4 Hints You Love Your Best Friend by Kelly Siskind

Author:Kelly Siskind [Siskind, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CD Books
Published: 2023-07-25T23:00:00+00:00

chapter twenty-four

Callahan

Kitchen renovating is usually my favorite type of work. I thrive on the precision of it. Exact measurements that allow a cabinet to sit flush or a fridge to slide in perfectly. When focus and attention to detail are in play, everything works out as it should.

Today, I’m moving as efficiently as a run-down Chevy.

“I need a beer tonight,” Jake says as he walks in from building the kitchen cabinets outside. “We should head to a bar outside of Windfall. Change of scenery.”

“Sure,” I say, knowing full well there will be no beers. The only thing I’m doing tonight is working on Jolene’s damaged apartment. If I tell Jake as much, he’ll get on my case. It’s much easier to beg off beers later. Claim tiredness instead of having a night out.

Jake frowns at the wood boards in my hands. “Those are two-by-sixes.”

“They are.”

He gestures at the wall. “The windows are four-feet-nine-inches. You need two-by-eights.”

I blink at the wood, and hell. How did I mess that up? Even worse, I don’t have the right size here for the work needed to be done. “Must have gotten this job mixed up with another. I’ll reorder and work on the cabinets with you.”

Jake blocks my way, forcing me to put the wood down. “How many other jobs are you doing?”

“You know—the Elroy deck and the Liang fence.”

“And Javier’s bathroom.”

“Sure.”

“And Mom’s bookshelf you insisted on doing yourself.”

“That’s a one-person job.”

I don’t mention my new nightly activity at Jolene’s apartment. An extra four hours of work added to my busy days.

Jake studies my eyes, his lips firming into a commandeering line. “Ever since WITSEC, you’ve had issues slowing down. You worked too much in Houston. Barely stopped to breathe then, but not like this.”

“I didn’t work too much in Houston.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “I don’t think you’ve sat down for more than an hour in twelve years. If you weren’t working, you were at the gym or going for a run. You don’t know how to relax.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I cook and read.”

In small bursts, and not recently, but still. My focus is single-minded these days. The past two weeks, I’ve barely had time to blink, let alone crack open my Chavez biography. I spend as little time in my home as possible. I sleep so hard I don’t hear Jolene at all.

Yesterday, on her day off, I worked fourteen hours and got home after she’d closed her bedroom door. We haven’t resurrected our food and note exchanges either, but she has texted me—daily messages since I almost confessed my feelings at the Yard Goat Gallery, to which I’ve replied vaguely.

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