Page 80 of Between Brothers

Chapter 35

Blue

I still had a job. I couldn’t fucking believe that one… but I did. Maybe because losing two of us had been pretty damaging, or crippling. Who the fuck knew? All I knew was that I went back to work to see if I could get my job back and the foreman had grunted and said I’d never lost it and welcome back from my fuckin’ vacation.

When I’d stood there dumbfounded he’d told me how many hours of vacation I had left and to get to it before he changed his mind.

I went back to the club, cleaned up, and now I was on Jake and Hayley’s doorstep, my heart pounding in my chest, terrified that I wouldn’t even be allowed to see her. He opened the door at my knock and grunted.

“What do you want?”

“I was hoping to see Hayley.”

“What if she doesn’t want to see you?” he demanded and he had every right to be pissed.

“Then I’ll leave her be, but I would really like to hear that from her if it’s alright.”

He looked me over and sighed, nodding. He opened the door wider and let me in the house, shutting it behind us.

“She’s in her studio.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. If it were up to me I’d ‘ve shut that door right in your damn face, but it ain’t up to me and I’m scared for my little girl again.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He sighed and said, “She’s gone quiet again. Won’t even talk to me, barely even comes in the damn house. Just stays out there all day and all night. I can’t get her to take her pills, I can’t get her to talk, or go out, and I don’t want her coming back to work… not yet. I don’t know what to do…”

“Let me try?”

He harrumphed, “Not sure what that’ll do; you dropped her like a bad habit. She not only lost that friend of yers, she lost you, too. At least as far as I’m concerned. Leaves me asking myself what yer gonna do when the going gets tough in other ways.”

“That’s fair,” I agreed, nodding.

“You hurt my little girl,” he accused. “Can’t say I’m ever gonna let you come back from that. Not after how many times she’s been hurt before.”

I tried not to let my irritation with people get to me, I mean, I lost my best friend, my lover and love, too. Losing Cell had hurt me bone deep…

Losing Cell had hurt Hayley, too. Losing you, what do you think that did?My traitorous mind whispered.

“You better go on, before I change my mind,” Jake said and I nodded and went through the house and out back. The lights were on inside her studio, the crickets chirping lazily out here, my heart picking up and keeping pace with them as I crossed to her studio door.

I opened it up on silent hinges and stopped cold, staring at her in a white high-low dress, her bare feet poised on the bottom rung of her stool as she bent over her work, a curl of smoke rising from the solder she laid.

She called over her shoulder, “Dad, in or out please. I don’t want moths coming in.”

I stepped in and shut the door, clearing my throat. She looked up, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, her braid slipping over her shoulder to lay along her back and she froze.

“What are you doing here?” she asked and it wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t friendly either… if anything, it was cautious.

“Came to see you.”

She bowed her head and switched off her soldering iron, setting it aside. She got to her feet and I eyed a bandage around one and took a step forward.

“What happened?”

“It’s old… like three days old. I stepped on a piece of glass.”

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