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“Yes, I’ll see you later this week.”
I ended the call before she could probe me any more with questions. The truth was I wanted to tell her about Charlie. I wanted her to know that I’d found someone I actually liked. Even if the woman hated me now.
But what use would that be? Charlie and I were never going to be together. I was getting what I’d come here to get, and Charlie would just have to deal with it. That’s how things had to be. It was the only way to make things right.
I looked around the place I’d called home for the last month, staring at the patched hole in the ceiling. In twenty-four hours, this old house will be nothing but a memory. Pain bloomed in my chest remembering Charlie’s lips, her laugh, her fiery gaze.
I couldn’t help myself and walked up to her empty apartment. Tearing my fingernails out with a pair of rusty pliers would have been less torturous. Everywhere I looked, I saw the rickety old house through Charlie’s rose-colored lenses.
My phone rang. It was the demolition contractor. “Yeah,” I answered.
“Excavator’s being dropped off in twenty. I’ve got guys with the truck who will remove a section of fence so we can get him into the backyard.”
“See you soon,” I said.
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, a flatbed truck pulled up around the house while workers tore down a big section of the back fence. A driver got into the excavator and navigated it down the ramp and through the opening in the fence. Its tracks tore up grass like giant steel teeth, and I watched its progress with grim-faced silence.
They were efficient. Within an hour, I was shaking the contractor’s hand and watching the truck drive away, its empty bed bouncing slightly as it dropped off the curb and onto the street once more. The excavator loomed in the backyard like a yellow monster, folded up and dormant as it waited for its chance to make its move.
It hit me, then, that I might be making a terrible, irrevocable mistake.
I needed a drink. I headed over to Sullivan’s.
My eyes scanned the dim interior, and I knew I was looking for a red-haired, blue-eyed woman. Like a beggar, I was holding my hands out for a scrap of her. Just a glimpse. But that was wishful thinking. Charlie wasn’t there.
Rex was, though, having a cold draft beer and a basket of French fries.
“Hey, Rex,” I said, taking the barstool next to him and ordering a beer.
“Bastian, what’s up man?” he greeted me with a smile. Rex was likely the only person in New Elwood that didn’t loathe my existence.
I let out a sigh and dropped my head into my hands, thumbs massaging my temples. “Not much.”
“Charlie still won’t talk to you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nope, and after tomorrow, I doubt she will again.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“The demo. It’s all going down tomorrow.”
Rex’s brows shot up his forehead as if he was surprised to hear I was actually going through with it. “That’s intense.”
“Yeah, but you know, the house isn’t up to code,” I offered, a half-hearted attempt to get someone on my side.
“That and it’s on the edge of Sinclair’s vineyard. I’m sure he paid a pretty penny for that.”
My gaze snapped to his. “Where’d you hear that?”
“It’s a small town, Bastian. People talk.”
“Oh, yeah, and what are they saying?” I asked.
Rex shook his head, avoiding my stare. “Nothing good.” It figured. Well, only a couple more days and the big, bad real estate developer grandson would be long gone. “But I know those are just rumors. You’re not a bad guy.”
God. Those words were a dagger to my chest, because I didn’t believe him. I was a bad guy. I’d kicked an old man and a young woman out of their home for a stack of cash. I did that. I was doing it.
The bartender dropped my beer in front of me, and I traced the base of it with my fingers. “It definitely feels like I am these days. Everyone thinks I don’t care. That I’m only after the money, but that’s not true. It’s so much more complicated than that. If everyone knew the whole story, they would see what I see.”
