walked into the garage, I said, "I'll go around and unlock the front door. Easier than schlepping it through the garage." I opened the door into the interior, then turned off the beeping security system.
Alexis carted a big painting up the front steps as I opened the front door. "Where you want this?"
I picked up the front end of the painting. "This way."
We went into the living room, leaned the painting against a wall. Alexis looked up at the abstract painting Cheri had hung earlier. "Hmmm. Interesting abstract..." Her eyes widened as she realized it depicted Cheri buttfucking me against the wall. "I see you and my sister started the housewarming... festivities... early."
I shrugged. "Cheri loves to party," I said, pokerfaced.
"For some values of 'party'..."
"We gonna gawk at the lone painting on the walls, or get to it?" I said, gesturing in the approximate direction of the heavily laden vehicles outside.
Which also meant I was pointing at the painting.
"I usually prefer to get better acquainted with gentlemen callers before we... 'get to it'... as you so discreetly put it," she said stiffly, a bit of ice in her tone.
"I -- I didn't mean to imply..."
"Kidding. Read the room, sir." She flashed white teeth in an exaggerated grin, her eyes crinkled in merriment at my hasty backpedaling, and headed back to the driveway.
***
Forty minutes later, carrying a box full of small acrylic paint jars, I walked into the living room. It was now crowded with paintings and supplies stacked against the walls and the two story bank of windows facing the back yard. I looked around. No Alexis. "Hey, where are you?"
"Up here."
I looked up.
She was leaning against the railing on the second floor overlooking the living room, peering down at me. "Did you know somebody broke into your house and stole almost all the furniture? You've got four rooms up here with nothing left in them." She strode toward the stairs and ran down them.
"Yeah, yeah. Been busy," I called out. "We can sprinkle Cheri's stuff around when it arrives."
Alexis walked into the living room, shaking her head in feigned exasperation. "Bachelors. Leave them unattended, and squalor ensues."
"You need stuff to have squalor. Think I'm safe for now. Hey - I gotta get a few gallons of interior paint to Cheri, then jet off to work for a few hours. Would you be OK if I left you here to hang the paintings?"
"You'd leave someone you just met alone in your house? No wonder your furniture upstairs got all stoled."
"I like to think I'm a good judge of character." I reached into my pocket, took a spare set of house keys off my key ring. Tossed them to her from about four feet away.
She caught them. Stared at them, then at me. "Oh. You're not kidding."
"I trust you."
She walked close to me. Kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you."
"For what?" I said softly, my heart pounding like crazy from her proximity. Her pupils were dilated, her lips a glistening red. I had the crazy impulse to kiss her.
Reeled it in.
Don't be a fucking jackass. Read the room.
"For taking care of my sister."
"No big deal."
We held the gaze for a long moment.
God, her eyes are so beautiful.
"I gotta go," I whispered. Not wanting to. At all.
She put a hand on my shoulder, gently turned me doorward. "So... go."
I left.
***
It was mid-afternoon by the time I got back home, wearing the dressy clothes I had changed into at work. Alexis' van was still in the driveway, but in a different spot, close to the third bay door. Like she'd gotten it out of the way of the moving van so they could unload closer to the house.
I tapped the garage door button, and it slowly trundled up.
Wonder if Alexis brought Cheri home?
I checked my watch. Nah. She said it would take longer than this to finish painting the apartment.
I parked the car, went thru the interior garage door, walked down the hallway toward the front room and stairs. "Hey, Alexis?"
"Back here," she called.
I went into the living room. It was no longer empty. Paintings on the wall, Cheri's couch and coffee table placed, her dining table and chair over in the dining nook by the bay windows pop out. Some unopened moving boxes on the island in the kitchen, but the essentials -- a butcher block of knives, a blender for cocktails -- on the countertop by the range.
Hunh. Nice to have furniture. Who knew?
"Hey, Alexis, where are you?" I called, looking upstairs.
Is she setting up Cheri's bedroom furniture in one of the guest rooms upstairs?
"In here." Calling from the master bedroom.
