Page 5 of Quentin
She glanced over her shoulder then. “You don’t have to yell, asshole. I’m five feet away.”
“Dammit, can you just let me be a man here?”
She relented a little bit, but not by much. “You are a man, Quentin. You just happen to be a man who got the hell beat out of him today. Now quit being a whiny little bitch and open the door.”
Ignoring his bitching, grumbling, and general grumpiness as he turned the key in the lock, she stepped past him and deposited the bags on the floor just inside the door as Quentin hit the lights. The whole place was done in shades of cream and white, the ultimate shabby chic cottage decor. Throw pillows and the dark finish of the hardwood floors were the only colors in the room. She couldn’t have pictured a more romantic getaway spot.If only it was a romantic getaway.
“There’s only one bed. I’ll take the couch,” he said.
Part of her wanted to protest. He was beat all to hell and sleeping on a too-short couch wouldn’t do him any favors. But there was just enough mean in her to be okay with it. It wouldn’t kill him, she thought, but it would make him uncomfortable as hell, andthathe deserved. “Just don’t go wandering in the night…I’d hate to be the second person to have to kick the shit out of you today.”
The look he gave her was pure challenge and one hundred percent pure Quentin. “You’re welcome to try, sweetheart, but you’re going to get more than you bargained for.”
God, he was sexy. Even pissed at him, with her heart half broken by him, all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off and climb him like a damn tree. So she did the only smart thing she ever had in her life and retreated, closing the bedroom door firmly behind her.
Quentin listened to the echo of the slamming door and smiled. He’d pissed her off, and he found that oddly satisfying. It soothed his battered ego to know he could still get under her skin. God, he craved her. It’d probably kill him were he to try and do anything about it since there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hurt, but hell, it’d be worth it. Rememberingjust how hot it was between them, he gave a split second’s thought to just knocking on that door and seeing what would happen. Whatever the cost, it would so be worth it.
Easing down onto the couch, he winced as the pain seared his ribs again. Digging his phone from his pocket, he did the one thing he hated more than anything. It was time to eat a little crow.
Pressing the speed dial number for his older brother, he braced himself for the lecture. He answered after the second ring. “What the fuck were you thinking? Do you have any idea how furious our sister is with you? How mad my wife is? And Loralei Crawford will likely never speak to any of us again!”
“I couldn’t help it. He just rubbed me the wrong way,” Quentin said, referring to their newly discovered half brother, Ciaran. The Irish bastard made him mad enough to chew glass.That wasn’t what had you torn up.
Quentin ignored the little whisper in his mind, the reminder of what he thought he’d seen in Patricia’s room. Every time he saw her, every time he stood over her bed, he still watched for some sign of life, some flicker of awareness. And every time he didn’t see it, the anger came, the cold fury and the pain. God above, the pain of it still cut into him like a knife. He was a thirty-year-old man, but the thing he wantedmore than anything in the world was just to talk with his mother.
For a split second, he’d thought it was happening. He’d seen her. A slight shifting of the muscles in her face, a tension,an awareness.As quickly as it had come, it had been gone, leaving him to wonder if it had ever really been there at all. The harsh reality— that he’d seen it because he wanted to and not because there was any real change in Patricia—had hit him like a rogue wave, swamping him with all the rage he tried so hard to keep locked down.
And then Ciaran, who had a chip on his shoulder that rivaled Quentin’s own in size, had said something to set him off. He honestly couldn’t even remember what it was. He’d just hit first, lashing out, desperately needing to funnel that fury intoanything, anyone else. Because he knew if he kept it inside him for a second longer, he would implode.
“Well, he kicked your ass for it. It was worse than watching Rousey and Holmes,” Clayton gloated.
Quentin grimaced. “Yeah, I’m aware. I feel every bit of it. The thing is, I might need his help, but if I ask?—”
“Oh, that’s fucking rich! You two beat the shit out of each other, and now you want to ask for a favor?”
“It’s not for me,” Quentin said. “A friend of mine is in a little bit of trouble. A lot of trouble actually.”
Clayton went quiet for a second. “Who is this friend?”
He didn’t want to tell him. It wasn’t for the reasons Lowey would imagine. She’d accuse him of not thinking she was good enough. The truth was that admitting to anyone, even his brother, that he cared enough about Lowey to involve himself in her problems would open him up to something he didn’t want to consider. If he let them know he was looking out for her, and then she cut him loose, it would be humiliating. But if it meant keeping her safe, he’d shout it from the rooftops and take the lumps.
“Harlow Tate,” he said grudgingly. “Joey Barnes is out of jail. He destroyed The Kicking Mule today…shot the place to hell and back.”
“And Silas denied his involvement completely, of course,” Clayton surmised. “Why thehelldo people keep voting for him?”
“Dear old Dad, of course,” Quentin replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Silas has been one of his cronies for the last decade. It served his purposes to keep Barnes in office, and we haven’t been lucky enough to have an election since.”
Clayton sighed heavily. “Look, I’ll talk to him…but you’re like his least favorite person in the world right now. So, don’t hold your breath.”
“I can’t…the fucker broke my ribs.”
Clayton laughed then. “It serves you right. Apparently, he’s the Celtic version of Chuck Norris.”
“You picked a fine fucking time to share that information. Here’s a clue, next time I’m about to go toe-to-toe with someone, you might want to tell me if their hands are registered as a lethal weapon.”
Clayton’s laughter escalated to the point that he was barely intelligible on the phone before finally dying down again to a manageable level. “Don’t put this shit on me. You did it…you and that smartass mouth. And I don’t know why you’ve got such a problem with him anyway. He got just as screwed over by Samuel as we did.”
Quentin couldn’t answer that. The truth was, he’d taken one look at Ciaran, and he’d known him. Deep down, he’d recognized that same raised chin, those squared shoulders. But it was the challenging glint in his eyes, like he was ready to piss in the face of the world. It was like looking in a mirror, and that had pissed him off more than anything. The fucked-uppsychology of trying to beat the hell out of someone because they reminded him of himself did not escape him.
