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“Ouch.” He thumped his fist against his chest and shook his head like he couldn’t believe she’d said it. “First of all, yeah. Just ouch.”
Tatum started to explain herself. To tell him she was busy and exhausted and didn’t have it in her to flirt, let alone date—let alone care about anyone else. But she clacked her teeth together, reminding herself she didn’t owe him an explanation. She told him she wasn’t interested; that should be enough.
“Second.” He shrugged dramatically as he scooped up a few fries and popped them into his mouth. “Common courtesy is simple. After all, you talk to my mom every day. You talk to Everleigh.”
“Pretty sure your mom and Everleigh have no plans to hit on me.”
Seemingly taken aback again by her words, Charlie simply stared at her. Finally, he picked up his beer and took another drink—this one longer. Tatum watched his throat work as he swallowed and fought hard to keep her head in the here and now. Just because she was in a bar didn’t mean she had to go down memory lane right now.
“’kay.” He cleared his throat as he put the glass down. “So, we’ve established that you’re not interested in going out for dinner. Or anything else, for that matter.”
She nodded when he paused.
“But we could still exchange hellos. We could still be friendly.”
Tatum shrugged and made a show of looking at the food on their shared table.
“This doesn’t count,” he argued. “I had to beg you to join me.”
“Pretty sure this counts.”
“Okay. Sure.” He nodded.
She took another good-sized bite of her burger and then pushed the basket away. Charlie eyed what was left—she’d eaten over half of it, but it was huge, and running into him had left her feeling unsettled. She was ready to get home.
“I need to get going,” she told him, wondering if he would argue with her. But he only nodded and grabbed more fries.
“’kay.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly as she stood. A quick pat down of her pockets made her realize she’d left her phone in the car. A little uneasy about that—she slept with her phone at hand and even kept it handy when she was in the shower just in case Sutton called—she glanced at Charlie. He’d made her forget. Just for a short time, Charlie Murphy had made her put the only thing in her life that mattered on the back burner.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
“What’s wrong?” he asked when he realized she was frowning at him.
“Nothing.” She nudged her chair under the table and picked up her keys and billfold. “See you tomorrow.”
He nodded again and tossed off an absent wave as she walked away. She’d hurt him. Or something. They didn’t know each other well enough to actually dig in and hurt each other. But he was a nice guy, and she’d shut him down.
She felt his eyes burning a hole in her back as she stood at the bar and paid for her dinner. Greta, the bartender, gave her change and told her to come back again. Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn’t. The burger was great. But damned if she wanted to come back in here and bump into Charlie again.
She’d already made the mistake of getting too comfortable at the coffee house. The coffee was good, the atmosphere great, but being there every day invited Adele and Everleigh to get friendly and familiar. Tatum didn’t need or want either in her life.
7
She almost didn’t go back to Murphy’s Brews the next morning. Not just because she would most likely see Charlie, but because of the thoughts, the feelings, he’d stirred in her. She’d spent the evening after the impromptu dinner with him putting her bookcase together and arranging her books. After a ridiculous amount of thought, she put the books up by color and figured she could change it if she had trouble finding books she wanted. Once that was done, she put her picture of Sutton and Bryony in the new frame and put it on the tiny dresser in her bedroom.
Spending the previous evening with Charlie, talking to him, had made her aware how much she’d already come to like hanging out there. Talking to Adele and Everleigh. Tatum had been moving around so much the past several years. Making friends sometimes made her feel guilty, because she usually moved on from a place within a year, if not sooner. And try as she might, she was horrible at staying in touch. Besides, who wanted to follow her life on the road? It wasn’t glamorous. Wasn’t even fun or happy.
She moved around often enough that she’d considered living out of her car a time or two. Not because she was broke, though, no, she wasn’t living in the height of luxury, either, and never would be. Selling off her meager belongings and living out of her car might just be easier than having to rent a truck to move those things so often.
When morning rolled around, she moved through her routine—shower, shaving her legs, shampooing, and conditioning, and a touch of makeup and finally drying her hair—fully intending to walk out to her kitchen and make her own coffee. Even as she buttoned her jeans and tied her Cons, she told herself she would just stay home and work. It would save her money.
Her heart.
And yet, when she was dressed, she grabbed the bag she hadn’t unpacked when she came home from the coffee house yesterday, her phone, and her keys and left her apartment same as she’d done every day since wandering into Murphy’s.
She’d dreamt about Sutton, which wasn’t unusual. But they were good dreams, what she could remember of them at least, and that was rare. Probably most of those dreams were fiction—her mind just plunking her little sister down in the middle of a safe, normal scenario just to break Tatum’s heart.
