9. Tim
9
TIM
JUST GETTING A HEAD START
“ W hat the hell is wrong with you?” Aubree charges out of my car—no bus required for her return trip—and stalks through the heavy front door of the bar, stalling when the noise and heat smack her in the face and force her back a step.
It’s a predictable busyness.
This place waters every first responder on this side of the city—except the firefighters. Because cops and hose-jockeys can’t be friends. Men in uniforms, though they shouldn’t be drinking while wearing their blues. But I don’t tell, and no one else does, either.
“Keep going.” I come up at her back and gently nudge her through the door. “You’re letting all the heat out.”
“You told my parents we were engaged!” She spins and smacks my chest, hammering her fists to my pecs and hiccupping when I grab on.
Tears don’t fall from her eyes. But hell, I know they itch at the back.
“You took something from me, Tim! Marriage. Engagements. Meeting the family. Those are my things to experience on my terms. You took them from me like this is all a game to you!”
“But it’s not a game.” I wrap my fingers around her wrists and spy my brother’s curious stare. Back from New York, I suppose. He sits at the bar with Minka pulled onto his lap. “We could be engaged.” I bring my focus down to Aubree. “It doesn’t have to be a lie. I gave you the emeralds.”
“You didn’t give me the story of the emeralds!” She attempts to snap her hands from my grip. But I’m stronger, and her failure frustrates her. “You gave me a lie! You said, ‘ Here, have this totally unimportant thing I found at a second-hand store. Also, do you wanna get coffee sometime ?’ You owed me the truth! I deserved the entire story before I accepted the gift.”
“If I gave you the entire story, you’d have tossed the clip in my face.”
“Not necessarily!” Tears fall down her cheeks, shredding my heart and adding to the insurmountable pain I’ve already caused her. “I have loved you for so long, I don’t even know what my life is without you in it.”
I love you too! I want to shout. I adore you! Though I keep my mouth shut. Saying those words are so powerful, I’m certain my father will find a way to rise from the grave and take her innocence. Her beauty. Her purity.
“I want you in my life,” she groans. “And someday, maybe, we could’ve gone to dinner and tried this out. But you’re a liar, Tim. You lied about Anne. And you lied about the emeralds. You lied to my face tonight when you said you were at my house as my friend.” She yanks her hands from mine and angrily shoves the straps of her bag onto shoulder. “You’re a liar. And it’s so painfully obvious to me when you try. It’s like a slap in my face every single time. I won’t trust a liar.”
“Uh, excuse me? Hi.” Cato sweeps in to stand on my right, grinning like the Cheshire Cat and risking a fist to his face when Aubree balls hers. “You’re having a pretty loud fight. I don’t know if you know, but…”
He gestures to the crowd surrounding us. Fifty or more cops watch on, their drinks held mid-sip and their eyes flickering with amusement. Then I look over Aubree’s shoulder and find Minka Mayet, burning me with a glare.
“You could probably take this upstairs,” he mock-whispers. “But can I come? Because I like to listen to the tea.”
“No!” Aubree swings around so fast, she almost knocks my baby brother out with the heft of her purse. Then she stalks to the bar and plops her ass on a vacant stool. “Wine, please.” She waves for Daisy and summons the preppy blonde immediately.
“You’re in trouble, huh?” Cato turns to stare at Aubree’s back, his shoulder touching mine and his hand coming up to pinch his bottom lip between his fingers. “Sounds kinda serious.”
“I turned up at family dinner and introduced myself as her fiancé.”
“Oh, well…” He drops his head and chuckles. “That’ll do it. She might look like a Care Bear, but beneath the shine, she’s actually Five Nights at Freddy’s. It’s cute till it’s not. You get me? ”
“Shut up.” I press my palm to his face and push him back, then I start forward and snatch up Aubree’s wine when she’s only one sip in. “Let’s go.”
“You just can’t take a hint, can you?” She sets her elbows on the bar and leans across the wooden top to snag the bottle Daisy didn’t put away. “It’s insane how little stock this dude puts into consent. Ironic, considering his stance on the Tim who came before him.”
“Aubs…” Archer frowns. “Cool it.”
“No! I won’t cool it. How about he?—”
I sweep her up and toss her over my shoulder. I know her stomach is crushed because of my movement, and I know the wine in her belly races toward her throat. But I turn away from the bar and circle around to move through the door. The bottle of wine falls and spins on the floor, clattering and spilling. And Minka Mayet weighs her options: at what point should she step in and lay waste to the Malone men simply for existing ?
“Put me down!” Aubree pounds her fists against my back and kicks her feet out, making it all the more difficult to turn onto the narrow set of stairs that lead up to my apartment. “You can’t keep doing this, Tim!”
“Yes. I can.” I set my hand on her ass and try my hardest not to feel . Because fuck her, I do believe in consent. Just not when I think I’m right and she’s wrong. “Until you get off your high horse and stop acting like I’m the fuckin’ villain in your life, I’m gonna keep putting you where I need you. For your own safety.”
“Stop micromanaging me! I have no safety concerns except you !”
