Chapter 25 #2
As quickly as my arms were crossed, they’re dropping again. What the hell did I miss that she won’t let me help her with the bathrooms? The bathrooms, for fuck’s sake!
Narrowing my eyes, I purse my lips for a moment and think. I can hear her scrubbing at the toilets and decide a test may be in order. “Okay, you do the sinks, and I’ll scrub the toilets.”
There’s a pause as the bristles stop moving against the porcelain, and I think for one quick second that she might take me up on the offer. Then she both surprises me and begins to stir a thought in my head.
“Go away, Liam. I don’t need your help.”
“What about want? Do you want it? I mean, who actually wants to scrub a toilet, Quinn? I’m willing to take the dirty job right off your hands and do it myself.”
I’m met with silence. It’s so quiet I don’t even know if she’s breathing. There’s no way a sane person doesn’t jump at the offer of someone else doing the toilets. Not that I’d call Quinn sane by most definitions of the word.
There’s a loud pound that comes from within the bathroom. My guess is she just hit the side of one of the stalls. “Damn it, Liam. I don’t want your help, either. Can you please fuck off, and let me deal with this alone?”
“Fine,” I tell her, rubbing my chin between my thumb and index finger. “But don’t expect this offer to ever come around again.”
When she doesn’t respond, I leave her to herself and head towards the kitchen.
The same antagonistic attitude awaits me with Hailey.
She claims she can handle the kitchen, and the fridge, all by herself.
And she’s right. I know she can. Just like Quinn can handle the bathrooms. They’re both more than capable of handling things, but they shouldn’t have to. Not when I can help.
Which makes me wonder what the fuck instructions Nate gave them.
Brody has been damn near as cold to me as Nate has, so I avoid going to see if he needs help.
I’m pretty sure even without Nate’s directions he would tell me to get lost. He’s been a miserable son-of-a-bitch since Vegas, and the only reason I can figure out is because of everything happening with Jordan.
First with us being together, and now the fall out with Nate.
I search for Luke next and find him in the apparatus bay working on polishing the wheels of the engine. He looks up when he sees me—a quick glance and nothing more—then goes back to the tire he’s working on.
“What should come first? Shining up the truck and putting it outside to then sweep out the bay? Or sweeping the bay and then shining up the truck?” he asks while rubbing a rag over the rim.
The everlasting ongoing argument. Dust falls to the floor and gets it dirty, so you do the truck first. But there’s the risk the truck gets dirty outside and drags dust back in when you repark it. Which one comes first?
“It’s the tale of the chicken and the egg. Which one came first?”
He shakes with a silent laugh as he tosses his rag over his shoulder and swivels on his stool to look up at me. “If you’re going to ask if you can help, you can’t.”
He says it with a smile on his face. There’s no attitude like I got with the girls, which makes me feel safe enough to take a seat on the step below the pump panel in the middle of the truck.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” The question isn’t rhetorical, but Luke doesn’t answer me. He simply stares as if waiting for me to figure it out myself. “Seriously, man. Quinn, Hailey, now you.”
Luke shrugs his shoulders, but the gleam in his eye tells me he knows more than he’s letting on. Then again, of course he does, he was actually paying attention to Nate during the morning meeting.
I throw my hands up in frustration. “Seriously! Why am I being left in the dark?”
“I’m sure Nate asked himself the same question,” Luke mutters.
It’s up in the air whether I was supposed to hear him say that or not, but I did, and it has me slapping both my legs before I jump to my feet. “So this has nothing to do with him wanting me to get my head on straight? This is him punishing me for not telling him about Jordan?”
Lifting his hands in surrender, Luke shrugs. “Bro, you’ll have to ask him. But if you do, could you also ask him why the hell the rest of us need to be punished? I swear we never have to do this much in one shift. At least not separately.”
I stare at my friend while his words sink in.
I was so concerned with figuring out why Nate gave me no assignment, and then trying to find someone to let me help, that it didn’t occur to me that everyone is doing something different.
How the fuck didn’t I see this before? We always tackle things together.
Maybe in pairs or in threes, but never all alone.
We work together as a team. We help each other.
“What the fuck is going on?” My question doesn’t need an answer, nor do I wait around to get one from Luke.
