Page 87 of Hearts of Fairlake

"Wow, you are...very worked up today. Would it get me killed if I said it's kind of hot?"

Kyle stopped and looked at me in confusion and annoyance. “Are you kidding me? There's the shittiest circulation in this tent, so I'm covered in sweat, and there's no flooring, so I'm covered in dirt too. I'm beyond irritated, half crazy at the moment. I probably still smell of stale alcohol and booze from a puking incident earlier, which, by the way, thankGodthey haven't been as bad today. And fuck knows, I slept like absolute shit last night, and I swear to fucking God, if Fred tries to do something this big again, there is no way in hell I'm doing this shit alone like I have been doing, or basically alone anyway. And I hope you're prepared to arrest me if it happens because I will end up on the news if he tries to say otherwise."

Some people wouldn't understand it, but this was one of the reasons I loved him to the ends of the earth. He had never been able to understand it, but there was something unbelievably charming about listening to him lose his shit while still having his shit together. I'd watched him have a 'meltdown' much like this before while he carefully made sure to keep a man's innards inside him while they were loading him up for the ambulance ride. It was his way ofletting off steam while maintaining control and focus on the task at hand.

Well, maybe I thought it was cute because he could be so friendly and pleasant with people until his temper rose and lashed out wildly, if harmlessly, all over the place.

"Get that look off your face," he snapped, jabbing a finger in my direction.

"What look?" I asked innocently.

"The one that says, 'Aww, he's so cute right now' and 'Aww, I love him so much.' I'm not in the mood."

"You're not in the mood for me to find you cute and think I love you?"

"I'm not in the mood for you to patronize me with facial expressions while I'm trying to put out several fires with minimal help."

"Doesn't patronizing require me to say something?"

"Yes, so stop looking at me in that tone of voice."

Which, of course, only made me laugh even harder. “But I do think you're cute, and I do love you."

"Yeah, well, I don't like you very much right now."

I took hold of him, knowing he was being a dirty little liar when he didn't fight me as I pulled him close to me and kissed him atop his head. “Seriously though, you okay in here?"

He sighed, leaning forward to press his forehead against my shoulder. “More or less. It's just been a lot, and Annie can only do so much when she's here. I've got to handle all the actual treatment on my own, and it's just...a lot."

"Dare I ask if you’ve talked to the mayor about this?"

"That absolute fuck told me I seemed to have a handle on things."

"And you told him you were going to get a handle on his throat?"

"I...damn, am I getting predictable?"

I snickered. “It just struck me as something you'd say."

"I'm choosing to take that to mean you've gotten that good at understanding me rather than me being predictable. I'm not ready to deal with the idea of the second thing," he said, wincing and placing a hand on his lower back. "And can I just say I'm not getting any younger...as my back has been intent on reminding me."

"Those mean old forties have crept up on you," I told him with a smile, which only made him scowl because he hated when I teased him while he complained...and I believed he secretly liked it too. But this was Kyle we were talking about, he wasn't going to admit that so long as he could draw breath to deny it.

"The only thing mean and old around here is me," he grumbled and sighed, knowing how ridiculous he sounded. "Fine, not old, but older."

I chuckled, running my hand through his hair and ignoring him when he grumbled about me making it worse because we both knew his mad scientist hair wouldn't get any worse. "Doesn't look like you're getting any grays yet, so maybe you're still on the younger side."

"I'd make a comment that it's not the same for you, but you don't care about your gray hair."

"It helps when my husband likes to run his hands through my hair, extolling the virtues of those grays."

"Maybe," he agreed begrudgingly. "But you're dealing with aging just fine."

"I wouldn't say that," I chuckled, looking him over. "When I first saw those gray hairs, I was not happy. I plucked the first fewanddid that for a few months whenever I spotted one."

He looked up at me in surprise. “Seriously? You never told me that."

"Probably because the first time you spotted them, you keptrunning your hands through my hair and made me late for my shift," I reminded him, also remembering we were in public and 'jumped me and gave me a blowjob in the hallway' was probably not something I should be sharing with the world.

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