Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,18

. . . close . . . and got it. “Uninspired,” I said, “albeit accurate.”

“So, pizza?”

I sighed. “You’re not going to stop with the food thing, are you?”

“Since I saw what you pack in that lunch box and try to pass off as food? No.”

“A salad is a perfectly reasonable lunch.”

“For a rabbit.”

Another sigh. “Fine. Pizza’s great. Now, will you leave me alone so I can finish this job?”

“Yup.” A flash of teeth. “Especially since it worked.”

“What worked?” I asked, glancing back down and moving onto the next fitting.

“You’re snapping at me.”

My brows drew down. “Yeah? So, when is that new?”

“Exactly,” he said, not explaining himself or the cocky smile on his face. “I’ll come pester you again when the pizza’s here.”

“Don’t—”

I’d started to say, don’t bother, that I would come out when I was at a stopping point, but Tig had disappeared back around the corner before I got that far.

With one more put-upon sigh—I was turning into a teenager—I got back to work, mentally deducting all the lunches Tig was buying me from my bottom line. He might say he was paying, but I wasn’t going to take advantage.

Which meant this was going to get expensive.

But I couldn’t lie and say I hadn’t enjoyed sitting with the artists and eating together before their first appointments came in. Tig had built his own family here at the shop, and it was nice to be a part of it, even if it was just temporary.

Still, I thought it might be wise for me to come in even earlier the next day and finish before noon then come back after they were closed.

Less disruption for the clients, especially since I was done in the way back.

There.

Settled.

Yet, even as I tried to convince myself I was just doing right by Tig’s business, another part of me knew I was pulling back.

Too close.

Careful to not get too close.

That was when the blows hurt the most.

When they came from the people I’d opened up to enough to trust.

Eight

Garret

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Okay, so now I was getting really irritated.

This was Day Three of a seven A.M. wake up call. Day Three of Charlie making a shit-ton of noise below me until almost midnight.

First of all, I did not function well in the morning.

If Charlie had made noise until two, then came back and started working at noon, fine.

But this? Her leaving at midnight and me not being able to crash until three? Yeah, that didn’t work for me. Sighing, I shoved my head under the pillow and tried to ignore the racket below.

The bang, bang, bang was almost rhythmic, as though she were doing her level best to bug the shit out of me.

And maybe she was.

And maybe the world revolved around my dumb ass.

She hadn’t given me a second look the previous day, not even when the entire staff had sat together over a couple of large pies. Instead, she’d talked to Delia, planning a shopping trip for the two of them to pick out new fixtures for the bathroom, both of them ignored Tig’s protests that it was his name on the sign out front and he should have the final say.

Though . . . she had smiled when I’d suggested Delia get a chandelier for the bathroom—much to Delia’s cackling laughter and Tig’s ever-growing-louder protests.

She just hadn’t looked at me when she’d done so.

And okay, so maybe I had to have been studying her profile very closely to see the slight crease in her cheek when her mouth curved up, but Charlie had a great profile. Very pleasing to an artist’s eye, and I just had a built-in ability to appreciate that kind of beauty—

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Yeah,” I said, pushing up and speaking in the general direction of the noise below. “Don’t worry. I don’t believe my own bullshit either.”

Especially since my promise to be a dick and do what I wanted had lasted all of ten minutes.

Mostly because it didn’t feel good to be an asshole, and it certainly hadn’t felt good to run Charlie off, especially when the consequence had been her leaving and then not talking or looking at me.

“Fuck,” I muttered then tossed back the covers and sat on the side of the bed, rubbing the sleep from my face. I hadn’t been able to concentrate on my prep for today with the racket below—okay, more than being distracted by the noise, I’d been fantasizing about going downstairs and investigating Charlie’s plumber’s butt more closely . . .

An artist