fought for me, even if it was when I came home. But he was enjoying his life and he didn’t want to mess with something that was going so great for him.
“I think you should leave.”
“Yeah,” he said, snatching his keys off the table. “I’ll ask Eric to pick you up in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
I was in a grumpy mood the next morning. Having Robert in my space again was enough to drive me insane. He and his judgmental attitude could take a hike. It was bad enough that he was shoving his way back into my life, but then he actually tried to kiss me! What was he hoping for? A quick lay? Or did he actually think that we would get back together?
Eric’s car pulled down my driveway and I hurried outside, locking the door behind me. When I got in, Eric looked at me funny.
“What?”
“Are you going to tell me why Robert called me last night and told me I had to pick you up this morning?”
“Because he’s an asshole,” I grumbled.
“He’s an asshole because you needed a ride?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped. I was on edge. Why did I have to work for his brother? It made everything more complicated, and I was not interested in complicated these days. I was about laying low and living life without complications.
“Alright, I guess that means it’s a donut and coffee kind of day.”
“No, it’s not a donut and coffee kind of day, because if it was, that would mean I had the extra money to spare. But I don’t, because some asshole sold me a car that’s not even worth a quarter of what I spent on it.”
“Did you have a mechanic look at it first?”
I turned and glared at him. I didn’t need him pointing out the flaws in my logic.
“Okay, so what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”
“Do you need money?”
“No,” I sighed. “I have money, I just don’t want to spend it until I figure out what I’m going to do about this car situation.”
“You know, I have an old truck you could borrow until you figure stuff out.”
“I don’t need it. I’m not a charity case.”
He laughed. “You do realize that people do things to help each other all the time, and it has nothing to do with charity. They’re just being neighborly.”
“Like your wedding,” I pointed out.
“No, that’s different. That’s interference.”
“Right, because after all that you and Kat have been through, they just want to stick their noses where they don’t belong.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Wrong. They want to help because they all know you and think it would be fun to be involved. So, if we’re going off the premise that you would lend me a car to be neighborly, then we could also conclude that they want to help out to be neighborly.”
He mumbled something under his breath and pulled down Main Street, past the office. “Where are you going? You passed the office.”
“I’m going to get you donuts and coffee.”
“I don’t need you to buy me food.”
“Believe me, I do. Because if you don’t have it, I will kill you, and then you won’t need my truck, and I won’t need anyone to plan my wedding because I’ll be in jail.”
“Whatever.”
An hour later, Eric was heading out on a job and I was just getting settled in for the day. I had answered all urgent emails and checked in with all the different crews to make sure that they didn’t need anything. By the time I was done going through the bills and making sure that the invoices were up to date, it was lunch time. I usually walked down to the deli for lunch, but today I packed a sandwich. Part of me had kind of hoped that Robert would still come down today to help me sort out my car, but fifteen minutes went by and he still hadn’t shown. Maybe I shouldn’t have kicked him out before allowing him to help me.
I ate my sandwich and tried to come up with a plan to get my money back. Now that the engine was dead, there wasn’t much of a chance that I would get anything for the car. If I paid for the repairs, I would drain even more of my savings, and I had no idea if those were the only issues with it. But if I bought a new car, I could face the exact same issues. I