the conflicting emotions coursing through me. I’d had a steady flow of people through the room, but none of them were Garret. Which should be a relief. Instead . . .
“Charlie?”
I tugged out an earbud, pretending that was the reason I couldn’t hear and not the fact that I’d been thinking about how critically embarrassed I was that Garret had told me to go when I’d shown the slightest interest.
I’d thought—
Well, I hadn’t exactly been thinking with my brain.
“Sorry, what?”
“I’m picking up lunch. Burrito bowls. Want one?”
I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.”
Tig’s brows drew down. “You good?”
Ugh. This is why I hated having friends sometimes. Tig and I had met almost four years before, coincidentally over burrito bowls, mine getting spilled because the oaf had knocked it off the table I was eating at.
Tig had insisted on buying me a new one, even though I’d been almost done and the line had been out the door.
I’d refused.
He’d given me his bowl.
I’d given it back.
Then he’d sicced Delia on me—
And somehow, I’d found myself sharing my table and Tig’s bowl and then having dinner with them the next night. A few years later, we still grabbed a bite or chatted on the phone a couple of times a month.
Which meant he knew enough about me to be able to tell when I wasn’t feeling myself.
Or embarrassed because I’d been lusting after a man who I’d thought was giving me signs he was attracted to me, too. Sigh. So, I was lonely, a work-a-holic, and delusional.
A trifecta for the win!
“I’m good,” I said before I went back down the Garret line of thought.
Beautiful men weren’t interested in frumpy, slightly pudgy female plumbers. That was that.
At least he’d been gentle in his rejection.
But fuck, the way his face had gone carefully blank, the softness in his tone telling me I should go get some rest.
Ugh.
“Charlie?”
I picked up a pipe cutter. “Yeah?”
“You sure this job isn’t too much for you?”
My gut twisted, and I set the cutter on the ground. “What?”
Did he not want me to do it? Was he regretting asking? That would be just like the Tig I’d come to know, bending over backward to protect and help a friend. Even if it came at his own expense. Literally, his own expense in this case.
Maybe Garret had been right the previous week. I was taking advantage.
Fuck.
Tig crouched in front of me. “Hey.”
I blinked. “It’s fine,” I said. “You didn’t have to give me a pity hire.” I reached for my tools, started dumping them in my box. “No charge for the parts or labor. I’ll patch up and you can find someone—”
His hands covered mine. “What’s this now?”
I slipped free. “No worries. I get it.”
“Get what?” He slammed his hand down on the toolbox’s open lid, preventing me from shutting it. “Charlie, what the fuck is this? You’re not a pity hire. You’re my friend, and I wanted you to do the job because I trust you.”
Fuck.
Now my eyes stung.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked, voice soft. “The Charlie I know is more than confident when it comes to her work.”
Garret happened.
Because I thought I’d read him right and . . .
No. That was a convenient excuse.
Maybe Garret was a blow to my ego, maybe it was embarrassment on top of a long, tiring weekend, but it wasn’t the reason I was feeling out of sorts that morning.
“I’m—” I fumbled to grab on to another excuse. This wasn’t Tig’s problem to deal with. This was mine. But then his hands covered mine again, and his eyes stayed glued to mine, and . . .
I’d never been able to lie for shit.
Sighing, I tried to keep my tone light, “My grandmother sent me a letter.”
I hadn’t seen it in my mail until this morning, having just grabbed the stack on Saturday evening from my box and chucked it on my kitchen counter without bothering to look through it.
“Oh shit,” he muttered.
“Yeah.”
“What does she want?”
I let my gaze drift to the pipes. “She’s dying.” A beat. “Or so I’m guessing.” Mainly, because I couldn’t think of another reason she would want to contact me after all this time.
He made a disgusted noise. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
My head whipped back toward him, and he lifted his hands in surrender.
“I’m sorry, I know that makes me an asshole, but she let you go into foster care after your parents died. She’s one of the richest women in the state,