Chapter Sixteen – Jamie

 

“He does it to piss me off, you know. It’s bullshit. There’s nothing he likes more than riling me up. It’s like some fucked-up fucking foreplay, and there’s nothing I can do, because he seems to have my damn manual. He can push all my buttons in all the right combinations. And my God, I’m trying, but one day, I’m going to flip my shit and he’s going to come face to face with my temper.” I sighed and sat right back. “I mean, what can I do? He kissed me when he didn’t need to, and the worst part of it all is that if he kissed me now, I probably wouldn’t push him away. It’s so messed up. I’m so messed up. I hate his guts, but I can’t stop wanting him, either. What am I supposed to do about this?”

My mom’s cat, Barbie, blinked her liquid-amber eyes at me. “Merow.”

“Yeah. Merow.” I resumed my stroking of her back, and she purred once again. “Why am I even telling you? You’re a cat. This isn’t Disney. You’re not going to suddenly start talking, are you? If only.”

“Are you talking to the cat again?” Dad asked, joining me in the living room.

“Yes. She doesn’t answer back. It’s a nice change from work.” I scratched Barbie under the chin, and her purr got louder. “That’s right,” I cooed. “You just listen and listen, don’t you, Barbs? Good girl. You like that.”

Dad looked at me as if I’d lost it.

I had. I’d lost it. And I didn’t even care. There was no chance it—whatever it was—was coming back until these next two weeks were up.

“Still struggling at the garage?” He sat down on his armchair and picked up his glasses. He perched him on his nose and peered over at me. “Didn’t you go out with him this weekend?”

“I didn’t go out with him.” I stilled my hands. “His grandfather tricked me into attending his great-aunt’s birthday with him, and since you always taught me to respect my elders, I had to go.”

“Merow.” Barbie glared at me, protesting my lack of attention.

“All right, all right.” I, once again, continued pleasing the queen of the household.

Dad side-eyed the cat. He never did like her. “Fine, sure. You were being respectful. If that’s what the kids call it these days.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“You’re sure acting like it.”

“Only around Dex. And it’s not my fault he gets on my nerves. He knows just what to say and do to get under my skin.” I huffed. “What am I supposed to do? Ignore him?”

Dad set his tablet down on his lap. “Yes, darling. That’s exactly what you do. By all accounts, your relationship is based upon a foundation of solid bickering and uncomfortable attraction.”

“Please stop talking.”

“And he knows how get your motor running, so to speak.”

“Dad. No.”

“Ignore him. Stop letting him get to you, and eventually, you’ll reach a peaceful harmony.”

“Okay, for a start.” I held out one finger. “There’s nothing peaceful about him. At all. Not even when he shuts his cakehole.”

Barbie jumped onto the floor. Apparently, I was no longer interesting to her.

“And to continue,” I went on, “bickering is how we cope with each other. Our so called “relationship” is built upon nothing but hatred and, fine, an uncomfortable attraction.”

“Ah, the way all good relationships start,” Mom said, walking in with Barbie in her arms.

The cat was a traitor. She didn’t care who gave her attention, and she got it.

I stared at Mom as she sat down. “No, Mother, that is not the way all good relationships start. They start with a little bit of mutual respect and actually, oh, being able to tolerate being in the presence of the other person.”

A smile curled her lips. “I saw you eating pizza on your doorstep on Saturday.”

Dad chuckled.

“No, no, that’s not tolerance. All right, so it was, but it was after he hadn’t been so…Dex…all night. He was actually likeable for a few hours.” Why was this hard for my parents to understand?

“I think you like each other a whole lot more than you think you do,” Mom said, running her hand over Barbie’s white fur. “But you’re both so conditioned into hating each other because of the way you met that admitting it is akin to a death wish.”

“I’d rather die,” I admitted. “If I liked him, that was.”

Dad chuckled again.

“Glad to see my misery is amusing to you, Dad.” I huffed and folded my arms over my chest, staring at the TV.

“Your misery isn’t amusing, Jamie. It’s your stubbornness. You get that from your mother.”

Mom snorted. “Gets it from me indeed. She gets it from you, honey, and that’s the truth.”

“Nope. Definitely you.”

“Over my dead body.”

I stood up. “While you two are being stubborn about being stubborn, I’m going to shower. Text me when dinner’s ready, could you?”

I left while they were still arguing over who’d given me my stubborn streak.

The irony…

 

***

 

Rain beat down on the garage roof. It pitter pattered against the window behind me and the metal doors to the repair shop. For the first time since I’d worked here, the doors were shut, meaning the fluorescent lights gave the area a horrible, bright haze that had already given me a headache.

I blew into my mug of soup, doing my best to ignore the way Charley peeked up from her coloring every few seconds. Dex had apparently been wrangled into babysitting again while Roxy had another interview.

Charley glanced up at me, staring for a second before looking away again.

I never appreciated how creepy kids were until right this second. I swear, the kid looked into my soul, and every time she did, she uncovered some deep, dark freaking secret.

I felt like I was in the middle of a damn horror movie.

She looked at me the way all the demon kids did before they killed you.

Would anyone hear my scream?

Sheesh.

Charley glanced up again, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Do you need something?” I asked her.

She clutched her red pen tightly. “Are you the reason Uncle Dex was angry last night?”

