Chapter 25
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
HUDSON
I refuse to cry. I’m used to assholes. I’m used to being ignored, to being brushed aside and my feelings minimized.
Sutton would do it all the time. Listen to me rant about something, then sigh and ask if I was done yet.
Kennedy says I can’t let that anger take over me, and Hart says it’s pointless to even worry about it.
So I’ve gotten used to not talking at all.
It figures that the one time I’d try again, I’d get … that.
If Wilde had been dismissive, I probably could have handled it better, but that sudden, explosive anger knocked the carefully restrained box of zero fucks over, and I’m struggling to wrangle them again. It’s like he’s unleashed a beehive in my chest, and I can’t calm it down.
This shaken feeling probably isn’t normal, but I’m long past caring.
Hart still has the car, so I can’t even take off in that, and I have no clue where Kennedy is, but it’s better this way. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I just want to … break something.
I guess it’s a good thing we have a lot to break.
I grab the sledgehammer from our cart of tools and head for the nearest shop.
It’s almost completely destroyed inside, either from vandals, age, or the multiple water leaks that have found their way inside.
My anger is burning hot as I kick the busted-up door in, and then I ignore the wailing squeaks of the boards as I reach the service counter and lift the sledgehammer back over my shoulder.
Unlike when Wilde was giving our house love taps, I don’t hold back. I swing and swing, moving from the counter to the walls to the door that leads into a back room. I’m panting, sweat pooling on my back, broken fingers burning, and shoulders aching with the effort that I have no plans to stop.
None of this is fucking fair .
I grit my teeth against the thought, not willing to go there.
Too many times, I gave in to the building despair, but I’m still determined to fight it.
No matter what Wilde thinks, or Hart says, or Kennedy feels, none of that matters.
I’m the only one who’s ever looked out for myself, and that’s never changing.
The weather is wet heat baked into concrete and timber, and we get the extensions added to house two with no sabotage.
Every day that ticks by without a sign from Wilde doesn’t sit right, and now that my initial feelings of betrayal have calmed the fuck down, I have space to consider why he reacted like that.
It was extreme. And maybe it was building to the point where he really can’t stand my presence, but I find that hard to believe when he actively sought it out to get off. People are complicated. I hate people. And I hate complicated.
I especially hate that my feelings are as complicated as his.
Even with my growing resentment, I can’t help feeling like I deserved it. I’m always the one exploding on people, and all he did was give it back to me. I did not need to look so directly into the mirror to know how fucked-up I’ve become, but he forced me anyway.
I guess I should thank him.
Not that I’ve seen him in over a week to be able to do that.
There have been too many times I’ve considered going to his house and demanding an answer, but I need to let it go.
I know I need to, even if that gnawing confusion won’t move past it.
Wilde is giving me what I want: to be left alone to work.
That’s all I’ve demanded since I got here, and now that he’s doing it, it’s … it’s …
The familiar need to lash out rises swiftly, and I have to physically brace myself to push it away. I have a short temper, I’ve always had a short temper, but maybe I don’t want to have one anymore.
Maybe controlling it is the one thing I can get out of this place.
The zzzt zzzt of my drill meeting wood almost drowns out Kennedy’s words.
“Is that Ziggy?” He’s got his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, and I turn my attention toward where he’s looking. There’s a tall, lanky man leaning over the open hood of our car.
“What the fuck is he doing?”
Kennedy shoots me a look, and I remind myself to take a breath and settle my tone.
I try again. “Why is he looking in our car?”
“Dunno. Let’s go ask him. ”
Considering how well that went the last time, I’m not interested in talking to myself again. “You go. I’ll finish this.”
He hurries off, and I do my best not to be bitter about how easily I slipped right into that headspace of suspicion and aggression.
In my defense, he could be doing who the fuck knows what with our car, and—I forcefully cut that thought off too.
Normal people don’t react like this. Ziggy has done nothing to deserve me being an asshole again, and I’m going to stick with that.
I get the last crossbeam in place and then walk toward the group. Hart has drifted out from somewhere, and he’s standing behind Ziggy, watching his every move as Kennedy talks enough for the three of them.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have even thought about getting it serviced, but with the miles we’ve been doing lately, that’s a smart call.”
