Page 118 of Reacher
Jesus fuck. Why does this shit always come to my fucking table?
“I’ll speak with them, Massimo, and perhaps you’d like to do the same. It’s their life, and if they don’t want to marry officially, I’m sure as hell not going to force them.”
He made a huffy sound.
“We’ve helped you out a lot recently, Reacher, don’t think this is a one sided relationship. I’m asking for your help. He either marries her, or she moves here with me. She’s bringing shame on the fucking family.”
“This is the twenty-first century, Massimo. It’s not our decision.”
“This is the mafia, Reacher, everything is my fucking decision. You have a week.”
I stared at the phone as the dial tone buzzed dimly. What the actual fuck?
“This a bad time?” Ice offered me a shit-eating grin, and watched as I slammed my phone down on the desk.
“It’s always a bad fucking time lately, Ice.”
“I could come back.” He started to move, and I jabbed a finger at the chair he was still mostly sitting in.
“We need to talk. Your attitude yesterday…”
He groaned. “You about to ground me or something? I’m a grown man, Pres. I get pissed sometimes, and right now I feel like I’m a fucking kid under house arrest.”
“How are you doing? Feeling the need to go get high, or whatever the fuck it is you do?”
He smirked at me, shrugging his shoulders. He leaned over and picked up a pen from my desk, clicking the top a few times.
“Always feeling the need, if I’m honest, and I don’t know if that ever goes away. Does it? How do I live like that? Tell me that, Mr-In-Charge of my fucking life. How do I get up each fucking morning, with burning inside of me, and a desperate need for something to take the edge off? How do I fucking function like that, when I know a little powder will make it all better?”
This was way out of my realm of knowledge. I needed Stitch, and he was supposed to be here.
I picked up my phone again, and that’s when the door opened, and he stepped in.
“Sorry. I was stuck on a call.” He looked like shit. Like he hadn’t slept in weeks.Hell.
“Ice was just telling me that he needs help.”
Ice glared right back at me, the insolent fucker.
“That’s not what I was fucking saying. I was saying that it’s a fucking mess, that’s all. What if I moderate my use, huh? What if I just use a little now and then, when I need to get through the day?”
Stitch groaned, slumping in the seat beside him.
“Slippery slope, my brother. Just a little becomes a little more and a lot more, until you’re right back where you were.”
Thank god he’d finally shown up. I was happy to let him talk, because he had a calming influence on the club members that I just didn’t possess. It was why he was so essential to my fucking life. To all of our lives.
Ice pulled at his hair a little, still clicking my pen with the other hand. His fidgety behaviour was starting to wind me up too, so I reached over and snatched the pen from him, desperate to stop that damn clicking.
“Ice, you had too much on your shoulders, brother, and that’s our fault; me and Reacher. We had a duty to you and we failed.Trust me when I say that’s killing us right now.” He paused for a moment, swallowing hard. Was it the thought of what else might really be killing him? The word had even hit me in the gut when he said it.
“Sharing your duties isn’t us trying to demote you, or demoralise you, or show you up. It’s our way of showing that we know what you do is so fucking vital that we were absolutely lost without you, and it made us realise that you had too much weight on your shoulders. We just want to ease the burden on you. Just enough so you can breathe.”
Ice looked frustrated. “So at a time when I need to be busy every second, so I don’t think about what I really need, you bastards are going to enforce free fucking time on me?”
“Ice, you can still work as hard as you want, and… well, I’m betting that teaching your brothers your skills is gonna keep you plenty busy anyway…”
“And that’s the other thing… who the fuck can teach those morons anything?”
