Chapter 9
Cruz
“Am I risking food poisoning?”
Liam and Sloane’s heads both jerk up. Liam waves his fork in the air menacingly at me. He’s known me long enough that it’s no longer a novelty to hear me communicate. Sloane, on the other hand, looks like aliens just landed right in the middle of her small wood table.
The whole thing is heaped with pots on hot pads.
There’s barely enough room for our three plates and our glasses of juice.
I haven’t had peach juice since I was a kid.
Made from crystals. Since Liam made it to go with dinner, it’s so sweet and thick you could stand a spoon up in the sugar powder that settles in the bottom.
He rolls his eyes. “You hardly ever say shit all, and this is what you pull out? Nice, Cruz. The meatballs were cooked from frozen. All you have to do is heat them up. You can’t poison someone with spaghetti and sauce from a jar. And the corn was also from a bag in the freezer, so yeah. No.”
I think that anything’s possible where there is a will, but I don’t say so. Also, I’m sure Sloane didn’t use frozen meatballs yesterday. She didn’t even comment about having the same meal two nights in a row. Maybe this is their regular. There could have been sauce left over to use up.
“Are you just salty because you went downstairs to help Mom with the plumbing and she showed you up by doing all of it herself?” Liam knows exactly how it went down, likely from his own experience.
“Don’t take it personally,” he goes on, reading my thoughts.
“She won’t let anyone touch her plumbing. ”
Holy fuck, does he not even realize what that sounds like? It takes a massive amount of effort to keep my face from getting hot. There’s a not so short list of things that don’t normally happen to me and going red anywhere is one of them, but alas. Here we fucking are. Here we’ve been at all day.
“It was impressive, wasn’t it? By it, I mean my mom.”
Sloane reaches across the table and swats Liam lightly on the shoulder “Stop it. All I had to do was tighten a pipe on the sink and put some parts into the toilet tank. It was hardly an achievement and I didn’t need help. Anyone can do it.”
“Doubtful,” Liam grunts, spearing a meatball off the mountain he’s made on his plate.
“No, anyone can do it,” Sloane insists. “With the internet teaching people how to do things, anyone can do basic plumbing.”
“I maintain that it’s because you’re amazing.”
Sloane reaches for the parmesan and shakes a thick layer of her mini mountain of pasta, meatballs, and corn.
She didn’t use any sauce. Either she knows something I don’t, or she doesn’t like it.
“You don’t have to suck up anymore. I’ve already made a decision, or at least, decided that I want to talk to you. ”
Liam jams three meatballs in his mouth and talks around them. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s not that.” Sloane pushes food around on her plate. She does look up a little while later, after sorting through her thoughts. “I was thinking about how we used to solve problems by looking for the middle ground.”
“Here we go with Mom’s philosophy. Or, not hers really. More like something Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece.”
I make a noise in my throat that Liam correctly interprets as me telling him to shut it because Sloane looks like she wants to give him some kind of leeway or credit, or some shit that he doesn’t deserve.
The fact that she’s sitting her, calm as can be, after yesterday and today, makes her pretty fucking cool.
Not that Liam doesn’t think so. I know how much he admires his mom.
I’ve never failed to be a little bit jealous of people who can truly say that their parents are their heroes.
I was a fucking SEAL, and even if I enjoyed communicating with others, which I don’t, I still probably would have very little to say to my mom or dad. I could always write, or text, but I don’t do that either.
“You don’t have to stay here tomorrow,” Sloane says. “There’s not much we can do in a day. Major renovations would take more time. Even painting would be a bigger job. Changing the décor out is about it, but I’m happy with it the way it is. I wouldn’t mind seeing where you work.”
Liam’s fork clatters from his hand and he hurries to pick it up. “The garage?”
I tentatively try a meatball. It’s not half bad. The sauce is fine. The corn is surprisingly delicious. The spaghetti is almost the perfect level of al dente. Honestly, I’d give Liam a ten because I’m not a fussy fucker, and even if I was, he’d get a solid nine.
“I—I’ve been thinking it out. You know how important I think that college is, but it’s not everything.
If that’s not what you want to do, I’m not going to force you.
If you love working at a garage, then do that.
But I’d really like it if you’d do some research or talk to someone about getting certified.
Become a journeyman mechanic, maybe. It’s just that, you were so good at school.