I’m good with houses, but when it comes to cars, I couldn’t even tell you where the oil goes. Dad wasn’t around to show us things like that, and Mom probably wouldn’t have been able to remember where she left the car, let alone locate the oil tank.
Ziggy’s unsurprisingly working silently, and I have to hope that my brothers know more about what he’s doing than I do because, for all I know, he could be cutting our brake lines.
Feels shitty to bring that up if the guy is only here to help us.
“You a mechanic or something?” I ask, keeping my voice low enough that he can pretend not to hear me.
It’s too late for that when his back stiffens, and he throws a look around Kennedy at me. My brother shifts—on purpose or not, I don’t know—and blocks Ziggy’s view.
After a few seconds, the guy taps the battery.
“You know about … batteries?” Hart guesses.
That prompts Ziggy to tug at the red wire beside his hand, slightly more aggressively each time as he watches Kennedy.
“Power … wires … electrician? ”
Ziggy nods, and Kennedy immediately turns to me, eyes wide in a way I can read his every thought.
No , I mouth, but he ignores me.
“We need an electrician. We’ve been trying to find one to help us here.”
Ziggy takes an immediate step back from the car.
“Don’t,” I warn Kennedy. “None of them want us here in the first place. You really think he’d help ? You really think Wilde would let him?”
“It’s not up to Wilde,” he snaps back. “I’m sure Ziggy can decide for himself if he wants work or not.”
And apparently, he can, because Ziggy closes the small box he’s brought with him, then turns and walks away.
“Hey, wait!” Kennedy calls, but Ziggy doesn’t stop.
He’s about to go after him, and I have to catch Kennedy’s T-shirt to stop that from happening.
“It’s his choice,” I point out. “Looks to me like he made it.”
“No. Like you said, it’s Wilde. He’s probably scared.”
It’s an effort not to roll my eyes. “Or he doesn’t want to see his town overrun, just like everyone else here.” What did Wilde call them? Wenders ?
“Then why is he helping us? Why is he checking the car over and washing our motorcycle?”
Those aren’t answers I have for him either. “Maybe he’s bored.”
“I think he wants to make friends.”
“With you, maybe. Definitely not with me.”
“Yeah, well, that happens when you throw people into walls.”
I don’t bother to point out that’s basically Wilde’s and my mating ritual. Or it was. Before … whatever happened.
“We do need an electrician,” Hartwell says, not bothering with the rest of the conversation. “What’s the luck that one happens to live right here?”
Considering the luck we’ve had so far, I’d say it’s slim. “Is he actually qualified, or does he just know about it? Or thinks he knows about it.”
Kennedy’s still watching where Ziggy disappeared. “I believe him.”
“Of course you do,” Hart says. “You think everyone is a good person.”
“Not Sutton.” He gives me a pointed look. “Or Wilde.”
Sutton, I’ll give him. Wilde … none of us knows anything about him. The guy made me fucking crawl to him, which is evil enough, but … I can’t move on from his anger when I last saw him. There had to have been something deeper there than general pissed-offedness.
“Maybe you could try talking to him again,” Kennedy says without looking at me. “We really need an electrician.”
“You don’t even know that Ziggy wants to do it yet. He literally turned his back on us.”
“Whatever.” Kennedy throws his hands up. “We’ll go back to complaining that we have nothing.”
He leaves, and I feel Hart’s heavy stare on me.
“I do so love to complain,” he drags out.
“Wilde doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“You mean you don’t trade sweet nothings while you fuck? Enlightening.”
I turn and close the hood on our car. “You are so irritating.”
“I am. You remember that when I’m the only one who can find us an electrician since Kennedy is usually too busy to leave this place and you refuse to make friends.”
Refuse to make friends. Fucking hell. “First I was getting too friendly with him, now?— ”
Hart’s snort takes over my words. “We both know you don’t have to be friendly with someone to fuck them.”
“I really love how you’re both suddenly coming for my private business.”
“Kenny says this is caring,” he answers, sounding like he doesn’t care at all.
“It’s not.”
He watches me, and I pointedly don’t watch him. “Anything you need to talk about?”
“Nope.”
“Thank fuck for that.” He heads in the same direction Kennedy went, really cementing that it’s them against me. Like it’s always been. I’m left to figure it all out for myself.