Page 66 of Take My Heart
‘What’s perfect?’
‘Me staying here. I could fix up the room. It’ll give me something to do. I’ll start with the paint because that’s easy.’
‘Paint is last. The floor and trim have to be fixed first.’
‘So I’ll start with that. Do you know what’s under the carpet?’
‘No, but—’
‘Let’s pull it up and see!’ She kneels down on the floor and tugs at the edge of the carpet.
‘Kate, stop!’ I hear my angry tone and take a breath to calm down.
‘What’s wrong?’ She looks up at me with her big brown eyes.
‘Get up.’ I offer her my hand and pull her up to standing. ‘I appreciate you wanting to help, but I really don’t want to do this right now. I need to focus on my business. Winter and summer are my busiest times. I can’t be taking time off to work on the house. Maybe in the spring I’ll get back to work on it.’
She nods. ‘I understand.’ She pauses. ‘But if you wanted me to, I could watch some videos online and learn how to do some of this stuff myself. Like the trim work? I’ve seen that done on home shows. It didn’t look that hard.’
‘I don’t want your help,’ I say, then realize that soundedharsh. ‘I appreciate your offer. I really do. It’s just not the right time.’
‘Yeah.’ She gives me a half smile. ‘I get it.’
‘Why don’t we go do something?’
‘Like what?’
I pause to think. ‘You play poker?’
She smiles a little. ‘Maybe.’
‘What does that mean? Are you saying you’re good but trying to pretend you’re not?’
‘I played in college.’ She shrugs. ‘I might have been good.’
‘Let’s find out.’
We go to the kitchen table and I get the cards out.
I feel bad for getting upset with her, but when she was rattling off all those suggestions for the room, all I could see were dollar signs. Her ideas sounded great, but I don’t have the money for it. And talking about this stupid house just reminds me what a mistake it was to buy it.
Chapter 13
Kate
‘One more game?’ I ask, shuffling the cards.
‘I think we’re done.’ Brody leans back in his chair, rubbing his hand over his jaw. ‘It’s after midnight and I’m really fucking drunk.’
‘Me too.’ I set the cards down, laughing. ‘We might’ve overdone it with the whiskey.’
‘I can’t believe we finished the whole damn bottle.’ Brody gets up and walks over to the fridge. ‘You hungry?’
‘Maybe.’ I get up and stumble over to him as I stare at the open fridge. ‘What do you have?’
‘Cheese.’
I burst out laughing.
