Once I was in it, I tried to start it myself and ended up with the same problem as her.
Instead of questioning it, I headed toward the tow truck and repositioned it so that I was in front of her vehicle. Then I hooked it up and pulled it onto the flatbed trailer.
Once everything was boomed down, I grabbed her purse, wallet and keys out of the center console. Then grabbed the three boxes of cookies that were sitting on her seat.
I headed to the passenger side of the tow truck and held everything up to her.
She took all of it, throwing it all into the back except for one of the boxes of cookies.
“Thanks,” she said as she opened the box and leaned down to take a whiff.
“You get those for the party?” I asked.
“What party?” She frowned.
My brows rose. “The Christmas party tonight with the club.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I wasn’t invited to the Christmas party.”
“I’m sure you were,” I said. “From what I understand, the rest of your family is going to be there.”
She shrugged. “My invitations get lost in the mail a lot.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
But I was sure it wasn’t because she wasn’t invited.
Her sister and her siblings loved her. Even if it’d taken them a few years to get warmed back up to her.
When I met Calliope, she’d been a hormonal teen with a huge chip on her shoulder. That chip included everyone. Her sister. Her other siblings. And especially her mother.
Needless to say, she wasn’t always the most fun person to be around when I’d first met her.
That’d changed over time, and eventually she’d become someone that people liked to be around once they’d gotten rid of her mother’s influence. Oh, and made it to where they didn’t have to scrape by to fulfill just their most basic of needs.
Hell, when I’d met Calli, she’d had a job that she’d been working her every available moment she wasn’t in school. She’d added cash to the household fund without anyone even knowing it.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure Searcy knew that she’d been helping out. The only reason that I’d known was because she’d been bitching about it to someone on the phone when I’d come up behind her after first meeting her. She’d been telling whomever it was that she’d needed more hours, and she’d take what she could get, because her little brother needed a new instrument.
“You can hang out with me at the shop then and we’ll take a look at your truck,” I said. “And you can share those extra boxes of cookies you were planning on hoarding.”
She grimaced. “It’s just…they’re special.”
“Why?”
She hesitated, then admitted who she’d met today.
“No shit?” I asked. “My sister orders his cookies every Valentine’s Day. I swear that all I hear is ‘how awesome’ they are. She dreams about them, she says.”
“Well, maybe I’ll get you an in with him next time I deliver one of his packages,” she offered.
I smiled. Or tried to, seeing as only half my face cooperated. “She’d probably maul you with love and affection.”
Calli grimaced. “That sounds awful.”
“Tell me about it,” I closed her door and rounded the hood. I had to wait for several cars to pass before I got into the tow truck, but when I did, Calli was already pointing at the gas station. “I will definitely share, but you have to go in there and buy us some milk.”
I did just that, going in and buying her a milk, but also buying her a coffee, since I knew that it got cold in the shop during this time of year.
