Luka #3
He scowled. “I might be direct, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize passive aggression when I hear it.”
“Look,” I said, trying to keep the pleading out of my voice because holy hell, I could not piss off the first guest I was responsible for in the first five minutes. That would be a record, and not the kind I wanted. “What you call ‘fence sitting’ is what I call keeping an open mind.”
“A mind too open risks falling out,” he shot back.
Ooooh, he was going to test every last trace of patience I had, and I would swear before the Lord God Himself, all the apostles and saints, the entire Greek pantheon, and the Egyptian one for good measure that I had a lot of patience to test. The problem was that when someone really got on my nerves, my temper was never far behind.
And so far, he had been condescending, rude, and a plain old grumpy asshole.
I didn’t care if he was hot or that he needed help, I swear to—
I smiled, forcing a deep breath in. “And if my mind is ever threatened with falling out, I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You’re clearly willing to speak your mind without fear of reprisal,” I said, twisting my judgment of him into something that sounded corporate and powerful. “So I’m sure if I start to lose my mind, you’ll tell me.”
I was not going to lose my temper, even if he was rude, disagreeable, and judgmental.
I knew, I fucking knew that people who were damaged or hurt didn’t come across as meek and mild.
Damage could make you mean, it could make you nasty, it could make you the sort of person who created other victims. Hurt people hurt people.
But he had come here, I didn’t know how or why, but he had, which meant he knew he needed help. So even if he was a disagreeable dick, it was my job to look past that and find the person he wanted to be, the one he could be, and focus on that instead.
“So,” I said, taking a breath and smiling again, “why don’t we go with Reggie’s idea and trust the process together?”
“You’re new, aren’t you?” he asked bluntly.
“I can’t tell if that’s agreeing to my idea or not,” I said, because like hell was I going to answer his question.
I needed to keep in mind that he was the person who was supposed to be helped, but that didn’t mean I was willingly going to hand over information that could and, with him, probably would be used against me.
“That is a yes, I think, but also someone who learned at his feet,” Rowan said with a snort and turned to stare out the window again, his shoulders sagging slightly. “But not totally, no—”
I opened my mouth and then carefully closed it, letting him lapse into his thoughts.
Perhaps it was more in line with the intention of the room, but I knew better.
I didn’t want to risk saying something that would dig my hole even deeper.
He clearly didn’t think much of the program or me, and now, with his suspicion about me being new to the Guide thing, he was even more doubtful.
All in all, not the greatest start to the relationship we were supposed to be forming, but I wasn’t about to make that even worse.
“Arete,” he said softly after almost five minutes of silence. “Because of the mountains?”
“Because of their peaks?” I wondered in confusion.
He glared at me. “What? Do you know what an arete is?”
“Not...in the way you seem to,” I answered honestly, curious about where this was going.
“It’s,” he began, waving vaguely toward the mountains, “a ridge of rock.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know that?”
“I...not that one.”
“There is another definition?”
“Yeah, I looked it up when I was given the job offer. I guess I missed that, uh...definition.”
His brow furrowed further. “And what definition were you given?”
It sounded like he was doubting my ability, and I wondered if I was dealing with some trust-fund kid. I shoved the idea aside and shrugged. “Potential.”
He scowled. “What?”
“A person’s ultimate potential,” I amended. “Greek, I think. A philosophical concept of one’s ultimate potential. The best you can be. Or you know, be all you can be.”
“Navy?”
“Marines, I think.”
“They follow a Greek philosophical concept?”
“No,” I said, unable to help my laugh at the confusion.
“Be all you can be is the Marine phrase, I think. But it’s still a good summary of the concept of Arete.
The entire point of this place, especially the Recovery Program, is to be the best version of you that you can be, to realize your potential. ”
“And you’ll tell me what that potential is?” he asked wryly. “Once I’ve done enough clean living, rituals disguised as meetings, affirmations, and stripped away all that makes me what I am?”
I stared at him. “Holy shit, you...um, this isn’t a cult.”
“I think cults say the same thing,” he said with a wry cock of his brow.
“Are you kidding me? When I first learned about the resort and especially when they sent me an offer for an interview, the first thing I did was look into them to make sure they weren’t a cult,” I said with a snort. “And if we are, we’re a really sneaky one because I don’t see any signs yet.”
“Yet.”
“Mhmm.”
“I see optimism is rampant around here.”
“You make it sound like a disease,” I said with a laugh, glancing over my shoulder as I spotted a couple of people coming into the room.
“It can be,” he said with a frown.
“Look, we can continue to discuss this if you want,” I said with a shrug. “But this is the Thought Room. Not the debating room.”
“You...have one of those?”
“No, but there are areas where you’re allowed to be a bit more vigorous and aggressive.”
“Such as?”
“We have a place where you can spar, in the literal sense. But we do have the Court, where anyone can talk or argue. Within limits. You can’t slap people around or talk badly about their mothers.”
Rowan blinked. “You have...a place for people to fight?”
“I say spar, you say fight, it’s the same thing,” I said with a shrug. “But this place is for thinking and quiet reflection. Why don’t you wander around a bit before we focus on the other places you might want to use?”
“I don’t like to wander. I want reason and purpose,” he said so stiffly it was a wonder he didn’t turn into a statue.
“Alright, well, if you don’t trust me to guide you in the sense that my position is to guide, then at least let me do it directly. I can tell you the ins and outs of places and their purpose,” I said, gesturing toward the door.
“Reggie,” he said as if using his name made him uncomfortable, “already gave me the tour.”
“He gave you the Operations Director tour. I’m sure you have questions, and you clearly enjoy drilling me for information,” I said.
He stared at me. “Drilling you for information?”
I stiffened. “Grilling. Grilling, I—”
“Mmm,” he said, snapping his head away as if the very idea of being suggestive was offensive. “I do have questions.”
“Then let’s go before we bother people who came for the room’s intended purpose,” I said.
“Indeed,” he said, walking away stiffly.
Alright, so he was clearly unafraid to offend me, but bothering other people was rude. Good to know. At least I was getting some insight into how he viewed things, so that was progress and would make things easier for us both.
Right?