Chapter 21 Breaking Down
Breaking Down
Tinker pulled the door shut as he stepped into the closet.
Abby had always appreciated how big her closet was. Except with Tinker filling it and displacing all the air, it seemed very, very small.
He knelt next to her, scooped her up in his arms, and turned so he was in the corner, and she was cocooned in his lap.
She didn’t even have time to protest. “Tinker—”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You get it all out?”
Well…she’d been getting there until he asked. Now, tears filled the corners of her eyes again, and she shook her head.
“Yeah.” He kissed her head again and pressed her face against his neck, tucking her head under his chin.
He held her while she cried like a baby. He was far gentler with her than she’d been with Will.
Tinker didn’t say anything, just kept his arms firmly around her.
She remembered telling him the night of the barbecue, sometimes you have to bear hug him and let him cry it out.
An involuntary laugh escaped. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“I think I just needed to cry,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“Olivia called me. Said you were upset, and she didn’t know what to do. Thought you were crying because of her.”
“No,” she said.
“Me?” he asked.
“No. At least…not entirely.”
“But partly.”
“A little bit, but not the main reason,” she said honestly.
“Let’s start there. ‘Cause I don’t like that I’m any part of a reason you’re crying. What’d I do?”
“It’s not—”
“You’ve been honest with me up ’til now. Don’t start lying.”
Abby opened her mouth to ask about Melanie’s mom but wasn’t even sure how to bring it up without sounding like a jealous psycho, especially if she had no right to be jealous. Instead, she asked, “What are we? What are we doing?”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Are we dating? Are you my boyfriend?” She dropped her hands to her lap and picked at her cuticles, too embarrassed to raise her head and look at him.
“I’m too old to be anyone’s boyfriend,” he said.
Abby stiffened.
“But.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I told you I wanted to see where this goes, so if you need to put a label on it, then yeah. I’m your boyfriend.”
A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, and she melted back into his embrace.
“But if you gotta introduce me to people, tell them I’m your man. Boyfriend makes me sound like a teeny bopper boy band member.”
Her man. A warm gooey feeling ran through her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“What else?” He kissed her quickly, then tucked her head back under his chin, maybe knowing it’d be easier for her to talk if she didn’t have to look at him. “About me. Something must have prompted that question.”
She contemplated lying, but at this point she was in for a penny. “I saw you talking to Melanie’s mom.”
“At the showcase?”
She nodded.
He grunted. “Melanie saw me and wanted to show me her artwork. Becky came up while she was showing me.” He moved under her. “Were you jealous?”
She couldn’t tell if his tone was disbelieving or pleased. Maybe both? “Did you date her?”
“Becky? No. Why would you ask that?”
“I saw you arguing with her,” she admitted.
“What? When?”
“The night we met. Earlier in the night before we…met. It looked like a lover’s spat.”
“Ah.” He shifted from side to side. “You know Melanie is a VACA case, right?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “Becky’s doing the best she can, but she’s the kind of woman who needs a man to take care of her, and she’s not exactly selective about who that man is.”
“She wanted you to be that man,” Abby said.
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t want to be.”
“No,” he said simply.
“Why not?”
“To put it bluntly, she’s a hot mess and needs to figure her own shit out before she drags another man into Melanie’s life.”
Yeah. That was blunt.
She thought about their current position, tucked into the corner of her closet. “Am I the kind of woman who needs to be taken care of?”
“No.”
No. That was it? Just, no? She frowned. “What kind of woman am I?”
He tilted her chin up again. “The kind of woman who can take care of herself and everyone around her. The kind of woman who saves her breakdown for the closet so no one else will see. The kind of woman that makes a guy like me want to take care of you. Because I see the burdens you carry, and I want to lighten the load.”
Well, fuck. Her vision blurred as tears immediately filled her eyes. That was the nicest thing a man, hell anyone, had ever said to her.
“You wanna unload some?” he asked. “You’ve had a hell of a lot going on the last few weeks.”
Abby hiccuped and tucked her head back down. “I think I really did just need to cry. I was exhausted and looking forward to going to bed. Instead, I had to be mean mom, which always makes me feel like shit. I could tell Olivia was upset because I was upset.”
She paused and continued in a whisper, “Then I jumped on you, and you shut down and left.”
“I left because your mom said I should. I figured she knew better than I did. What do you mean I shut down?”
“It was the look on your face,” she said. “It was just…blank.”
“I don’t know what the look was, but I’m sorry it upset you,” Tinker said.
“It scared me.”
Tinker stiffened under her. “How?”
“I thought you were going to ghost me again.”
She felt the tension ease out of him. “Because of a look?”
“Because of a look and because you left.”
“I’m not going to ghost you again, Abby. You had every right to be angry with me. I shouldn’t have tried to step in. I was going to call in the morning and apologize for making the night harder on you. We really didn’t mean to keep Will up.”
“I know,” she said.
“Have you talked to anyone about what’s going on? A therapist?”
She sighed. “Not yet. It’s one of those things I keep meaning to do, and it keeps falling down on the list of priorities.”
“You need to make an appointment,” he said firmly. “It’s not healthy to pretend everything is okay when it’s not.”
Abby looked at him again. “Do you go to therapy?”
He gave her a half smile. “We’re required to at TLC. Monthly check-ins. More if we had an especially difficult job.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Paige is big on mental health. She had a couple of friends who struggled hard with PTSD.”
“Huh.” They lapsed into silence. Her eyelids grew heavy and the lengths between blinks grew longer each time.
“Abby.” Tinker’s voice rumbled softly in his chest.
“Hmm?”
“You asleep?”
“Almost,” she admitted.
“Why don’t we get you in bed?”
That didn’t sound like fun at all. She was comfy. But it was late, and Tinker probably was not comfy. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “Okay.”
She blinked and sat up, letting out a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Yeah. Let’s get you to bed.” He patted her thigh.
Abby realized how short her shorts were when she stood. Tinker ran his hands up the outside of her legs until he reached her hips and applied pressure to move her back.
“I need some room to get up,” he said.
Oh. Yeah.
He stood and gathered her into a hug, cocooning her again. They stood like that for several seconds. Abby breathed him in. The faint traces of his aftershave or cologne lingered. Something deep and woodsy.
Tinker kissed the top of her head. “Come on. Bed.”
She nodded and led the way out of the closet. Padding over to the bed, she tossed the sham pillow to the other side, pulled back the covers, and got in.
Tinker leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her body. “Goodnight, Abigail.”
It was the first time he’d called her by her full name. She took in his steady gaze. “Goodnight, Christian.”
He bent his elbows, lowered himself slowly, and kissed her.
It was sweet. Gentle. Quick.
He stood and turned to leave.
Abby grabbed his hand. “Tinker?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Thank you for coming back.”
He smiled softly. “You’re welcome. Get some sleep. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
Abby nodded and let go of his hand. Her eyes fell closed as he slipped through the doorway.