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Tatum took the cup he offered her and shook her head.
“And then Sev wrecked it when he was nine. Broke his arm.”
“You care about him.”
“I do.” He nodded. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my brother.”
Charlie held his own cup and watched Tatum sip her coffee.
“Will you show me?” she asked him, finally settling her eyes on his.
“Show you what?”
“515.”
She wanted to see the restaurant. Fuck yes, Charlie would show her the restaurant. Anything to spend a few more minutes in her presence.
12
Tatum sipped her coffee as she followed Charlie through Murphy’s Brews, out the back door, and over through the parking lot to the restaurant next door. She’d jogged, walked, driven by the place several times since moving to Long Grove, but she’d never been inside. While she was genuinely interested in seeing the place—both the main part of the building and the add-on Charlie and his brothers were building—she’d asked for the tour for a different reason.
She wanted to spend time with Charlie.
“You okay?” He glanced at her with a worried look on his face.
“Yeah, why?”
She wasn’t okay, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Apparently, Charlie had caught her with a frown on her resting bitch face. A smirk played at her lips now. He’d looked at her as she was admitting to herself she’d asked for the tour of 515 just so she could hang around him a bit longer.
To his credit, Charlie didn’t prod her for more information or comment on the look on her face. He simply nodded and turned back to the construction area. Tatum’s father wasn’t a builder. He wasn’t much of anything besides a drunk; at least, that’s mostly how she remembered him. She’d grown up in a nice house, but bad things happened behind closed doors on all sorts of houses.
She liked this, though. The smell of wood and sawdust. The plastic draped here and there to cut down on the dust. Sawhorses were pushed to the side of the room, but she’d watched enough home improvement shows that she knew they were used to cut lumber and drywall. Charlie nudged a tub of mud with the toe of his boot, cussing when the trowel on top of the tub fell to the cement floor.
Sutton had called. Finally.
And yet, Tatum felt worse after talking to her and Bryony than she had earlier.
“What’ll you do when it’s done?” she asked Charlie.
“The addition?”
She nodded when he glanced at her. “The plan was for us to work at the restaurant. I dunno.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t mind it. But I like working out here. With my hands.”
“Do you cook?”
“I can.” He peeked at her again with a small smile. “But Pete’s a much better cook than I am. And I’ll deny it if you tell him I said that.”
“If you worked at the restaurant, what would you do?”
“I’ve worked in the kitchen with him.” Charlie shrugged absently and set his cup on the rung of a ladder. “I think we’ve all done everything there is to do in this place. The tips are good.”
She chuckled. No doubt every one of the Murphys made good money on tips. They were all pretty to look at and friendly to talk to.
“What about Mal and Sev?”
