2
Angelo
Like Furniture
“Laine?” I knock on her front door for the third time in as many minutes and frown at the non-answer.
She’s here. Or at least, her car’s here.
I lean back and glance toward the driveway to check I’m not seeing things, but sure enough, my prized Charger sits behind her little Mazda. Big, beefy American muscle, behind her little Japanese zip car.
She’s here. Or maybe she’s gone for a walk.
That’d actually be a good sign. A little sunlight, something different than sitting alone inside all the time.
I really should leave, because it would be weird if she came back to find me sitting on her front steps. I’ve known her forever. I shouldn’t be insecure, but I am, and she’s the only person on this planet that makes me feel that way. I worry about what she thinks, I worry that she’ll think I’m an idiot.
I worry I’m invisible to her.
Her big brother’s best friend.
It’s like… everybody loves a couch. Couches are comfortable, they’ll always be there to rest on when you’re weary. But no one ever thinks about the couch when it’s not being used.
My biggest fear is that Laine Lenaghan will neverseeme except as her brother’s friend. I’m just a piece of furniture to her, and she’s in such a dark place now, I can’t tell her any different.
I mightneverbe able to tell her.
I should go home, play some music, sit on the couch and rest. I’ve had a long day at the garage, my hands hurt from tools, and my brain hurts from a parts order one of my guys fucked up. It’s my garage, my problem, and a solid reason why I need to hire someone else to take care of the head splitting office bullshit.
I should go.
But my stomach won’t let me move off this stoop; my stomach says fuck insecurity, she’s right here in her apartment, and I need to go in.
I pull the keys from my pocket and eye the silver metal that’ll let me into her home. I’ve had keys to this place since the girls moved in, just like I have keys to Luc’s place, and Scotch’s. I even have keys to the chief’s house. It’s convenient and easy when one of us calls and asks someone to swing by a house to grab something we forgot.
Leaning forward, I press my ear to the heavy front door and close my eyes like a true creep. If a cruiser moves down the street right now, brotherhood or not, they’d probably arrest me for being a weirdo.
But I feel her here.
Sort of.
I feel lots of things.
My life has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs; I have the best friends that I now call family. They’re the ups. Then I have a daddy that liked to use my mom as a punching bag whenever he got bored. Those were the downs.
I spent my youth hugging my crying mom after my dad was done and had gone back to that fucking couch.
I know ups, I know downs, and I know gut feelings.
I could be sitting in class and my gut would turn. I knew what it meant, I knew every time. Even my best friend knew, just by the way my spine would straighten. Once the bell rang for the day, I’d haul ass across town to our shitty house and find my mom with a brand-new split lip, and when he was feeling extra angry, she had broken bones, too.
My dad was a fucking asshole that deserved everything he got, and so much more, but that’s why I can’t walk away from this apartment – my turned stomach won’t allow it. I feel her in there, my body is drawn to hers. It’s been like that ever since her second year in college, when she turned to me with a smile and changed everything.
I’d seen her smile since we were kids, I’d seen it a billion times. But that one time, when she was twenty or so, and so fucking beautiful it made my legs weak, something clicked and my world found a new North.
She was off getting a college degree, and I was back here working in a garage. Stained hands, dirty face, torn clothes. She’d come back between semesters; she was so fucking regal with her bright eyes and platinum hair.
She was too pure for me to risk touching with my stained hands.