Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 (28 page)

Nick rubs hard at the back of his neck, recognizing when it’s time to quit. They can talk about it later, maybe, when the kids are in bed. In the meantime, he’s more worried about that gaping hole in this neighborhood. “You got any of those big garbage bags?” he asks, bending to start pulling up the sofa cushions. “Maybe a vacuum?”

Taryn manages to find both, enlisting Caitlin to run the DustBuster over the carpet and couch. When the popcorn’s done, she makes the boys dash upstairs and put on thicker socks to be extra-careful, doubling up two layers of white athletic cotton. In the meantime, Nick tapes the garbage bags over the open window frame. Ten minutes later, everyone settles in to watch a family-friendly comedy.
So, you know
, Nick thinks bitterly.
Just your average Friday night
.

Halfway through the film, Taryn slips her toes under his thigh. After a minute, Nick circles her ankle and squeezes.

The boys go to bed a while later, Taryn walking them through teeth-brushing and face-washing and pajamas. Then, as promised, she and Caitlin settle in to pick out jeans on the laptop, side by side at the kitchen island. It’s almost midnight. Nick knows he’s being waited out, that she’s stalling on purpose, but he parks himself in front of late-night TV anyway. He can play this game too.

As it turns out, he never gets the chance.

At half past, the front door opens with a rattle. Nick knows it’s Jess because the boy ducks his head into the living room first, catching sight of Nick and rolling his pale, Falvey-family eyes. He looks fucked-up something awful, the sloppy salute he delivers ending in a middle finger. Nick isn’t even sure the damage to the window registers. On instinct, he gets up to follow the kid into the kitchen, hanging back just in case.

“Any particular reason your boyfriend is still sitting on my couch right now?” is Jesse’s opening line, trooping past his sisters to stick his head inside the fridge. Cait and Taryn look up in unison, startled. For the moment, all of the Falveys have their backs to Nick. He isn’t sure whether or not he should change that.

Taryn recovers first. “Caitlin, go upstairs,” she says, closing the laptop with a snap. Cait opens her mouth to protest, then thinks better of it, standing up and heading for the hall. She does a double take at Nick lurking there but doesn’t say anything, waggling her fingers and mouthing a silent good night. Nick waves back.

“You wanna tell me why the hell there was a fucking brick in the middle of the floor when we got home from Caitlin’s birthday party?” Taryn continues once she’s gone. “And thanks for making it, by the way, it really meant a lot to her that you showed up.”

Jesse shifts his weight. “I was working,” he counters, a whine in his voice like there’s no way this is the first time they’re having this conversation, or even the tenth.

“Working on what, exactly?” Taryn demands. That’s Nick’s question too, and he’s glad that she’s asking it—even from behind the kid looks wrecked, swaying on his feet as he stands there. Addiction runs in families, Nick reminds himself. “What the fuck is going on here, Jesse? Are we even safe in this house right now?” She glances over her shoulder and notices Nick then, gestures so that Jesse will notice him too. Neither of them look thrilled to see him standing there. “He’s saying I should call the cops, and I can’t, because I don’t know what in the hell illegal shit you’re into.”

Jesse jerks his head in Nick’s direction, all attitude. “He should mind his own fucking business, don’t you think?”

“That’s not the point!” Taryn looks like she’s two seconds away from stamping her foot. “You can’t keep making me choose between protecting the kids and protecting you, Jesse, it’s not—”

“Can you relax?” Jesse snaps. “The kids are fucking fine.” He moves to brush past her then, his skinny shoulder hitting hers harder than Nick’s crazy about.

“Don’t walk away from me.” Taryn grabs his arm but Jesse shakes it off with more force than anyone’s expecting. Taryn reels back to get her balance, and Nick takes two giant steps forward.

“Easy,” he says, in a voice that isn’t easy at all, even to his own ears. His heart’s pounding again, a heavy tattoo behind his ribs. “Hey.”

“Nick,” Taryn says. “I’ve got this.”

Nick shakes his head. Mind his own business, and maybe he should, but he’s in this now and he loves her and he cares about those kids, and everything else is bullshit. “You need to go,” he tells Jesse, quietly as he can.

