Chapter 6 A carpet tack in the ass
A carpet tack in the ass
Gage
I was just teeing up again when Cam appeared in the bedroom doorway.
“What the hell? I thought this was just some cosmetic patchwork, and you’re fucking rearranging walls?” he complained.
Levi poked his head into the room and grimaced. “Where’s my dog niece?”
“With our human niece. I paid Isla twenty bucks to take her for the day so Nana doesn’t chew any more sheets of drywall,” I said, dropping the hammer on the plywood floor and picking up my thermos.
“And for your information, I’m not rearranging walls.
I took out the pantry to make a bigger bedroom closet. Got a problem with that?”
Cam snorted. “Yeah, I do. You said ‘touch up.’ You can’t ‘touch up’ a gaping hole in the wall.”
“First of all, stop using air quotes. It makes you look like an even bigger dumbass than usual. Second, we do this for a living. You think I can’t reframe a closet in a day?”
“I think you look like you wanna take out a few more walls,” Levi observed evenly.
“Well, fuck you too, Livvy.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Just sayin’, man.”
“What exactly are you just sayin’?” I demanded, taking an angry swig of cold water from my thermos. But nothing cooled the fire in my chest.
The driver who had killed my brother-in-law and destroyed my sister’s life had been charged. But the middle-of-the-road charges were a goddamn slap in the face after everything my family had lost.
“If you’re gonna be a temperamental dick, then I’m gonna reclaim my Saturday and go get my fiancée naked. Again,” Cam announced smugly.
My brother was an asshole. A well-sated asshole who didn’t seem to be angry enough, in my opinion. Was that what love and consistent sex did to a man?
I shrugged and tossed the thermos back in the corner. “Fine. You don’t wanna lend a hand? I don’t need you. I can have this place done by Wednesday by myself.”
“What’s the rush?” Levi asked, sliding down the wall to the floor and kicking his legs out like he had nothing better to do. Levi, like me, was single and therefore lacked any fiancée to get naked.
“That’s when a prospective tenant is coming over.
Hence turning it into less of a shithole.
Got a problem with that?” If anyone should have a problem with it, it should be me.
I shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of letting Zoey Moody move in.
I wasn’t myself around her. She knocked me off-kilter every damn time I saw her.
I knew better than to get closer to her.
Yet here I was, demoing a closet with her in mind.
“That’s his second ‘got a problem with that’ since we got here,” Levi observed.
Cam glared at me. “I’m starting to have a problem.”
“What?” I demanded.
“Who’s your prospective tenant? And it better not be who I think it is.”
“I don’t care who you think it is.”
“I think it better fucking not be Zoey Moody,” Cam said. “I forbid it.”
“You forbid it? You forbid me to rent out the apartment in a building I own?” Suddenly the idea of renting to Zoey seemed more appealing.
“I forbid you from using an apartment to make a move on my wife’s best friend,” he said, giving me a shove. There was that anger I wanted to see.
I shoved him back. “I’m not making a move. I’m offering her a place to stay.”
“Oh, so you’re just ‘offering’ her a place to stay that ‘just so happens’ to be above your law office out of the ‘kindness of your heart’?” he pointed out.
“Gigi’s right. You look like a dumbass with all the air quotes,” Levi cut in.
I ignored him. “First of all, it would be weird—not to mention illegal—if I broke into someone else’s property and started expanding the closet. Second, I’m not offering her the place for free. There’s this thing called ‘rent’ that tenants are required to pay.”
Cam shook his head at Levi. “I’m not buying it.”
“Why not?” Levi and I asked at the same time.
“You’ve been sitting on this apartment for what? Five years? And the second the hot girl with the curly hair and the big—”
“Hey!” I warned him.
“I’m practically married. I was going to say eyes. The second the girl with the big eyes says she needs a place to stay, you turn into Mr. Let Me Renovate You a Closet. Ergo, you’re trying to get into her pants.”
“No more air quotes and no more ergos. You sound like an idiot,” Levi said.
“Er-fucking-go,” Cam doubled down.
“Come on,” I complained. “Zoey is practically family. This is what we do, you gigantic shit burger. Or did you forget how you moved in with Laura after the accident? It’s what family does.”
If silence could be loud, our eardrums would have burst. I’d gone and done it. I’d brought up the thing we were all trying to pretend hadn’t happened.
“Exactly!” Cam exclaimed as if I’d made his ridiculous point for him. “She and Hazel are practically sisters, which makes her my sister-in-law, which makes her off-fucking-limits to you.”
