Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,17

door slamming behind her.

Yeah, so maybe I was an asshole, but also maybe I’d been delusional in thinking I’d been a decent person. And maybe I didn’t care anymore if other people thought the same.

Maybe I was going to embrace the dick.

Maybe I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted.

Maybe that would finally be enough to quiet all the bullshit in my mind.

Seven

Charlie

Fucking men.

Fucking asshole men.

Ugh.

I shoved the papers into the envelope and then took the entire packet and crammed it into the bottom layer of my toolbox. It would probably get wet or covered with grime, but the legal documents inside that innocuous container of manila paper deserved all of the dirt and shit slung at it.

Heir.

My grandmother had listed me as the sole person to inherit her estate.

Her multi-billion-dollar estate.

So, yeah, I think my fuck me was warranted.

She couldn’t be bothered with me when I’d been orphaned, hadn’t given two shits that I’d ended up in some sketchy ass places in the system, and now she wanted to give me assets that totaled almost two and a half billion dollars.

Well, I didn’t want it.

Any of it.

I’d donate it to charity, or better yet, burn the fucking papers and toss the ashes in her face.

There. Done.

Decision made.

“Fucking buying me,” I muttered, shoving the new length of pipe into position with more force than was strictly necessary. “As a grown woman?” I slapped on an elbow joint then turned and began measuring for the next length. “Maybe that would have worked as a teenager, but I know you now, you stupid evil—”

I sighed and dropped my forehead to the two-by-four framing one part of the wall and sucked in a slow breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

In. Out. In. Out.

I didn’t know the motivation, didn’t understand what had changed, why she wanted me to have this now. It wasn’t like she’d included a hand-written note. Just a notarized copy of the legal documents listing me as the heir.

Seventeen years since that night in the hospital.

One short conversation. Seven years of foster care. One check at twenty-five. A set of documents at twenty-eight.

That was my family.

Cool.

I forced myself to straighten, to pick up my tape measure and check the length again. Then I made myself cut the pipe and glue it in position.

I repeated the process—measuring, cutting, securing the lengths—until I’d finished the storeroom and moved on to the hall where I added cutting sheetrock and tearing out old pipes to my measure-cut-glue process.

That kept my hands busy for a long time.

But my mind, the one that remembered how scared and hurt and alone I’d felt for all those years, wasn’t spending any time at all thinking about the confusing tangle of pipes.

It was squarely focused on that envelope in my toolbox and the mess it was about to create of my carefully formed and hard-earned life.

My grandmother, folks.

The gift that never stopped giving.

“Charlie?” Tig popped his head into the hall while I was elbows deep in sheetrock. “I’m grabbing lunch again. Not burrito bowls. Maybe Italian, maybe Thai. What are you . . .”

He kept talking, confirming what I already knew.

Delia had sent him.

I’d tried to fake it when she’d come in that morning, but I’d known I hadn’t done a very good job.

No wonder, because hours after I’d opened the packet, I was still an absolute mess.

I wasn’t an actor on my best day, but I couldn’t even begin to pretend like I was fine. Still, if I could have lifted a hand to stop him and temper his worries, I would have. However, both were currently occupied with the large plastic pipe I was shoving through a hole in the framing.

“I’m not hungry,” I said instead, talking right over the top of him as Thai turned to pizza.

“Char—”

I got the pipe secure and turned to face him. “I opened the envelope. I’m not okay. I—” This time I did put a hand up to stop his talking. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

He sighed. “You sure?”

I nodded.

His eyes stayed on mine for a long time, but then he sighed and nodded. “So, pizza?”

I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.”

“I might not force you to talk to me”—he crossed his arms—“but I will sic Delia on you if I need to.”

“You guys are like some awful professional wrestling tag team.”

“Tig-tastic?”

I laughed despite myself. “If you’re trying to suggest that would be a good wrestling team name, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Delia and Tig?”

The pipe was so