She lifts both brows, highlighting the widow’s peak in her hair, and for a brief moment, I wonder if that’s one of those things she likes or dislikes about herself.
Hannah always complains that she hates how her hands are shaped. “They’re too big for women’s hands.”
“But it’s how you’re made,” I always reply.
“Maybe not most days,” I concede, “but more days than not.”
She grins at me. “The Lightly family: ruining eternal optimists one at a time.”
I’m shaking my head and fighting a smile as I set my toolbox on the table and head to the sink. Marta and Ken renovated the kitchen about twenty-five years ago, and the oak cabinets are showing their age. Water stained, with creaky hinges and evidence that they’ve had more leaks that I haven’t heard about lingering under the boxes of garbage bags, cleaning supplies, and leftover plastic grocery bags beneath the sink that I set out on the floor so I can reach the shutoff valve.
“Hand me a wrench,” I say to Tavi.
I don’t actually need it.
I’m just curious.
She doesn’t ask which one’s the wrench and instead hands over the right tool.
“Just because I’m pretty in pictures doesn’t mean I’m, like, dumb,” she informs me, twirling her one stray lock of hair around her finger.
I stare at her a second.
She slides me a sly grin, and I’m suddenly torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to interrogate her until I know who therealTavi Lightly is, even if it means I have to confess to the real me too.
There’s way more going on inside that skull than the world gives her credit for.
And if I know anything about how hard a person can be on themselves, I’d be willing to bet she doesn’t give herself enough credit either.
Marta bustles back into the kitchen and all but shoves her into a spindled kitchen chair. “Oh, honey, who called you dumb? Why are people like that?”
“Because they have eyeballs, Marta,” Ken calls.
“Ignore him. I’m so sorry he’s rude,” Marta mutters. “I swear to God, if he wasn’t so good in bed, I’d divorce that man.”
“Other mencanbe taught,” Tavi says.
I jerk my head to look at her and bang it on the top of the cabinet.
“You need one of these hex-key thingies next?” she asks with an innocent smile, holding up my key ring of hex wrenches while I rub my head and wonder when I became the grumpy, glaring type.
That’s Teague’s job around town.
Not mine.
Not anymore.
Now, I’m thehappyguy.
You’re also the guy watching the love of his life have a marriage and a baby with a guy who’s all wrong for her after wasting years telling yourself you still had to atone for the sins of your childhood before you’d be worthy of her.
Self-reflection sucks, for the record.
“I dated Danny Santana when he was practicing for that Christmas movie where he played the plumber.” Tavi beams at me with that fake smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and I have an overwhelming urge to throw her over my shoulder, march her out of here, and tickle her.
Tickleher.
What the hell?
