“That’ll cost you.”
“Yeah, I’m aware. I assumed capitalism would be involved, but that won’t be a problem.”
She took another drag from her cigarette, eyeing me suspiciously before she blew out the smoke. “Are you any good with tools? If you are, I could cut you a deal.”
I rocked my head from side to side, considering it. If Alex was serious about cutting me off, maybe I actually did need a job. It also couldn’t hurt to get in good with the women I’d be staying with for the foreseeable future.
“I know my way around a toolbox,” I said finally. “What kind of deal are we talking about?”
CHAPTER 4
RAQUEL
The bell over the café door jingled as I pushed inside. The scent of coffee and bacon grease filled the air. I smiled. This place was practically a second home to me at this point.
I came here every morning for coffee on my way to work, seeing the same people sitting at the same cracked vinyl booths. Sometimes, I wondered if the nursing home got them assigned seating here for mornings out, but I’d never asked.
One of the regulars lifted two fingers in greeting over his newspaper. “Morning, Raquel.”
“Morning, Earl.”
“Your brother still owes me twenty bucks,” another one of the older men called.
I laughed. “You and me both, Jones.”
I headed for the counter, smiling at Miley when she looked up from behind the espresso machine. It’d been the best day of my life when she’d started working here, my best friend at my favorite cafe.What could be better?
“Good morning.”
“Morning,” she said happily, sliding a coffee over to Mrs. Collins before getting started on mine without waiting for me toplace the order. “I’m glad to see you survived the weekend. I was wondering if I should be worried when I didn’t hear from you.”
“You probably should’ve been.” I chuckled as I dropped into a stool at the counter. “I spent most of the weekend on my ladder or under the sink, but I made it through.”
“Let me guess,” she said, giving me a bland look. “You worked on the house all weekend? Again.”
I shrugged. “The bathroom sink works now and I managed to waterproof part of the roof.”
She sighed and braced her palms on the counter. “Do you know what normal twenty-seven-year-olds do on weekends?”
“Uh, no?”
“They date, Raquel. Normal girls our agedate. They do not become homebodies who disappear on a Friday afternoon and only re-emerge on Monday morning.”
I barked out a laugh. “They do if they’ve bought an old horse farm they need to fix up.”
“That’s not an excuse.” Miley rolled her eyes. “You have to stop acting like every man within a hundred-mile radius is a walking restraining order and dive back in.”
“Most of themarewalking restraining orders, though,” I said. “Have youseenwhere we live? There are bad men aplenty and women are few and far between. I’d rather spend my time fixing up the house, thank you very much.”
She leaned against the counter, lowering her voice slightly even though nobody in the café was paying attention to us. “You can’t hide in that house forever.”
“Houses are more reliable than people,” I retorted. “If a wall cracks, there’s a reason. Give me a leaking pipe over a relationship any day.”
“Sometimes, pipes leak in relationships too.” She winked at me. “Just in a way that can lead to a lot more fun than spending a weekend under the sink.”
I laughed. “No, thanks. I don’t need that kind of pipe in my life again. Male attention definitely isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh, giving me look that said she knew I was full of shit. Lifelong friends tended to know stuff like that, but on the other hand, in a town like this, everyone knew everything about everyone else anyway. Lifelong friend or not.