I’ve come to another realization in the last few moments. No one is going to give me any answers except for my best friend. If he wants to punish me, that’s one thing, but to take it out on everyone else is another. They don’t owe him anything for my failings.
For the second time in two minutes, I’m asking the same question as I storm into Nate’s office, my blood churning in a slow boil through my veins. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Sure Liam, come on in,” he responds in a dull tone as he waves at me with his free hand. The other is preoccupied with writing a report of some sort. A huge reason I’ll never become a lieutenant. Too much fucking paperwork.
“Your door was open, dude,” I bristle, trying to hold my tongue. It doesn’t work when I correct myself with a bite of attitude, “Or should I say Lieutenant.”
While the pen doesn’t get put down, his eyes do lift to finally look at me. “What would you like to know?”
“What do I want to know? Are you fucking kidding me?” I gesture towards the door, indicating the rest of the firehouse. “Why does everyone tell me I’m not allowed to help them?”
I can’t read his blank expression as Nate sets his pen down on his desk, and leans back in his chair, clasping his hands over his midsection. “Because I told them you weren’t to help.”
Exasperated, I toss my hands in the air. “Why? Why is me helping so fucking bad?”
“Because you’re supposed to be straightening out your head.”
“Helping my family would help me straighten out my head!”
He lifts a hand to rub at his jaw as his lips purse for a moment, considering what I’ve just told him. It infuriates me when he says, “No. My decision stands. They can all work alone.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, dude? Why would you do that?” I have the foresight to grab the edge of the door and swing it shut before pulling out one of the chairs on this side of the desk, but I don’t sit.
I just plant my hands on the desk and lean towards him.
“Are you punishing them for what I did? Why? You’re not usually a prick, but if you want to be one, fine, be one.
But put it all on me. Be the biggest asshole to me but leave them out of it. ”
Nate’s head tilts to the side. He contemplates it. Then he leans forward, picks up his pen, and shakes his head. “Nope.”
My hands lift a couple inches then slam back down on the desk. The sound it makes seems to echo through the small room, but he doesn’t flinch. Nate holds his ground, his pen raised over his paper like he’s about to go back to what he was doing before I intruded. It enrages me.
“Damn it, Nate! What the fuck do you want from me? You want me to clean the entire firehouse by myself? I will. You want me to do it with a toothbrush? Fine. But leave them the fuck out of it,” I shout, a hand gesturing towards the door while the other stays rooted in place on his desk.
I’m worried if I lift it even a hair it’ll sweep everything off the surface in anger.
Far more calmly than I would, Nate shuts his open laptop and slowly rises to his feet. Mimicking my prior stance, his hands find his desk and he leans towards me.
“You know what I want, Liam?” he asks, and there’s a slight snarl curling his lip. “I want to know why the hell you’re willing to fight for all of them, but not for my sister.”
I rear back with such force you’d think he hit me. The back of my knees hit the edge of the chair and I’m halfway to sitting when I catch myself and pop back up.
“Wha-what did you say?” I ask, but I don’t actually need him to repeat it. I heard him loud and clear. It’s just not what I expected, and I’m buying myself time to come up with…well, thoughts of any kind. Because there are none.
“You’re willing to come in here, pissed as all hell, and demand answers.
For Christ sake, you’re willing to clean the whole damn firehouse with a toothbrush just so none of them need to do it.
” There’s more emotion in him now than I’ve seen all day.
His hands are waving towards the door, and then to me, and then pound against his chest. “I want to know why you,” he points at me again, “fight harder for them than you ever did for Jordan.”
“They—they’re—I—because—I mean—they’re family, man!” I sputter at him, my eyes wildly looking all around the room as if something in here will give me the correct answer.
“And what the fuck did you consider Jordan?” he roars at me, his own hands hitting the table with a thud. “A fuck? Is that all she was to you? Is that why it was so easy not to fight for her? To stand up to me and take what you want? Because you never actually wanted her?”
“No!” I yell, stepping back to the desk, my heart beating wildly in my chest as I hit back.
“She wasn’t just a fuck! She’s fucking everything to me.
She’s everything I didn’t know I needed, and everything I never knew I wanted.
She’s all I think about, day in and day out, and the last week has been fucking hell because I’m so fucking in love with her that without her I feel lost and broken! ”