“What book?” he asked, frustrated.
“What do you mean, what book?”
“You’re like the third person who’s said something about me and a book. What book are you talking about?”
“Who else said something about a book?”
“Abby, the first night we met. Then her friend Lindsey.”
Dani let out a small chuckle and said through a shit-eating grin, “You should ask her to show you which book. After you talk about why you were arrested. It’ll help ease any lingering tension.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” he said.
“Oh, it will,” she said in a singsong voice as she left.
What book? That reminded him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed alms into the search bar.
Apologies
Abby raised her fist but paused with it a hairsbreadth away from the door. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and exhaled. The tight ball of anxiety under her breastbone was shiver inducing. She could get through this. She just needed to knock.
Three sharp raps on the door later, she wanted to bolt down the stairs and to her car, drive away, and disappear.
But nothing happened. She cocked her head and listened. Did she work herself up into almost vomiting only for Tinker to not be home? She knocked again and waited. Nothing.
She threw up her hands. All that anxiety for nothing. He wasn’t even home. She’d practiced their entire conversation on the drive to his house. Reworded it probably ten times. Emphasized different words, different consonants, modulated her tone. Was it too sharp? Too pleading? Too desperate?
Her plan to show up and launch into her speech without giving him any time to prep was out the window.
“Damn it,” she muttered. Shaking her head, she pulled her phone from her back pocket and unlocked it.
“Are…you…busy?” she said to herself as she typed.
Dots appeared immediately and she almost dropped her phone.
In the garage.
Why?
Abby stared down at the wood slats under her feet. Unfortunately, she didn’t magically develop X-ray vision to see what Tinker was doing.
She shoved her phone into her back pocket as goose bumps flowed across her skin. “You can do this,” she whispered. “You need to do this.”
Concentrating on each step, she descended the stairs and walked around the corner of the building to the door of the garage. She raised her fist, but hesitated, then tried the doorknob. It turned easily under her hand and the door swung open silently.
Tinker stood at a metal bench toward the back of the garage, half turned away from her, his head lowered toward something in his hand. He raised it to his ear, and she realized it was his phone at the exact moment hers rang in her back pocket.
Tinker turned at the sound and ended the call before Abby could get the phone out of her pocket.
He stared at her. Waiting.
Right, this was her move. She crossed the floor until she was a few feet from him.
“Hi,” she said lamely.
“Hi.”
Abby opened her mouth and closed it. Everything she had rehearsed flew out of her head. The gentle, but clear opening? Gone. Her unemotional explanation about how she felt about finding out his past? Au revoir.
