by Haley Travis
“Obviously I won’t let him in here again,” he said.
“The other guy is my boyfriend, Tyler,” I explained. “He’s actually a great carpenter, not a drunk ass. If you’d like him to quote on the job, I’ll give you his uncle’s number.”
“Why don’t you give me Tyler’s number, so that I can contact him directly?”
Swallowing hard, I could feel my bottom lip quivering. “Because I don’t know if we’re speaking at the moment,” I whispered. “I … I can’t get into it right now.”
“Okay,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “Come on, let me drive you home.”
“I’m sorry – I’m fine, I can just take transit.”
“Please,” he smiled. “I’ve put you in an awkward spot and let your estranged father in without checking with you first. The least I can do is get you home faster.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
It was a relief getting home in half the time, and I headed straight for the shower as if I could scrub the horrible day off my skin. Then I wrapped myself in blankets on the couch, staring out the window at the darkening sky.
Maybe I should have called Megan for reassurance, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d make any sense at all.
I would never forgive my father for leaving me completely. But I’d stopped being angry about it. He just wasn’t worth the energy.
If he messed up the healthiest relationship I’d ever had in my life, I would never forgive him, and I would never stop being angry. Ever.
Of course, the person I was most angry at was myself. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have kept that from Tyler when he’d been amazing with me from the very start?
He deserved better.
That thought sunk through my body and soul like a rock through a lake, plunging to the very bottom.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* Tyler *
I couldn’t stand anyone who lies, but somehow it was even worse if it was a woman. I clearly understood that’s not fair, but it’s how I felt. Men are shady and aggressive, and it’s almost expected for them to lie to get ahead. I hate it, but it’s sort of par for the course sometimes.
In my vision of a perfect world, women don’t lie. Especially such a sweet girl like Tana.
After I went home and stood under a scalding hot shower for a while, I sat on the couch with some leftovers and tried to make sense of it.
She was a nice girl. I noticed in conversation that she sometimes didn’t outright agree or disagree, but she always told the truth. I’ve known girls who pretended to like everything their boyfriends did, to build a connection. Or maybe they just didn’t have a personality of their own.
Tana told me right off the top that she didn’t like horror movies or heavy music. And she did it with zero judgment in her eyes. There was so much that we agreed on that the little differences didn’t mean a thing.
Why was she afraid to tell me about her father?
Spooning rice into my mouth, I stared at the blank screen of the TV, my dark reflection staring back. Tana knew that I would never raise my voice to her. I would never be anything but gentle with her.
But maybe there were couples who fought in her past. If her dad was a drinker, that was extremely possible.
Maybe she was ashamed to be related to him. Or they had a lousy relationship. She had said that she barely knew him.
If she had told me at the very beginning, we would have rolled our eyes, talked it out, and that would be that. But she hadn’t done that. She’d hidden it from me.
Pushing the plate away, I felt queasy. It wasn’t fair to think of Tana as perfect, with zero faults. Yet I did, or at least, I really wanted too. I couldn’t help it. Now there was a huge question mark hanging over everything.
I was already in love with her, and I thought that decision was final. I knew it would take more time for everything to become solid, but now that I knew she was capable of not telling me the truth, I wasn’t sure what to think.
Dragging myself to bed, my first thought as I pulled the sheet over me was that I wished Tana was with me so I could talk this through with her.
Besides being my girlfriend, she was quickly becoming my best friend. How strange that I wanted to talk to her about ... her. But more than anything else, I knew I had to find a way to get past this so that I could find a way to clear this incident up.
My sleep was marred with strange dreams of every possible carpentry project going wrong. By the time the alarm went off, I felt more exhausted than I had when I first went to bed.
Forcing myself to fill my giant coffee thermos and get to work, I remembered that I had to put the entire Tana situation aside for a bit.
Today I had to meet with my uncle and find out what the hell was going on.
I called Bret and Colin, whom I was working with today, and told them that I had a meeting with John and would be an hour late. They knew that I’d sweep in like a frantic demon and catch us all up.
Then I called John to find out where he was, and warned him that I was dropping by. Strangely, he didn’t even sound surprised. Now that I thought about it, he’d sounded a bit more tired, more bored at everything lately.
Uncle John used to be such an imposing man, tall and broad, and with such big energy that the world seemed to gravitate around him.
When I was sixteen, he was larger than life. But over the years, as I grew up, he seemed to shrink. He also seemed more confused about technology, and paranoid that we might run out of work someday.
