He growled, and I could literally see him radiating with anger. If he was anyone else, I would probably have been scared shitless right then, but this was Desmond, and he would never, in ten thousand lifetimes ever, hurt me.
“You don’t get to make my decisions for me.”
“I’m not trying to.”
I gave him a look that plainly said he must take me for a fool. “You’ve been trying to do that for years. It makes you crazy that I won’t leave Los Angeles.”
“Yes, what a villain I am for wanting to live in the same time zone as my wife. A truer monster never existed.”
The deadpan sarcasm was almost worse than the rage because it made me feel like I was the only one in the room being unreasonable, and that, in turn, managed to stoke my own anger.
This is why word fights are the worst. Give me a street brawl any day rather than having to deal with my husband being coolly logical when all I want to do is scream about things like a maniac. Since he was the one who started this, it seemed extra unfair he wouldn’t sink to my level.
If he wanted to fight with logic, we would do things his way.
“What if I asked you to move to Los Angeles?”
He blinked at me. Honestly, I’m surprised this had never come up before. I had made a lot of concessions with my job so I could come home regularly and be with him, but for obvious reasons I hadn’t ever suggested he come to me instead. I knew his job kept him here. But if we were playing it petty, then by all means, I had my own ammo.
“What are you talking about?”
“You could move, come live with me in L.A., be close to my work. I could stop flying here all the time. Wouldn’t it be so lovely and easy?” My sarcasm was more biting, and definitely at a higher level of asshole than his had been.
“You know I can’t move to Los Angeles.” He was snidely matter-of-fact ab
out it, almost disgusted by the suggestion.
I let his words hang unanswered in the air for a moment, hoping he would understand exactly how I had just won.
A flicker of recognition showed, but he didn’t say anything.
“You can’t move why?” I urged, wanting him to say it out loud.
Pettiness tastes like rotten lemons, but once you’ve taken a bite, you can’t stop chewing.
He glanced away from me then back, a flare of defiance showing me we were by no means done here. “Because my pack is here. The same pack you are the queen of.”
“And my job is in Los Angeles.”
“That’s such bullshit. There are FBI offices all over the country. There’s one downtown you have no problem working out of on the regular.”
“When I need to, but if you’d ever bothered to come see where I work, you would know it’s not the same. Our lab is in L.A. My partners are in L.A.”
“Your partner is right here.”
I took a deep breath, feeling a headache burning behind my eyes. It had started because I’d been punched in the head, but now it was being heartily fed by this little argument.
“We’re talking in fucking circles. You want me to be a werewolf. You say it’s for my own protection, but you know perfectly well it’s so you can have me here all the time, so I can’t live in L.A.”
“You belong here.”
“You mean I belong to you?”
He groaned audibly and got to his feet. He towered over me with a look on his face that quite frankly suggested he would rather throttle me where I stood than continue to go ten rounds like this. Same, dude.
“Why do you do that? Twist my words like that? You make it sound as if it’s so unreasonable for me to want these things, and to want to be with you, and you never stop to consider that your stubbornness is possibly keeping you from being happy.”
Oof.