Page 28 of Newly Tied

“That’s not true. You have the longest fuse of anyone I know.”

“No.”

“Yes. Think about Doyle and then tell me how you’re always mad.”

“Oh, that doesn’t count. Have you ever seen him in a good mood?”

“When he’s eatin’.”

Lang shrugged.

“But to my point, this time, you have to keep an open mind.”

“I’ll try.”

“Try harder,” Talia said, and I hadn’t realized she was out of her chair until she walked around behind her brother to stand next to my chair. I got up, she sat down, and I crouched between them. “I think sometimes you’re so closed off because you worry so much.”

“I don’t worry,” he snapped at her as I took hold of the side of his chair.

“Yes, you do, because you’ve been taking care of me and Mom since Dad left, and sometimes you have to stop and think that it’s not necessary anymore.”

“I—”

She gasped suddenly.

“No,” he groaned.

“Shh,” I hushed him. “She’s havin’ a moment.”

“Oh my God, that’s why you can’t commit to a relationship,” she told him. “You think you have to be there twenty-four seven for me and Mom, and how can you do that if you’re trying to build a life with someone?”

“Is she drunk?” he asked me.

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Some of it was residual panic leaving my body, but the rest was me. My sense of what was funny tended to skew more twisted than most people’s. When you were punished by being made to sleep outside in the cold and dark when you were five, coping mechanisms could take weird forms.

“I’m not drunk anymore,” she said, and laughed as well.

“The hell happened?”

“Listen,” I began. “Talia got roofied at a party tonight, and before things went sideways, she called me, and not you, because you were on a date.”

He was quiet and calm, which was what I wanted but was also a bit disconcerting.

“This is why mob guys meet in public places. So no one gets murdered,” Talia commented, glancing at me.

“Or yelled at,” I added.

“Or that,” she said, chuckling.

Lang breathed out through his nose. “Some asshole slipped something in your drink? Why would you ever leave your⁠—”

“No,” she rushed out. “He brought it to me like that.”

“I see.”

“And I started feeling weird, so I called Del.”

“Why Del? Why not me?”