No matter how many times I explained that there was a construction boom, with endless condos being built downtown for the next decade at least, he really needed to feel like he had six months of work lined up at all times.
I found him just as he was walking away from a food truck, coffee in hand.
“Mornin’, Tyler,” he smiled, clapping me on the back of the shoulder as he always did. “Ready for another busy day?”
“I need to speak with you for a minute,” I said, guiding him to a quiet spot outside of the parking entrance of the building he was working on today.
“A while ago you told me that I should be more involved,” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “So when I look through some paperwork and find things that don’t make sense, I want to hear what’s going on from you directly.”
John’s face fell. He sipped his coffee, taking a moment. “I was afraid of this,” he muttered.
“Afraid of what? Just tell me what’s going on. Why are you looking for work from…you know. That ‘family’ company.” I gave him a pointed look so that he knew precisely what I meant.
“I got worried a couple of months back,” he shrugged. His dark eyes looked up at me, squinting a bit in the morning sun. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing but an exasperated sigh came out.
Taking a step back, he shook his head. “To hell with it. I should’ve told you the truth from the start.”
“Whatever it is, I just want to help,” I said.
“I know.” He stared uncomfortably at the concrete wall beside us. “The specialist said my back is shot so I can’t do any more heavy lifting,” he said in a flat monotone. “I can’t be around these jobs without helping. I don’t want to feel useless.”
“You’d never be useless,” I said quickly. “Even if you let us do all of the heavy stuff, there’s still so much to do, that–”
“No, I’m done,” he said, holding up his hand. “It’s just too frustrating. If I can’t do it right and keep a close eye on everything, I don’t want any part of it anymore.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I’m retiring,” he said flatly. “My second cousin has a place in Southern California that he was looking to sell, but all of the finishes are really outdated. I bought it cheap because I don’t give a damn if it looks like the eighties in there.”
He finally looked at me, with a wry chuckle. “I’m going to go down there and finally spend some quality time working on my wood carving
.”
“You’re leaving? Just like that?”
He took a sip of coffee while scratching the back of his head with his other hand. “Well, I was gonna tell you in a week or two. I’ve got around three more months up here. Don’t worry, the entire company is yours. I sold my house to pay for the other one, and you know I don’t need much. So I’m taking fifteen percent out of the company for my retirement fund and leaving the rest to you.”
I blinked, staring stupidly at the red paper coffee cup in his hand.
“So you were trying to set us up with a ton of extra business so that I’d be so busy I didn’t care that you were leaving?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I wanted to make sure that you had lots of different clients and kinds of work. You know, diversity. Just in case.”
I slumped with my back against the wall. “Thanks. I mean, I don’t know what to say, Uncle John.”
“You’re going to be great,” he said gruffly, probably nervous that I was about to get emotional. “You know how everything runs. If you don’t want to be involved with that one corporation, I’ll tell them no thank you soon as I’m back on the computer.”
“Good. Thanks.”
I straightened up, still absolutely shocked but trying to pull myself together.
“I know you like the warm weather,” he said with a smile, “So I expect you to come out to visit me a few times a year. The house has a huge guestroom, and the pool in the backyard, so there’s plenty of space.”
“You’re giving me an entire company,” I said slowly, “So don’t freak out, but this has to be done.”
Extending my arms, I took a step toward him, as he rolled his eyes. “Good grief, you kids and your–”
Shutting him up with a bear hug, I ignored the three men walking by in suits staring at two big construction workers embracing on the sidewalk.
“That’s enough now,” John muttered, backing away.
“You’re getting another one when I help you pack up your house,” I laughed.
He gave a heavy sigh, but his eyes were twinkling. “Get back to work, lazybones. Louis and Gus are a bit behind again, so you’ll probably have to sweep in and save the day.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I said.
I raced to my job site, throwing myself into work for the day, feeling rattled, but relieved.
How funny that even though I was angry with Tana, my first thought was that she would be proud of me. God, I missed her, even though it had only been a day. But I wasn’t ready to speak with her quite yet. I needed a little time to settle down.
Oddly, now that I knew I had to forgive my uncle, I also knew that I had to forgive Tana. Even though her slight untruth was wrong, she was only trying to protect herself from my judgment. If I’d sounded angry the first time I mentioned Wright Construction, I might have made her too nervous to be honest with me.
Making the decision to call her first thing tomorrow, I needed an evening to shake my head clear. Grabbing my phone, I sent Greg a text, confirming that he and Dale were going to be at the pub. It would likely be louder and rowdier than I really needed, but I could just stay for an hour.