All right. Wasn’t expecting that.

“Uh…I don’t know. Did he say I was?”

She pursed her lips. “He said something about that…sucking woman.”

Good to know she had more than one cuss word replacement.

“Oh. Uh, well, maybe?” It came out as more of a question than a reply. “I really don’t know,” I said honestly.

I mean, I probably was, but I couldn’t explain why to a seven-year-old, could I?

Charley nodded and capped her pen. She dropped it back into the mug with a clink. “He moaned for ages until Pops told him to shut his beaver’s butt.”

“His beaver’s butt?”

She looked side to side, then leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “His damn ass.”

His damn…

Ha.

Ten points to Roxy. That was a good one.

I pointed at Charley and gave her a thumb up with a nod. “Got it. Did he shut up?”

She sighed with the attitude of a teen. “It’s Uncle Dex. Do you think he shut up?”

I didn’t even need to consider it. “Not a chance.”

“It went on for hours. He said he’d fire her to keep his sanity if it didn’t mean she’d win. Then Aunt Greta told him if he didn’t pipe down and let her watch her show, she’d take a wrench and shove it—”

“Thank you, Charley,” Dex drawled, joining us in the staff room. “That’s enough about family game night.”

“It wasn’t family game night!” she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. “It was you driving everyone insane night!”

I hid my smile behind my mug as I sipped my hot soup.

“Knew this was a bad idea,” he muttered.

“Besides, I didn’t even tell her the worst bit because I still want my ice-cream you promised me if I didn’t tell her.”

“The worst bit?” I looked between them both. “It gets worse.”

“For hi—”

“Shoop.” Dex clapped his hands. “Shush, Charley.”

“No, let her talk.” I glared at him. “What have you been saying about me?”

“Something she shouldn’t have been listening to in the first place,” he ground out, turning his dark stare from her to me. “It was between me and Rox.”

I put my mug on the table and stood up. “Well, now it’s between you and me, so spit it out.”

He said nothing, just continuing to glare at me.

I met his gaze beat for beat, intensity for intensity. I wasn’t going to back down on this. Charley hadn’t told me stuff I didn’t already know. Well, mostly.

“Do I still get my ice-cream?” she asked in a small voice.

Dex relaxed. “Yes. I promise. There’s nothing booked in after lunch, so I’ll take you, okay?”

“Okay,” she answered, brightening and reaching for her pens again.

I stared at the side of Dex’s head. He was deliberately focusing on her to ignore me, so I grabbed my mug and stormed out of the room. I didn’t care if he followed me. As much as I wanted to know what he’d been saying, right now, I wanted to talk to him even less.

The only thing I could handle right now was being well away from him.

For the first time ever, I was glad when the phone rang.

I darted through to reception with my soup in hand, then grabbed the phone and answered. It was a standard request, so I booked it in, said goodbye, and hung up.

When I put the phone down, Dex was staring at me.

“What?” It came out harsher than I’d intended.

He hesitated. “I deserved that.”

I glared at him. “Unless you’re going to tell me what you said and apparently want to keep quiet or give me something to do, I don’t care about what you have to say.”

“It wasn’t that bad. It’s just Charley overexaggerating like kids do.”

“If it’s not that bad, there’s no reason to keep it from me.” I folded my arms. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

He raised an eyebrow as if to silently call me a liar—which I was—and leaned against the counter. “There’s nothing booked in after lunch, and nothing booked this morning that I can’t handle myself. You can take the day off if you want.”

“In other words, you don’t need me, so I can take my bad mood and go away.”

“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”

“Well, they’re arguably better than the ones you spew all by yourself.”

His lips twitched into the tiniest of smiles. “Not many people can make me speechless, but you just did it.”

“Yet, here you are, still speaking.” I rolled my eyes and tucked my hair behind my ear. “If I can really go…”

“You can go.” He held up his hands. “Preferably before you try to murder me.”

“Cute. You think those thoughts are restrained just to today. I won’t forget this.” I wiggled my finger in his face, then hit him with one final glare before I stormed off toward the staff room.

Charley looked up when I clanged my mug into the sink. “Oh no, Jamie. Are you mad?”

I took a deep breath, turned, and smiled at her. I was, but not at her, and she didn’t deserve to feel my anger just because her uncle was an ass.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m just going home because there’s nothing to do.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Not because Uncle Dex has been talking about you to my mom?”

“Absolutely not,” I lied smoothly. “There’s nothing to do, that’s all. There’s no point me sitting around here for that, huh?”

“No, I suppose not.” She capped her pen and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You look sad.”

“Maybe I’m a little mad,” I finally gave in. “But not at you, okay?”

“Are you really going home because you’re mad? Or is there really no cars?”

“Bit of both.” There was no point lying to the kid. She was smart as hell. “But it’s okay.”

Slowly, she nodded, picking another pen out of her cup. “You should get ice-cream with us. Ice-cream makes everything better.”

She wasn’t lying.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said softly.

“Why not?”

I paused. How the hell did you explain stuff like this to a kid? “Well, me and your Uncle Dex aren’t friends right now, so I don’t think ice-cream would be very fun for you.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Okay. I understand.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe another time?”

That made her brighten. “You promise?”

“Sure. I promise.”