“I don’t mind,” I protested. “I like working.”

Itwasa long to-do list, but wearing myself out was exactly what I was hoping to do. When Gigi had called my parents and told them she was hoping to sell her house this year and move out to Arizona, I’d jumped at the chance to come to Savannah and help her fix it up. Anything to get away from my life back in Chicago.

Though if I kept it up at this pace, I might just finish the list of repairs in a month. And then where would I be? Stuck facing the same problems, with no distractions. Maybe I’d get lucky, and we’d discover a termite infestation. Black mold. Something to keep me busy for the foreseeable future.

“Honey, I know you came out here to...” Gigi paused, probably fishing for a delicate expression, “to get some space and clear your head, but I’m beginning to get a bit worried that you’re planning to stay holed up in this old pile the whole time you’re here and never leave the house.”

I shifted my feet in the grass, not quite knowing what to say. That had, actually, been exactly my plan. Which I knew was a bad idea—isolating myself probably wasn’t going to help matters. But somehow, I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to go into town and meet anyone.

As a kid who'd always felt a little odd, I’d gotten great at reading people and learning how to fit in. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble making small talk with people. It was what came after the small talk that made me nervous.

“Look, I’m going to Gladys’s house for bridge night,” Gigi continued. “Why don’t you go into town and get some dinner on me. I left forty dollars on the table.”

“You didn’t have to do that!” I exclaimed, noticing for the first time that my grandmother was dressed up to go out and clutching her purse. “I can buy my own dinner.”

“And I can spoil my grandson who happens to be out of work at the moment,” she replied tartly.

“Maybe I should come to bridge night with you,” I said, forcing a grin that turned into a real one at the thought of spending the night with a group of women almost fifty years my senior. “Might be the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

“And it might end with Gladys trying to seduce you.”

“Hey, if she wants to give me cash for dinners too, I might be on board with that.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Gigi said, hoisting her purse over her shoulder. “Better for you to go meet people your own age. Make a bad decision or two. I’ll be back late, so there’s no need to wait up, but I will expect details in the morning.”

“You’re a terrible role model, you know that?”

“And you’re a terrible excuse for a twenty-nine-year-old. You should be enjoying your youth before you wind up old and decrepit like me.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I put away the tools, boards, and sawhorses I’d been working with in the detached garage at the end of Gigi’s gravel driveway. Its roof leaked—another thing I’d volunteered to fix—but it was better than leaving them out in the open. I liked working with my hands and I liked taking care of my tools. Take care of them, and they were more likely to take care of me over the long run.

Wandering inside the empty house after Gigi left, I was confronted with the fact that for the first time since I’d come to Savannah, I was truly at loose ends. I didn’t like the feeling, but I didn’t know what to do about it. The only way to bridge that gap would be to reach out to someone. And yet somehow, that felt like a lot of effort.

I glanced at my phone, which I’d left lying on the coffee table while I’d been outside, and saw that I'd missed a call from Gabe earlier that afternoon. That was odd. We were work friends—well, we had been, before I’d quit my job—but we weren’t the sort to chat on the phone. I stared at my phone for a moment, deciding, before I finally picked it up and called him back. Maybe it was a sign from the universe or something.

“M-dawg! Mark! Markorino! How’s it going, man?” Gabe’s voice sailed across the line, pitched just above the noise of what sounded like a crowded bar.

“Uh, good,” I said, already feeling stupid for calling back. Who called someone on a Friday night? Of course he was out. I was probably the only person sitting around with nothing to do. “How’re you? I, uh, saw I missed a call from you?”

“Yeah, man,” Gabe said. “Hold on a sec, let me just—No, Brian, I said two, not three!” He interrupted himself to yell at Brian, one of his friends, for God only knew what reason. “Sorry, just let me get outside.”

I waited, listening to Gabe bump and squeeze his way out of wherever he was, until he finally spoke again, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Whew, it’s a mess in there.”

“Where are you?”

“O’Malley’s. Some of the guys wanted to go out. Pitcher specials on domestic beers.”

“Ah.”

Gabe had moved to Chicago after college for work, along with a bunch of his other college friends. They hadn’t actually been in a frat, but they still retained a sort of bro-y vibe. I’d hung out with them a few times after I’d met Gabe at work, but I found him a lot easier to talk to than most of his friends.

“So how are you, man?” Gabe asked. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay out there?”

I blinked. Gabe was calling to check up on me? That was…unexpected.