Page 112 of Break My Heart
Callie blushes. ‘Okay, stop talking about me. Gina, you have to come over. Do you really want to be alone at your apartment after this?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ Mom says. ‘Go get whatever you need at your apartment and meet us back at the orchard. Sawyer, you go with her to make sure she doesn’t change her mind.’
‘Mom, I don’t think—’
‘Sawyer Allen Kanfield!’ she says, putting her hands on her hips.
I roll my eyes. ‘Yeah, fine, I’ll go.’
Gina looks back at the building. ‘I don’t even know where to start to clean this up.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Nash says. ‘I had a dumpster reserved for the Carson house. I’ll have it delivered here instead.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, looking relieved. ‘Just have them send me the bill.‘
‘She’s hoping to get the place fixed up soon so she canreopen,’ I say to Nash. ‘How long do you think the repairs would take?’
‘Can I go inside and look around?’ Nash asks Gina.
‘Yeah. Go ahead.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ I say, thinking this will be my chance to ask Nash if he’d be willing to do the repairs.
We go inside. The cops are still looking around, making notes.
‘Damon,’ I say to one of the cops. He went to my high school.
‘Hey, Sawyer, how you doing?’
‘Not great. I’m disappointed something like this would happen here. I heard Tom did it.’
‘Yeah, he’s been going through some issues. It’s not an excuse for what he did, but I’m not surprised he lost it and did this.’
‘What issues is he going through?’
‘He was seeing this girl and she dumped him. Now he hates all women. Trashing a place owned by a woman was his way of getting back at his ex. And Gina’s not from here so that’s another reason Tom wants her gone. You know how he is, thinking no one can live here unless they were born here. Anyway, we gotta get going.’
‘You mind if we look around?’ Nash asks.
‘Go ahead. Just be careful. There’s a lot of glass and the floor’s wet.’
The cops leave and Nash and I walk around, checking out the damage.
‘It’s bad,’ Nash says. ‘But not as bad as I was expecting. The structure’s still good.’
‘Hey, I know you’re working on the Carson house, but is there any way you’d consider putting that off and working on this place so Gina can reopen?’
Nash looks around. ‘I’ll have to replace the windows, the door,the light fixtures. All that is easy. I can refinish the floors, smooth out the scratches in the bar top, replace the glass behind the bar.’
‘Are you saying you’ll do it?’
‘Sure. It won’t take long. I’ll see if Bryce can come up and help for a day or two. If Austin and Jake can come too, we could probably be done in a few weeks.’
‘That’d be awesome. The only problem is you might have to wait for the insurance check to come in before you get paid.’
‘That’s not a problem, but what about the materials? Does she have money for that?’