I come to a stop at the top of the stairs, dragging her off my shoulder and blocking the way down, so when she’s on her own two feet again, all she can do is look up and see me. My eyes. My love.
“Tim…”
“I know you don’t like me very much these days. And I know just about every fucking thing I do pisses you off. But beneath all the annoyance and shouting and disagreements, I need you to know the things I do are for you.”
“So carrying me up here?” She hardens her jaw, challenging me with a stare. “Bringing me to your apartment… again . When I was perfectly happy sitting downstairs with my friends?”
“You were being belligerent.”
“Oh, bullshit! I was sitting. I was drinking.”
“You were chugging from a wine bottle after already downing two others at your mother’s dining table. ”
“So now you’re counting my drinks?” She growls. “You’re not my keeper. You’re not my parent. You’re not even my boyfriend.”
“I’m so much fucking more than you know. But now your night is over. It’s nearly eleven, you have work tomorrow, it’s late, and I’m not leaving you down there to drink until you puke. You’re loud right now because you’re halfway drunk. But when you sober up, you might be able to see things from my perspective.”
“Unlikely. And I’m not sleeping here. I want to go home.”
“You can’t go home alone. It’s not safe.”
“Says you! Believe it or not, my apartment is actually entirely secure. No one has tried to shoot me there. No one has attempted to kidnap me. No one even steals my food if it’s delivered and I’m still in the shower.”
“Aubree—”
“Just because your life is bullets and death and scary people, doesn’t mean mine is! You’re projecting all your Malone drama onto me, and in your attempt to shield me, you actually annoy the ever-loving crap out of me. It’s having the opposite effect you’re hoping for.”
“I’d rather you were alive and angry, than dead and buried under a fucking stone.” I reach past her and open my apartment door, shoving it wide and pressing my hand to her chest. Her chin drops immediately, her eyes clinging to my actions. Then I walk her back, controlling her direction with the tips of my fingers on her throat. “I know what I did at your parents’ house upset you.” I steer her through my living room, past the TV with the remote still glued to the screen, then past Capone, who nestles on the couch and merely watches us. I keep going until we’re in the hall and moving toward my room. “I know you’re pissed at me. And I know that’s probably an emotion you’ll feel for the rest of your life. Because I’m a prick and you’re perfect.” I push her through my door and all the way to my bed until the backs of her legs hit my mattress. Then she collapses, plopping onto her backside and staring up at me like I’m everything and nothing. “We don’t fit. And that fucking sucks. Because it means we’ll fight every day.”
Her eyes glisten with emotion. “Tim…”
“But I’d rather fight with you than not know you at all.”
“I can’t stay here tonight,” she whimpers. “I need to go home.”
“You can stay. And you will.” I release her, but only to turn to the drawers on the other side of my room and pick up a book I bought just a few days ago. Turning again, I toss it to the bed so it lands with a thwump . “Keep reading to me. ”
Softened, she picks up the second installment in a series she started here months ago. Similar circumstances, where I carried her upstairs and put her somewhere I wanted her to be, instead of letting her go home, which is where she wanted to be. Our fight turned to quiet acceptance, and that quiet acceptance turned to scouring her purse for something to do. She found the book she’d been reading, and that… was the start of a new tradition.
“You bought it?” Misty eyed, she glances up and holds my stare. “I already have this. You didn’t have to spend money on another.”
“Small price to pay to have you here with me.” I go to work shucking my shirt off and stripping down to my boxers. It’s not even a thing she balks at anymore. It’s just us, in our skin—almost—and the love of my life reading out loud until I fall asleep.
The first two Timothy Malones would be disgusted.
“Read to me, Aubree Grace.” I crawl onto the bed and drag her along with me, my arm around her waist, until I place her at the top of the mattress. I make her sit up, her head on the wall, then I set mine in her lap and find my nirvana. “Please. It feels like forever since you were last here. And all we’ve done since the weekend was bicker.”
“We bicker because you annoy me.” But she expels a gentle sigh, and mumbles a muffled, “Fine.” Finally, she opens the book and rests it against the back of my head. But the best is yet to come. Because she slides her fingers into my hair and scratches my scalp in long, slow, rhythmic movements that have my eyes closing.
Odd, considering I was born to always watch my surroundings.
“Everyone would lose their minds if they knew what we do up here. You know that, right?”
Pleasure ripples in my blood. “Mayet would explode.”
“I hate that I love you,” she moans. “It hurts to feel this for a man who doesn’t fit .”
I lick my lips and swallow the ache rising in my throat. But I nod, and respond, “I hate that you love me, too. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever do.”
“Will you be my plus one to my brother’s wedding?”
“Yeah.” Twisting on her lap and reaching around to hook my hand at the back of her neck, I pull her down and press a kiss to the middle of her forehead. “I’ll be your plus one to everything, forever. I promise.”
“Will you stop telling people we’re engaged?”
Choking out a soft laugh, I release her and lie down again. Then I grab her hand and place it on my head. Scratch, woman. Bring me comfort . “It’ll be true someday. When you’re not so angry all the time. I’m just getting a head start.”