Chapter 4 #2
“Ah. Someone like me?” He straightened, the wrench still in his right hand.
“A sex hound who sleeps with three different women a week and only knows the names of two? First names, not last? Experienced. Irresponsible and conniving…manipulative. Sound about right? Because for all of the five minutes we’ve spent together, you’ve already judged and calculated who I am and what I’m capable of doing.
” He clutched the wrench, studied her. “You might be right, but you might be wrong, because while you’re doing your assessing and calculating, I’m also doing mine.
And from my position and the nanoseconds we’ve spent together, I’m not impressed.
You’re too uptight. Too closed off. You want to live your life in the wild?
Sure. Have fun. But don’t judge those who prefer cashmere and BMWs. ”
“I’m not,” she blurted out. “I don’t judge.”
A full-out laugh followed the smirk. “Right. No worries. I don’t judge either, and yet…here I am judging. Guess I do.”
This was definitely not going as she’d hoped. Redirection was key. This was about Norah, not what they thought of each other. “So, if my sister approaches you again, you’ll take care of it? Not be mean to her or cruel, but just direct. Say you have a girlfriend.”
“You mean lie? That would be your recommendation for your little sister?”
“Yes. No, not exactly. Then say something like you’re leaving in a few weeks and you don’t want a relationship right now.”
“Another lie. Not about the relationship, but about the leaving part.” Anger and frustration coated his words.
“I was supposed to be leaving, or at least that’s what my old man told me.
‘Fourteen days is all you have to do’, he said, but guess what?
He lied. Maybe not straight-up, but he didn’t tell me I was here for the summer.
The whole friggin’ sentence until I head back to college.
Imagine that? Just avoid the truth so you don’t have to deal with the fallout.
And my mother? She says nothing. She insults me with a few hundred dollars on the side, so it doesn’t appear on the old man’s credit card.
That’s the answer. Money. That’s always the answer, right? ”
The tone said it had been his parents’ solution for everything, but maybe it wasn’t his. “I’m sorry I didn’t know, and I’m sorry about the factory job.”
Another laugh, this one cold, harsh. “Guess you heard some pretty interesting stories about how I didn’t know how to operate a time clock and got blisters from the steel-toed shoes. Or maybe they told you about the broken drill bits?”
There was no sense pretending the stories hadn’t reached her, but so had the other ones, and she had to admit that as well. “I heard you’re fixing machinery and people’s cars and helping them out.” What she wanted to ask was why?
“Yeah, that’s me. A real do-gooder. Can’t figure that one out, can you?
” He squared his shoulders, pointed to his chest. “When I’m working on a machine, no matter what kind it is, nothing else matters.
I get lost in the process. It’s not because it helps Albert’s wife get to work or because Hank can’t afford a new dishwasher.
It’s about me and what I need. Pretty selfish, but then I am selfish, you already know that. ”
Katie studied him, tried to pull fact from fiction. “Why do you do that?”
A cold, full-on stare. “Do what? Tell the truth?”
“No, why do you make yourself look like a jerk? You can pretend you don’t care about these people or helping them, but I’ve heard the stories about what you’ve been doing and how many hours you spend after work trying to get things fixed.
I even heard Nate Desantro wants you to look at his table saw, and Nate doesn’t let anybody in his woodworking shop.
So, I’m not buying the ‘I don’t care’ part, even though you might tell yourself that’s all that matters.
You do care, and that probably drives you crazy and confuses you. ”
“Nice try, Miss Psychology. You don’t know anything about me.”
A nod, a shrug. “True, but I’m very good at observation and deductions.”
“Aha. Because you’ve observed me in so many situations.”
She hadn’t, but what she’d seen and what she’d inferred were eerily familiar.
It reminded Katie of herself. Careful, afraid to show her true feelings…
letting others draw conclusions that may not be true but were nonetheless easier than sharing feelings.
Close enough. What would happen if she admitted she wanted to go away to school rather than attend community college?
Or that waitressing at Lina’s Café wasn’t on her list of must-have jobs but was necessary to help pay bills?
And if she really dove down to buried feelings, she might have to also admit that sometimes she downright resented Norah’s selfishness and that made her feel guilty. And then–
“What’s going on in that brain? More observations and deductions?”
She didn’t like the way he was studying her, as though he could see right into her brain and what she was thinking. Katie fixed her gaze on the wrench in his hand. “I’m not thinking anything.”
“I call BS on that one.”
Katie dragged her gaze to his. “I came to apologize for my sister’s behavior and thank you for not being mean to her.” His stare grew darker, fiercer. “I also want to thank you for staying away from her, because she can be very persuasive.”
“I have a feeling you can be just as persuasive. How about we call a truce? I’ll stop drawing conclusions about you, if you stop drawing them about me.”
“Fair enough.”
His expression softened, his voice shifted. “Good. Now, is the pizza in Renova as good as your sister says?”
Why was he asking about pizza? “No idea. People rave about it, but I haven’t tried it.”
“I see. Well, maybe you should.”