Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Storm
“What do you think?” Rain asks a few days later as he leads us across the porch and into the house.
Holly, who’d been skipping behind him, red-faced and sweaty (her braids completely unraveled) from her busy day at camp, skids comically to a stop, her mouth dropping open.
I chuckle then glance over at Poppy.
She’s a little more guarded about her surprise, but it’s still there in her green eyes. “You two have been busy,” she says.
Rain snorts.
“What?” she asks.
“My lovely”—I glare at him—“brother is trying to insinuate that I’m not pulling my weight.”
He smirks. “I’m just saying that your help has been few and far between.”
“I helped knock down the wall, thank you very much,” I say dryly.
“I want to knock down a wall!” Holly declares. Her nose wrinkles as she swipes her foot across the floor. “Even if it is dusty and dirty.”
My lips twitch, but I just ruffle her hair. “How about you inspect the back yard and help Rain and I choose where we should put the pool?”
“A pool?” she exclaims.
“Yup,” I tell her. “It’s an important part of my training regimen,” I add in an aside to the adults.
The six-year-old doesn’t miss it either.
She just nods sagely. “Hockey players have to have strong legs and strong lungs.”
Fuck, she’s smart.
“You’re right.”
“I’m going to be a hockey player one day.”
My heart squeezes. “Then you’ll be a hockey player,” I say.
“Maybe we should have walls and pipes that don’t burst before we think about pools or hockey,” Rain mutters.
“And I thought you were a master plumber,” I return dryly.
He scowls.
“Especially when you work in your towel.”
His scowl deepens.
Poppy giggles then takes Holly’s hand in her unbroken one. “We’ll go scope out the back yard and determine proper pool placement. You two…boys can sort out plumbing things.”
They carefully pick their way through the wreck that’s the house.
The last week has been spent opening up walls and arranging inspections. The long and short of it is that there’s a fuck-ton of work to complete.
But I figure that’s to my advantage.
Poppy said I won’t wake up alone again, and I mean to do my best to make that happen.
“I take it the date went well,” Rain says. “Apart from the side of broken wrist?”
I’m the one scowling this time.
His mouth twitches. “I heard that Shep is trying to figure out how to properly apologize to Poppy.”
I groan, scrub my hands over my face, my imagination going wild.
The man doesn’t do anything in half-measure.
“Christ.”
Rain just claps me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he says. “I need your help finishing up the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.”
“Shouldn’t you make sure we don’t fall through the floor first?”
“Asshole,” he mutters.
But he doesn’t complain further as I follow him upstairs and into the bathroom.
Then I’m acting as a second set of hands, doing it while lying on the floor that Rain has repaired over the last few days.
Doing it while exchanging only stilted commands and grunts.
As we Harrisons prefer it.
Or maybe as part of me thinks I should prefer it.
Another piece, smaller and quieter (though louder in this moment) wants to broach the silence we’ve worked in.
Wants to find a way to connect.
I’m going to be here.
We need to coexist.
I open my mouth—
“I’m gonna miss those posters from your room,” he says lightly.
“Me too,” I say. “Fuck, those swimsuit models were hot.” At least I had good taste as a horny teenager.
Of course, I’m no less horny at this moment, my thoughts drifting toward Poppy and that bikini…and her confession from a few days before.
She still has it.
Christ, what I wouldn’t give to see it.
Rain laughs then leans back. “Pop’s feeling okay?”
I crawl out from under the sink. “Yeah. She’s tough”—and stubborn, so stubborn I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t overdo it—“and used to being busy. It practically killed her to just supervise me putting the liquor order away today.”
“I have no doubt she’ll be back behind the bar at Sully’s tonight.”
I have no doubt about that either.
Convincing her to rest and not work the last couple of nights has been challenging to say the least.
Still, I’ll make sure if she is manning the shaker, it’s only for a short time.
“You’re not wrong,” I mutter.
He grins and brushes his hands together.
I grin back, climb to my feet.
And…cue silence.
Cue both of us standing in the bathroom, staring at each other, the quiet growing heavy.
And awkward.
Then he clears his throat and looks away. “Well, stubborn or not, it’ll be a lot easier to keep her away from Sully’s once I get this place done for you.”
Something coils tight in my chest. “It’s your house too.”
He exhales, stares down at his feet. “I’ve got my apartment in town. I don’t need this place.”
It’s there in his voice—the same shit I’m feeling: the hurt, the pain, the memories—and I want to make it better.
Want to make it so he’s not hurting too.
“We could just sell the house—”
His head whips up, anger rippling through his expression. “Jesus Christ, Storm. This again? I thought you were done with the running shit. Don’t you dare put Poppy and Holly through—”
My fury snaps right back into place, and I step toward him, hands fisting.
“Look, asshole,” I grit out. “I’m trying to be considerate here.
I’m paid millions of dollars a year, so I can afford to buy another house, and I don’t have to deal with the shit this place brings up.
I don’t know how much you make, but I’m guessing it’s less than me so the profit you’d get from selling this place would be helpful. ”
“I don’t need the money,” he grits out.
“Fine,” I say. “Then you’re doing all the work, so you keep it. I’ll transfer the deed and you’ll have a place to live.”
“I don’t need this house either,” he says, still gritting.
“But I do?”
“Yes,” he snaps.
“You’re not even making any sense. You won’t let me pay you for the work you’re doing, won’t let me buy you out, won’t let me sell. What the fuck do you want from this?”
“Nothing,” he mutters, shoving me back and turning for the hall. “I don’t want anything from you, asshole.”
Rage coats me from head to toe as he walks away.
I follow him, pushing his shoulder and sending him skittering sideways.
“Don’t,” he growls.
“You don’t,” I growl back. “Tell me what the fuck you want.”
“Nothing.” He glares when I get in his face. “Back off.”
“Not until you explain why the hell you’re so focused on this shit. We haven’t seen each other in fucking years and now you want to custom build a house for me? That’s insane, especially when I can afford—”
“I know,” he mutters. “Your bank account—and dick—are huge. Congrats.”
“You—”
“Asshole. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.” He pushes me back, starts for the stairs.
I grab his shoulder, yank him toward me. “Fucking tell me.”
A heartbeat later, I’m shoved against the drywall.
Hard. The surface gives way with a puff of dust but Rain doesn’t let up, pushing me again, his face dropping close.
“Fine,” he snaps. “You want to know why I’m pushing this?
” Another shove. “I want you,” he hisses.
“I want you home. I want you to have a place to land. I want you with me and Holly and Poppy and the rest of the lunatics in Cedar Hollow. Because I’ve missed you, asshole.
Because I want my brother back. Because—” His voice cracks but he just clears his throat and keeps going, laying it out with brutal rawness.
“Because I hate that I left you, and I regret it every single second of my day.”
He releases me, but I can’t move.
His words have me pinned more effectively in place than his hand ever did.
And then before I can truly snap out of it…
He’s gone.