Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
We end up in the garage, which is basically an add-on, cave-like structure at the side of the house that is dark, cool, and slightly damp. It smells like motor oil and earth, and there’s a bunch of sketchy-looking ancient containers lining the shelves at the far end. The floor is concrete, but it’s seen better days. Way better days. I think it’s more cracks than actual cement.
It’s neat and orderly, even if dusty and unused. The tiller sits at the back near a pegboard on the wall displaying tools of every kind—wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, levels. A wooden bench stands below that with old metal coffee cans filled with nuts and bolts.
Van walks straight to the tiller, checks it over with a quick swipe of his hands, then grabs several screwdrivers off their pegs on the wall. He begins dismantling the thing like he knows what he’s doing, and I don’t know, maybe he does. I have no idea, and I’m not sure my version of help would be any real help at all, so I hang back and watch.
“Well, that seems to be a fine specimen,” I venture. “It looks like it would start right up with some love.” It looks like death warmed over and then warmed and warmed and warmed again, but hey, sometimes that’s the best kind of warm death.
Van’s head remains bent, his dark, scrumptious chocolate hair falling on his face. “Hmm.”
“So…you’re staying with Nanny, and this is your way of paying her back because she’s letting you use the spare room rent-free?” That’s too nosy. Of all the things to say…well, at least it wasn’t, “So, I heard your wife left you for two muscly dudes. Who does that?”
“She could always charge for the room and pay me in gravy.”
I let out a surprised laugh, my second of the day. “That seems like a fair trade. She would never run out of gravy.”
Van’s head snaps up, and his eyes, which are even more scrumptious than his hair, all soft caramel, flash with fire. “Look, Remi. I know you think that Kimmy and I are locked in some silent dick measuring contest about the company, but there’s no contest at all. She’s got more balls than I’ll ever have, plus a black belt in karate, and I know she’ll kick my ass every single time.”
Oh god. It’s absolutely childish that hearing him talk about dicks and balls in any form creates a slow, languid heat spreading through me—arousal that makes me want to melt into a liquid puddle on the spot, scrambling my mind and making me silly and forgetful. But there it is. The opening I need. It’s time to get down to doing the job I promised to do. Spy talk, even if I’d rather stand here and enjoy the view while musing about all the things that aren’t real life.
I brace myself, pull up a little of my unfailing honesty, and go for it—subtlety, be damned.
“Uh, okay, yes, she’s worried that you’re going to steal the company from her. She’s worked really hard over the years, taking what your father built and expanding on it. She’s the CEO. It’s not that she doesn’t not want to be the one in charge. I mean, she does want to be the one in charge, but she’s more worried that if someone else comes in—namely, uh, you—they’d wreck everything and dismantle the company, and people would lose their jobs.”
Van runs his hand through his hair, looks down at the floor, then continues working the screwdriver on the tiller. “Not going to happen.”
“But there’s a will.” I hope I didn’t just disclose something he doesn’t know about. That would suck. That would really suck. Kimmy would never forgive me for botching this right the fuck up.
“Yeah, I know about that. You can tell my sister that she has nothing to worry about. Maybe we can even make some sort of peace and not be enemies since I’m not going to hold my breath for a real friendship again. I know I left and abandoned her. I was a shit big brother. There was…stuff.”
He might not be holding his breath, but I literally am—my chest a strange mixture of hope and fear, worry and empathy—but he doesn’t go on. He’s not going to expound on that. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, but I can’t just leave it alone. “What kind of stuff?”
His hands work the screwdriver just a little more furiously. He puts each screw in the pocket of his jeans after he takes it out. I hope he’s mentally cataloging how it came apart because the thing is so ancient that I doubt there are any videos online telling a person how to put it back together again.
Van grunts.
“Oh. I…I see. That kind of stuff. Stuff you don’t want to talk about.”