I had dreams of you going to college for so long, but I do see that those are my dreams, not yours.
I know that this is your life, and you don’t have to worry about pleasing me, but if you would take some courses of some kind, I’d be able to take a breath.
That’s it. That’s the end of my rant, or monologue, or philosophy. ”
This is one of those private moments again, but Sloane hasn’t forgotten that I’m here.
She gives me a small smile, as though she’s no longer pissed that I’m a sort of essential overgrown babysitter.
I wonder if I’ve graduated to Liam’s older friend, and if she’s looking to me to encourage Liam not to make dumbass decisions.
Liam has this starstruck expression on his face. He looks so much like Sloane when his face goes soft like that. He knows how lucky he is, but more than that, he’s in the unique position of being seen, understood, and loved unequivocally.
I don’t want to be jealous of Liam. I don’t often long for things that I might have had and never will, but there’s so much of it in my chest that I think it might burst. My heart is dangerously close to either going completely mushy or palpitating me straight into cardiac arrest. I’m not sure which it is yet. Neither feels overly good.
“I know how hard you worked to save money for me to afford school.” Liam actually flicks a meatball and it arcs through the air and lands right on Sloane’s plate, as though they’ve done this countless times.
“I’ll look into it. Thanks for understanding, and if the guys say it’s okay, of course you can come see where I work.
Cruz? Do you think they’d be okay with that? ”
I shrug and get my phone out.
“Right. You’ll text them and let me know. Sounds good.”
Sloane stabs the errant meatball with the red sauce on it and shoves it back onto Liam’s plate. I guess she really isn’t a red sauce fan.
I dig in, distracting myself by stuffing my mouth. It’s good and I’m starving, but my mind keeps whirring.
I never knew what it was like, to be a part of something ancient, a connection that was maybe just always there.
The fact that all this happened and I met Sloane…
maybe that means something. Maybe it’s evidence for some kind of fate.
Maybe it was just for me to witness the bond she and Liam share.
I never had that growing up, and even in the SEALs, I didn’t feel that connection with others.
I’m just happy to be here, having dinner.
I’m glad that everyone is okay. It makes me feel less tense that Sloane isn’t as keyed up and angry.
It would be fine if she hated me, but Liam is my friend, and even if we’re an odd sort of friendship and brotherhood, it hurt to see him uncertain and hurting.
He’d be the first to admit that he’s totally a mama’s boy, and now that I’ve met Sloane, I get it.
I think anyone would. Anyone would want that sort of love in their life too.
I’m not unaffected, though I’m on the outside looking in.
Dinner is pretty quiet after that. Liam practically licks his plate clean and goes for seconds. He offers me some, and I don’t decline. He smirks at me, as though I’m all in on the food poisoning. After, Liam offers to do dishes, but Sloane reminds him that the cook never cleans.
That’s news to me. My dad wouldn’t have been caught dead in the kitchen. If he ever washed a dish in his life, it would shock me.
“I think I’m gonna go to my room and play some games,” Liam says. “I know it’s a messed up time, but I think I need that to relax. Do you want to join?”
I shake my head and eye the door. I’m not a big gamer anyway, but it’s more important that I do my job than that I relax.
“You don’t have to stay up all night. Let me at least take a shift or turn your phone up so that you get notifications.
Haunting the place is gonna turn you into a real ghost. Don’t give me the that time in the SEALs look either.
I don’t care how many hours you stayed awake in the military. That’s not cool. Let me help out.”
It’s hard for me to let other people have control, especially when it’s over something that’s so serious, but Liam’s right.
“I’ll take the first shift tonight, and we’ll see. Maybe I’ll trust that Wizard’s security is good enough.”
“That doesn’t sound like a maybe.”
“Maybe.”
He huffs and heads to his room and tosses a few words over his shoulder. “If you change your mind about gaming, come join me. We can find something you like.”
“That would be boardgames only.”
“I don’t know anyone who hates videogames. What did you do when you were a kid?”
“I’m a thousand years old. I played outside in the dirt.”
Liam’s laughter echoes through the apartment.
Sloane is already at the sink, stacking dishes and rinsing pots, getting ready to wash up.
Their kitchen is L-shaped, with a row of cabinets on one end with the sink in between, and the stove and fridge on the other side.
The window is right above the sink. I’m not a fan.
“Can I do that for you?”