“Nick—” That’s Taryn, shaking her head. Two bright, angry pops of color have bloomed on her cheeks.

Jesse snorts. “This is my fucking house, boss man.” He’s a tall guy, about Nick’s height, but his frame is teenager skinny. Nick reminds himself that he isn’t going to hurt this kid.

“I think everyone just needs to cool off,” he says instead, faking calm. “Think stuff over.” Nick can’t quite stop himself from pointing out the obvious. “Who are you kidding, Jess? You’re never here. You leave your sister and the babies to deal with the consequences of your shit while you’re off—”

“Nick,” Taryn screeches, but she’s about a half-second too late; Jesse swings. It’s clumsy, and Nick sees it coming a mile off, so the punch lands on his shoulder instead of his chin. It hurts like a motherfucker all the same. Nick grabs both of Jesse’s wrists before the boy can get any other bright ideas, grip hard enough that something grinds under his palms. The bones are so fine, it almost feels like he’s holding Taryn. The whole fight is over in five seconds.

“Fuck you,” Jesse spits, struggling. His eyes are watering, the drugs or the hold Nick’s got on him. Maybe even the embarrassment. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything.”

Nick actually feels bad for him. “Like I said,” he tells the kid gently. “You should probably go cool off.”

“No, you should,” Taryn orders, insinuating herself between them like a tiny Napoleon. “Let go.” She pries Nick’s fingers up, hitting Jesse in the center of his chest when he lunges again after being released. “Sit the fuck down,” she tells him. “Right now, Jess, I swear to Christ.” She sounds near tears.

Jesse sits. “I want him gone,” he mumbles.

“Shut up,” Taryn says, but she’s already dragging Nick down the hallway. The door is at the foot of the stairs, and her voice drops to a whisper. “Get out.”

Nick feels himself blanch. “Oh, come on. I’m not leaving you alone with—”

“With who?” Taryn yells. “With my brother, Nick? For real?” She recovers herself, taking the volume down a huge bump. Her face is an angry mask. “Jesse’s right, you don’t know him. Whatever the fuck he’s into, he’s still my little brother. And I want you out of our house.”

She’s shoving his coat into his arms. Nick responds on autopilot, shaking it out and fitting it over his shoulders. He breathes. “Look, if this is because I grabbed him—”

“This is because of a lot of things,” Taryn says, brutally calm. It’s then that Nick realizes they aren’t having an ordinary fight.

“Wait a sec.” He shakes his head. This whole thing got out of hand fast, there’s no denying that. He thinks he can dial it back, he knows he can, but his head is too noisy to figure out how. “Can you just relax for a second?”

Taryn shrugs. “I’m relaxed,” she says coolly—and she is, fuck, like she’s decided this scene doesn’t bother her so now it doesn’t, like it’s just that easy. She isn’t even breathing hard. Nick feels sweat prickle underneath the collar of his jacket. “You’re the one who’s acting like a maniac,” she tells him. “And you’re the one who can go.”

“Taryn,” Nick tries again, one boot on and his coat unzipped. He reaches for her, and she sidesteps. “Taryn.” He blinks, trying to get his brain to work, trying to figure out the magic words to get her to drop the act and turn back into herself. It feels like there’s something that just won’t compute. “Is this—are you seriously calling this off right now?” It’s so absurd he almost laughs, except for the part where he’s pretty sure she isn’t kidding.

Taryn shrugs again, an old gesture Nick recognizes from a year ago, fuck you and whatever horse you rode in on. “Looks that way.” Her expression is like a closed door.

With terrible, awful clarity, Nick remembers the encounter with Pete outside Fairview, her all-consuming coldness. Taryn has always been a person who doesn’t budge once she’s decided something is finished. Nick used to be so afraid of tripping that switch, and now he’s finally gone and done it. “You gonna tell me why?” he asks, feeling the bitterness start to seep into him already. “Read me out the full Dear John?”

Taryn doesn’t budge. “Does it matter?” she asks him, in a voice like it doesn’t. “This is my family.”

Yeah. Nick was warned, he guesses. He fucked it up anyway. He stares at her for another minute, and when it’s clear she’s good and finished, Nick feels the last of the guts go out of him. “Okay then,” he says, zipping his jacket to his chin. Then, because he’s pissed as all hell and he can, “Let’s not make this awkward at work.”

