Page 37 of Share with Me

Chapter Thirteen

As far asBrinley could tell, the bathroom floor in the house looked fine. She had inspected it, poked at it, taken photographs on her iPhone, spoken to the installers, and eaten enough doughnuts to warrant multiple laps around St. Simon’s Island.

She knew that “everything is fine” wasn’t what Dad wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that somehow the tiles were uneven, the installers had messed up, and general contractor Tobias Vega had failed to deliver. In other words, Dad wanted affirmation that he was needed at Brooks Renovations and that the company couldn’t continue without his imposing, in-your-face presence.

Tobias, all six feet and two inches of him, was leaning against the marble vanity, amused. “Papa sent his princess to check up on the minions.”

“So make this easy for me, Toby.” Brinley placed her hands on her hip. The low-rise jeans now had dust marks on them. She was glad she’d worn boots because she could’ve stubbed her toes in the gutted house had she been in sandals. She knew better than to wear open-toe shoes at renovation sites.

“Tell me something that I can take to Dad.” It’d better be something good. Brinley had overslept and arrived forty-five minutes late. For some reason Tobias had arrived early by fifteen minutes. They had pulled in at the same time, both surprised to see each other at 6:45 a.m.

“I saved him seven or eight thousand dollars on the kitchen cabinets by refinishing the surface, but I bet he doesn’t care about that.” Tobias’s hair was still wet from his shower. And it was forty-eight degrees outside.

“You know Dad is a hands-on guy, Toby.”

Tobias nodded. “Do me a favor, Brinley. Please don’t call me Toby anymore. It’s Tobias from here on out.”

“Why?”

“Toby was me when we were little kids.”

“But you’ve been Toby to me since the day you built me a chicken coop.” Brinley laughed. “Dill would never let you forget it.”

“Considering you had no chickens. How’s Dill, by the way?”

“Workaholic.” Brinley reached for another Krispy Kreme. “Same old, same old.”

“You might want to cut back on that or I’ll have to give you some work to do here to work off that sugar from your system.”

“What? Are you my big brother now?” Brinley almost had the box when Tobias yanked it away. He handed it to his workers. “Get it out of here before she puts on more weight.”

More weight? “I’m going to let that roll off my shoulder.”

Tobias adjusted his tool belt. “When we were kids we could eat anything we wanted. Not anymore.”

“So you’re my nutritionist now? My adopted brother and my nutritionist?”

“Don’t you see? Lots of people care about you.”

Too much sometimes.

“Now, about this floor. Tell your dad it’s perfect. Tell him not to worry. He needs to get better, and then he can come here and run the show. Meanwhile, he paid me to do this and I’ll try to do my best.”

“So I came here for nothing?” Brinley sighed.

“You want a tip for delivering the doughnuts, is that it?” Tobias’s cell rang and he took the call.

Brinley wandered off to the other parts of the house. Upstairs, the view was gorgeous. The panoramic window frames were in, but the glass hadn’t been installed. If it had been up to her, she’d want the wall replaced with French doors to make the entire floor an indoor-outdoor room. She wondered how many bedrooms this house had. If this were her house, she’d be happy with three bedrooms.

She walked out onto the balcony. Beyond the construction equipment and workers coming and going below was a stretch of the usual sea oats, protected dunes that laced the coastline. A small boardwalk—it needed to be restrained—led over the dunes to the fine sand. The tide had receded. Sandpipers were running back and forth on the sand at the ocean’s edge.

Above them an occasional brown pelican or two glided in the wind. Brinley remembered her childhood days when flocks of pelicans flew by her window. Endangered, the brown pelicans had to make a comeback soon or they’d be extinct.

It was a little over 7:20 a.m. when the sun rose over the Atlantic. With picture-perfect puffy clouds in the morning sky, the sun was in brilliant hues of orange and yellow and blue and white. Brinley took photos of the sunrise on her iPhone and sent them to Dillon and copies to Mom and Dad.

“Look what you’re missing, bro. When are you coming home for Christmas?”

She stood there for the longest time. She didn’t hear Tobias come up to her until he spoke. “The view will sell the house.”

---