I grunted in frustration. I hated owing money. I hated not knowing how much money I owed. I locked up the garage and headed toward the house. I needed to find out.
Red was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, eating her dinner. When I walked in, she met my eyes, then dropped her gaze.
“I’ll eat and get out of your way,” she mumbled. “You must be tired.”
I stepped in front of her, halting her movements, her fork hanging midair. I braced my arms on the counter, boxing her in. “You aren’t going anywhere until we’ve talked. Go sit at the table and I’ll bring my dinner and join you.”
“You-you want to eat with me?”
With a wink, I grabbed her fork and guided it to my lips, the chicken and rice casserole flavor exploding in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed. “Damn, I like this one.”
“You can have your own, Maxx. You don’t have to eat my dinner.”
“I wonder if it will taste as good,” I mused, smiling when I saw how flustered she was becoming. She blinked and looked around as if she were making sure I was talking to her and not someone else in the room.
I pushed off the counter. “Sit. I’ll get some of my own, and we can eat. Then we’re going to talk. You better have the right answers, Red.”
“I always have the right answers. Depends if your grumpy ass listens to them.”
I swatted her butt as she went by, amused at her yelp. “Show some respect,” I repeated her words from earlier. “My grumpy ass always listens.”
“Whatever,” she muttered. “You listen with one ear blocked, and the other is already deaf.”
I chuckled as I scooped a massive amount of the casserole onto my plate and grabbed some cutlery. I sat beside her, and we ate in silence for a few moments. She got up and came back with glasses of ice water, setting one down in front of me, then taking her seat again and continuing to eat.
She was a slow eater, small mouthfuls, chewing thoroughly between bites. She patted her lips often with her napkin and took long drinks of her water. Compared to the way I dove into my meal, devouring it and refilling my plate, she was refined. Delicate.
That word almost made me snort. Delicate wasn’t a word I would associate with Red. Ballbuster, maybe.
I must have made a noise, because she looked up from her plate. “What?”
I shook my head around a mouthful, chewing and swallowing. “Nothing.”
She frowned.
“You’re a slow eater.” I pointed out.
“I was always so busy making the meals and doing the dishes after, eating was my chance to relax a little,” she admitted. “I savored my dinner, even if it was simple.”
“Nothing wrong with simple. This is delicious.”
“Thanks.” She pushed her plate away. “Did you want pie?”
“Later.” I finished my dinner and took both the plates to the kitchen, returning to the table. I rested my elbows on the table and studied her. She looked tired.
“Aside from changing the garage and my house, anything else happen while I was gone?”
She pursed her lips. “Oh—Terry pled guilty. He’s in jail and will be there a long time. I won’t need to go give a formal statement or anything.”
“Good. That’s good.”
She shrugged. “That’s about it, really.”
Silence hung in the air, and I smirked.
“How did you do it all, Charly?”
She crossed her arms, leaning them on the table. “Now I’m Charly again.”
I shrugged. “You’re both. But right now, yes, you’re Charly. I want to know how you did all you did in less than a week and with two hundred bucks.”
“Well, the living room cost nothing but a paint tray and a gallon of white trim paint. That was fifty bucks. Mary had the material, and we made the curtains.”
“And the garage?”
She fidgeted a little in her seat, then snagged a file off the chair beside her. “I paid cash for the paint. I traded Brett some extra food to help me paint after hours.”
“Extra food?”
“He likes breakfast and cookies.”
I liked cookies too, but I refrained from mentioning that.
“Brett knew a guy who did dry mounting,” she continued. “I traded him a tune-up and some oil changes on his motorcycle and his wife’s car for all the pictures. He helped me hang them for free because he thought it was a cool idea.” She slid some papers my way, and I scanned them. It was a basic agreement of what she had stated.
“Mary had a friend who knew how to reupholster stuff. I paid for the supplies and traded some more oil changes and a tune-up on her car for the work.” She slid another paper my way. “The water cooler I got at a garage sale for less than ten bucks, and I cleaned it up. I bought the jug and the cups, which cost another twenty. I bought a couple of containers of CLR to clean up the tools. Brett’s dad gave me a discount.”