Read Ruin for Free Online Page A

don't have to help."
    "I want to. Besides, this way I can avoid Mrs. M."
    "Aha! So you don't actually want to help me."
    I grinned. "It's the lesser of two evils."
    "In that case, thanks." He handed me the screwdriver. "They'll pop off pretty easy." To prove it, he wedged the flat head under a broken tile and lifted it. It came away in two pieces, which he set aside. "Sure you don't want to go and talk to Jane?"
    "She's probably busy reading to her Gran or preparing the spare room for you."
    "She doesn't need to do that."
    "Knowing her, yes she does. She'd be mortified if you saw it unmade."
    "It's very good of her to let me stay the night."
    "You're doing this for her. Win-win."
    "Yeah, but..." He shrugged. "I'm a stranger. She's taken a gamble on me, thanks to you."
    His smile was tentative, sweet, his gaze intense as he looked at me from beneath half-closed eyelids.
    My chest tightened and my cheeks heated. I set to work on a loose tile to hide my face, but I could feel his gaze lingering on me for a few moments more before he too returned to the porch tiles.
    We worked together for a while, neither speaking. It was comfortable and I felt completely at ease, although I had several burning questions I wanted to ask. I refrained because I didn't want the comfort to be replaced by awkwardness. It just wasn't worth it.
    "Thanks again," he said after what must have been twenty minutes. "You should take a break."
    "I'm fine," I said, stretching my back. "I don't mind helping. Glad I can be of some use around here. Every summer Jane tells me she doesn't need help or that I've got such a short time in Winter that I should be with my parents. I'm just grateful she's letting someone do something."
    "You go to college, right? What are you studying?"
    "Criminology."
    He rocked back on his heels and blinked slowly at me. "That's...an interesting career choice."
    "I guess."
    "So what does a criminologist do once she's qualified?"
    "Probably continue to pull beers at the local bar," I said with a laugh. "Jobs are hard to come by these days."
    "Tell me about it," he said, popping off another tile.
    "Are you qualified for anything?"
    "Not really."
    "'Not really' is not really an answer. It's either yes or no."
    He gave a wry smile. "I started an architecture degree, but never finished."
    "Architecture? No wonder you like this old place. Why didn't you finish?"
    He didn't say anything for a while. The only sound came from our scraping screwdrivers and a lone bird in a nearby tree chirping away. "Circumstances changed, and I couldn't complete it."
    It wasn't a proper answer, but I didn't want to push for one. I didn't want to upset the comfortable companionship that had developed between us.
    "You seem pretty good with tools," I said instead. "I thought you were going to tell me you're a plumber or something."
    "I fixed stuff all the time when I was growing up. Things were always falling apart."
    Which meant he either grew up without a father or grew up with a useless one.
    "Did you live in an old house like this?"
    His screwdriver slipped and scratched the tile he was trying to remove. He stopped working and looked at me. "Why do you ask that?"
    I shrugged. "You seem to like it. I just thought it reminded you of home."
    He returned to his task. "I've never been inside a place like this one before. The houses I lived in were smaller."
    "Mine too. This place is one of a kind around here now." I wanted to return our conversation to the earlier friendly footing. I didn't like this awkwardness and unease. "The house Mrs. M lived in before she married was pulled down, as were most of the other old places from back then. There's a couple left, but none as grand as this one."
    "All that history, gone," he said on a sigh.
    "Most of the stores are original. Isn't that why you got off the bus here in the first place? Because you liked them?"
    His hesitation was brief, but noticeable. "The buildings are beautiful. They don't build them like that