“I think the wedding planning has finally made him snap,” I said to Levi.
“I’m gonna snap you if you try to mess around with that girl.”
“Holy hell, Cammy. It’s an apartment, not a box of condoms,” I said in exasperation.
“I didn’t think you liked her,” Levi said.
“I don’t like her. She’s annoying, she’s irresponsible, she’s always late, she says everything she’s thinking, she’s terrified of animals, and she hates Story Lake.
She’s more likely to move to the Caribbean and open a nightclub than settle down and start a family.
Also, what made you think I didn’t like her? ”
“You’re kind of an asshole to her all the time,” Levi said.
“I’m not an asshole.”
“You’re an asshole who put a lot of thought into that list to be able to fire it off like that,” Cam pointed out smugly.
“You wanna settle down?” Levi asked. “As in marriage?”
It was my turn to shrug. “Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
“Dunno. Hadn’t really thought about it. I’ve been too busy being fucking chief of police and plotting my revenge against you assholes.”
“Great. We’re gonna have to listen to him whine about being chief and the Great Paintball Incident for the rest of our lives now,” I complained.
“You two clowns would be lucky if a woman was ever desperate enough to shackle herself to your stupid faces for life. You mean to tell me you don’t have any feelings whatsoever for Zoey?” Cam asked, returning to the original subject.
Did finding her distractingly attractive count as feelings? “Only negative ones,” I insisted.
Levi frowned. “What’s your problem with her? She’s great, and you like everyone.”
“I don’t like either of you.” I pointed at Levi. “Why aren’t you jumping all over him, Cammy? Livvy clearly has feelings for Zoey.”
“You’re an idiot,” Levi complained.
“Because Livvy didn’t decide to renovate an entire apartment that will put Zoey in forced proximity with him,” Cam announced.
“I’m not kidnapping her,” I said defensively.
“Forced proximity is a trope,” Levi explained. “It means the main characters are physically stuck with each other.”
“We’re not stuck with each other. Believe me, that’s the last thing I want,” I insisted.
“So you expect us to believe this is all out of the goodness of your heart?” Cam pressed.
“I’m a nice guy, fuckface.”
“You fell off a roof the first time you saw her,” Levi pointed out.
It was true. I’d just hoped that no one else had noticed that I’d taken one look at that beautiful face, all that wild hair, and that my punch-in-the-gut reaction had knocked me right off Erleen Dabner’s roof. Further proof that Zoey was dangerous.
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked.
“Mine. I came to paint walls and drink beer, not talk about feelings,” Levi said.
Cam was pacing in front of the pile of old carpet I’d ripped up yesterday.
“No. Nope. He says he doesn’t have feelings.
But that’s exactly what I said when I did have feelings.
Because we Bishops suck at having fucking feelings.
” He pointed at me violently. “You’re gonna get tangled up with her.
Then you’re gonna get crushed. And I’ll be stuck listening to you whine about being crushed.
Or you’re going to be a dick to her, and I’ll have to kick your ass because she’s basically my sister.
Which makes her your sister. Which makes you disgusting. ”
“You really need a lesson in biology.”
“I really need a beer,” Levi complained.
“I’m not having my wedding ruined by a groomsman and a bridesmaid who fucked around and found out,” Cam insisted.
“If I were interested in Zoey—which I absolutely am not—why wouldn’t it work out? You and Hazel did,” I argued with flawless logic. I wanted a fight, and if I couldn’t get a satisfying legal one over our family’s enemy, I could score an intellectual victory over my brother.
“Me and Haze are different.”
“How? It’s the same exact situation. Beautiful burned-out woman from the big city lands in a small town and meets a charming blue-collar hero.”
“You’ve been reading Hazel’s books,” Levi observed.
“Hell yeah I have. She’s a good writer. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from her.” That was the thing about Bishop fights. No one was safe from the front lines.
“I’m trying. I’m taking her writing class at the Haven,” he said.
“Really?” I asked, temporarily distracted from my anger. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going great because my wife is a fucking genius.
Now back it up. I can only deal with one brother at a time,” Cam said.
He pointed at me again. “Me and Hazel are completely different. Hazel came here looking for something, and she found it. ‘It’ being me. Zoey is here for moral support, and everyone knows she’s counting down the seconds until she can move back to the city.
Also, I’m fucking irresistible, and I wore Hazel down. ”
“I believe he’s saying you’re not irresistible, Gigi,” Levi said.
“At my worst ‘three days into the stomach bug with a high fever’ moment, I’m still more irresistible than Cam is on his best day,” I insisted.