Dropping the car at home, I walked there quickly. I didn’t plan on having more than two beers, but there was no sense taking any chances, especially since I was still a bit distracted and off-balance.
As always, an hour with the boys yelling at the baseball game was the true distraction I really needed.
Dale clapped me on the back. “You’re right. All they needed was a new pitcher to give the whole team some energy.”
“See?” Greg said. “Tyler pretends that he doesn’t care that much about baseball, yet he’s always tracking everyone’s movements.”
I laughed, taking a sip of beer and looking around the pub. It was pretty busy, as everyone was crowded around, watching the two large flatscreens.
Then my eyes tracked the movements of a girl with wavy hair who darted in and out of the crowd as if she was looking for someone.
“Tana just showed up,” I said to Greg. “I have to go.”
“Bring her over,” he said. “Maybe she’ll be good luck.”
I started to protest, then a dark swish took over my vision as arms flew around me. I was suddenly awash in a cloud of straight black hair as the tall girl hugged the daylights out of me.
Then she jumped back. “Sorry, boss junior. Just wanted to say goodbye.”
I quickly introduced Connie, one of my carpenters, to Greg and Dale. “She’s going on a two-week vacation, right when we need her most,” I laughed. “You’d better bring back gifts.”
She reached out to mess up my hair. “I’m going to bring you back some sun. You’ve been working indoors too much, Tyler. You’re losing your tan.”
Laughing, I turned to see Tana standing a few tables away. Her wide eyes were glassy as if she was holding back tears.
The second her eyes locked on mine, she flinched, ducking out toward the door. “Pay for my beer, and I’ll get you next time,” I said to Dale, taking off after her. There was a roar as someone made a big hit, and it took me a few moments to get to the door.
By the time I got to the front sidewalk, Tana had her back against the wall as a tall sporty guy had his hands against the bricks on either side of her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* Tana *
Rushing out of the pub, I think I bumped into someone’s chair but couldn’t stop. There was no way I could let Tyler see me cry right now.
I wasn’t even sure why I went to the pub in the first place. I couldn’t walk by his house, and I needed to see his face for one second.
Although I completely felt like a stalker, I needed one peek. Just to make sure that he was okay. Maybe if I saw him having a beer with his friends, I could envision him calming down and speaking with me when he was ready.
I hadn’t envisioned him hugging a tall girl so closely while they laughed together.
I was used to people leaving me the second anything got a bit tough, so I shouldn’t be falling apart this terribly.
It was logical for him to have a string of girls waiting in line for him. He was gorgeous, sweet, and ridiculously charming.
It was no surprise that my feelings were much bigger than Tyler’s. He’d been in relationships before. He was older, possibly wiser, and had a lot more life experience.
As I spun out of the doors, ducking around some people, I managed to make it about ten steps before slumping against the brick wall. My lungs felt like sandpaper. My eyes burned from holding back the tears.
“Hey, baby, do you need some help?”
I turned in time to get a face full of beer breath as a dude leered at me. He came right over, placing his hands on either side of me so that I was trapped.
Maybe it was the universe evening everything out. Tyler appeared when I was being harassed by a guy. The second I saw him with another woman so that I knew for sure that he was no longer interested in me, I was being harassed again.
A few people were glancing in our direction, but nobody came to help me. “Please leave me alone,” I whispered.
“No, I can’t do that, baby. You’re upset. Why don’t I take you back into the bar for a drink?”
My eyes fell closed as the tears really began to fall. Maybe he would see that I’m no fun, and not worth the hassle. Or maybe I could tell him off. I screamed at my dad yesterday. I could scream at this guy too.
“Don’t–”
“Get your hands off her.”
By the time my eyes snapped open, the gross breath was gone, and the creepy guy was staggering into a parking sign as if he’d been half thrown.
Tyler’s thick arms circled me as he pulled me against his chest. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. You’re safe.”
He smelled so good. Everything about him felt so warm and comfortable, and I didn’t want to ever be apart from him. But even though his instincts were still to take care of me, I had absolutely no idea where we stood.
<
br /> “I’m so sorry,” I murmured against his shirt.
“I know. Let’s go.”
Tyler led me down the street, shooting a look over his shoulder, but the creep was already gone. He kept his arm around me as he walked me home, but I couldn’t be sure whether we were still connected like we were before, or if he was just keeping me warm like he did the night we met.
“I’m so sorry,” I started, my stupid eyes betraying me already as the tears began to fall. “I was so embarrassed that I’m related to Jim.”