Taryn recognizes the dig, he can tell, her own words from the night of the fundraiser hurled back in her face. She doesn’t react. “Sure.”

“Sure,” Nick echoes. It feels like something behind his rib cage is cracking. Taryn looks as calm as if she were taking out the trash.

He makes it all the way to his truck before realizing he forgot to give Caitlin the books he ordered for her off Amazon.

He doesn’t go back.

Chapter Nineteen

She gets back into the kitchen and finds Jesse picking at some leftover spaghetti, hands like pale, twitchy spiders and a sweaty-white face to match. “Look,” he starts, some lame nonapology on his lips. Taryn holds up her palm to cut him off.

(
It’s your fault
, Caitlin told him after Pete, her voice all injured accusation. It’d be nice to put the blame on him now, absolutely, but Taryn knows it isn’t true. Everybody thinks they can fix her. Some things aren’t meant to be repaired.)

“Just take care of it,” she says. “Whatever the fuck you’ve got going on.” She tosses the popcorn bag in the trash, leaves the greasy bowl in the sink for the morning. “You have cash to fix the window, or no?”

“Not on me.” He’s gone oddly docile now that Nick’s gone. He looks about twelve years old. “I can get it though.”

Taryn shakes her head. She knew Nick wouldn’t hurt him, was pretty sure he couldn’t hurt Nick. It scared her, seeing them go at each other like that. She doesn’t know how this house got so fucking violent all of a sudden. She hasn’t been paying enough attention. She let herself get distracted, and everything spiraled out of control. “Don’t bother,” she says.

Upstairs she washes her makeup off and changes into her pajamas. Presses her face into the pillow so Caitlin won’t hear her cry. It feels terrible, it feels so incredibly bad. Taryn sucks in breath after breath as quietly as she can and tries to stop shaking underneath the quilt. She’s broken up with guys before. She was with Pete a lot longer than Nick, so it stands to reason that this shouldn’t feel so hugely, wrackingly—

Fuck.

Around two she almost texts him:
I’m an idiot, I didn’t mean it, let me come over and I’ll make it up however you need
. Her finger’s hovering over the send key before she changes her mind. Because that’s the definition of insanity, isn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome? Romance, love, whatever—it isn’t going to happen for her, that much is clear. She thought it was different this time—she thought Nick was different, she really did—but she was wrong.

He’s not on the schedule the next morning, thank God, but Doc is, her hair pulled into a perky tail at the crown of her head. “Oh no,” she says, taking one look at Taryn’s tired, puffy face. “You broke up with Kanelos too?”

Taryn blinks. She thinks of what it was like after Pete, how the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it with anyone, how her first instinct was to deny everything and act like it never even happened. She wants to be like that now, wants to be tough and impenetrable, but either this is a different kind of breakup entirely or otherwise being with Nick has softened her exoskeleton in some miserable fucking way because she finds herself nodding, and after shift at a wine bar in Stockbridge she lets Doc buy her an absurdly expensive bottle of pinot noir even though it’s only four in the afternoon.

“Are you okay?” Emily asks once they’re settled. She’s looking at Taryn like she’s expecting her to fold in on herself and disappear at any moment. “Want to talk about it?”

The question would piss Taryn off if it came from anyone else—like the bottle was a buy, like Doc thinks she’s owed the gory details now—but after everything that happened with Rosemary and how quiet Doc kept about it afterward, Taryn trusts her. Has trusted her, really, going on a long time now. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly, gulping her wine. It’s dark in the bar, nice ambient lighting that lets her pretend it’s later in the day than it is. “I just… I don’t think I can date now, is all.”

Emily furrows her immaculate brow in sympathy. “Yeah?” she asks, turning her body on the stool to give Taryn her full attention. “Too soon after Peter?”

Too soon after— Taryn outright laughs in shock, nearly spitting the wine. Of course. Of course that would be what anyone would assume. She was with Pete for almost a year, about to move in with him, whereas she and Nick have only been dating for a couple months. From the outside, it probably just looks like she rebounded, no harm, no foul.

For a horrible second, she wonders if that’s what Nick thinks.