In the joint, I’d only felt that phantom ache a few times, and not once since I’d been out, though it had almost been a whole month, already. It was why I’d suggested driving when Claire came back, telling me she’d quit her job and wanted to go to the hospital together.
I was happy she was going with me, but I was still worried. Especially since she looked down, so I couldn’t even show off my happiness without feeling guilty. She was leaning against the door, her head pressed to the window as she looked ahead with lifeless eyes.
“So,” I started after a length of silence. “Am I allowed to ask why you quit your job? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret that you did or anything, but I’m really curious.”
Claire was silent for a moment, then she let out a chuckle. There was some rustling as she moved in her seat, then she went still.
“I got sick and fucking tired of my boss and he was being an ass. The moment I spoke up against him, I knew he’d just fire me anyway, so I decided, why not quit?” she sighed. “He’s really high up in the company, you know? And he’s known for his intolerance.”
“Did he do something to you?” I asked, shooting a surreptitious look at her. “I haven’t known you to get angry over little things when it’s important. Of course, you always seem to have a short fuse when it’s me.”
“Did he do something to me?” she snorted. “He overworked me. And he fucking called me at fucking six to ask me to go to work just to be an ass because he was mad you visited me at the office.”
“He fired you because of me?” I asked immediately, looking over at her.
She didn’t try to meet my eyes, but I couldn’t read anything into that since she wasn’t even looking at me to begin with.
“It had nothing to do with you,” she said bluntly, then sighed.
She had this forlorn look on her face that made me hesitate to ask again. I wondered what her boss’s deal was, anyway. I hadn't imagined the glare he’d given me when I appeared at her office the night before. I only left quietly because I didn’t want to give her trouble, but with the way he’d talked to her after I showed up, I’d wanted to punch the guy. He looked surprisingly young for being a big boss in such a big company, but he was still pretty old, and definitely several years older than Claire. If I wasn’t wrong, he would be somewhere in his late thirties-early forties.
The way he’d acted about her, I didn’t doubt he wanted something with her. So even though she was down about losing her job, I couldn’t look at it as anything other than a good thing.
“No one is going to hire me after this, you know,” she muttered, her mood plummeting further. “Whether I quit or I was fired, I held a good position in a well-known firm and I lost it. No matter where I go, people are going to wonder what happened and it’s going to stop quite a few people from hiring me. And it will be worse if Simon chooses to blacklist me from working in any of the other law firms around here. I might have to shift cities to look for a job, and even then there’s zero guarantee…”
My hands tightened on the wheel as I panicked internally. Claire just quit her job, and I thought we’d get to spend more time together now, but she was scaring me talking about moving to another city. There was no reason for her to take me with her, so would I have to move in with Hannah after she left?
I would not be okay with that.
“You can't think like that,” I blurted without thinking, then wanted to hit myself.
Thankfully, Claire didn’t seem to be paying much attention and answered me with a distracted hum.
“I mean,” I said, making my voice more normal. “I’ve heard a lot about you and your talent for law from Dad and your mom, even though you and I didn’t talk much personally. Unless they were lying, you’re pretty talented, Claire. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t get hired. You had a good job at that firm for four years, too. Even if you’ve left it, that experience won’t suddenly disappear. I’m sure any law firm would be lucky to have you.”
“But the biggest problem right now, is that I quit because I was having trouble with my boss,” she said, sounding frustrated. “People are going to think that I’m troublesome or something, or that I don’t listen to instructions and rebel against my superiors or something. No one would want someone like that working for them.”
I chuckled. “That sounds more like me than you, Claire. I think you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not trying to be funny, Rogue.”
“And neither am I,” I said seriously, glancing over at her. She was looking over at me at the same time, and our eyes met. “Claire, I may not know much about your career, or about you as a person, but no matter what, even if I hadn't heard of your amazing performance as a lawyer, my thoughts wouldn’t change. Anyone would be lucky to have you working for them.”
There was another length of silence in the car. I was tempted to look over, but I held myself back. She was struggling with something, and I may or may not have had a hand in it happening, so giving her some form of privacy was the least I could do.
She had given me enough already, more than I deserved, even. And in all that time, I hadn't done a thing for her, and I’d gotten her into trouble at work, too.
“What exactly do you base that on?” she asked, sounding curious.
“Hmm,” I murmured. “First impressions I guess?”
She snorted. “In that case, you can't think much of me, right? You didn’t exactly like me that much, Rogue. Hell, I would have said you hated me before you moved into my place with me, you know?”
“What are you talking about?” I said, frowning over at her. “I mean, you were on your way to college, and I was so messed up over my knee, I hardly paid attention to anyone or anything, remember??”
“It sure seemed like you hated me even then,” she said, looking confused.
My mouth quirked into a tiny smile. I thought back to the first time I’d met Claire. I wasn’t the nervous type, but I’d been nervous about this girl that was going to be my little sister. I didn’t say much about Dad remarrying, because he wasn’t doing it for my sake, it just affected me because we were related. I wasn’t overly fond of getting a new mother and sister out of nowhere, but it wasn’t like I hated it either, since it was just me and Dad in the family, and we didn’t exactly communicate all that much.
In the end, I didn’t know how to treat Hannah, and I only got to meet Claire for a short while before she went off to college, and I barely saw her after that. I remembered her trying to talk to me, and me not cooperating because I was awkward around her. She must have misunderstood and thought I disliked her back then, but that wasn’t the truth.
I couldn’t say whether I liked her or not, but in the short time we’d met then, I would find myself watching her unconsciously.
Things were pretty screwed up with me when we met, I’d been so deep in my rebellious phase and angry at the whole world. I did recall thinking at the time that she was too rational and stuck up, too perfect when all I wanted was to rebel against everything.
“You should cheer up,” I said, because there was no way I was explaining all that to her. “Anyone that met you at your best would know the kind of person you are, someone serious about her job, someone dependable. A lot of other good points, too, but you don’t need me to tell you more than this, do you?”
Claire didn’t reply, but I didn’t look over or ask her to speak up. We spent the remainder of the trip in silence, but when we arrived at the hospital, she looked just a little bit happier.
Chapter Twenty-four
Claire
I sat across from Mom at a table in the hospital cafeteria. Rogue wasn’t with us, because he’d volunteered to buy the food for us while the two of us waited.
“I hope you weren’t too bored,” Mom said, smiling at me as she braced an elbow on top of the desk and rested her chin in her hand.
“We were fine,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not like we’d have anything to do at home, anyway, so it’s better to be
nearby, right?”
Mom hummed, but didn’t reply, looking away, toward where Rogue was standing, purchasing food for us.
Since I didn’t have a job anymore, and I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to be looking for a new one just yet, I’d been appearing at the hospital with Rogue pretty often. Not that we always went together, but it was rarer for one of us to show up alone, so this was something Mom was growing used to. It did bring its own complications, though.
Rogue and I had mostly been walking around outside the hospital, since we would only be in the way if all three of us ended up in Richard’s room at the same time all the damn time. Now that I was showing up often, along with Rogue and it wasn’t just Mom coming around anymore, he nurses were getting a little strict with visitation so we didn’t disturb the patient. He might have been getting better, but Richard’s position was still pretty dangerous.
Mom was still allowed to stay overnight sometimes for Richard’s sake, but there were times when we weren’t all three allowed in the room.
The three of us had been in the room with him for the morning, but when the nurses arrived to check on him, Rogue and I had gotten kicked out, and we’d ended up touring the hospital’s garden as we waited. Then Mom texted me— even though phones were technically not allowed in hospitals—and we decided to meet up in the cafeteria to eat. Then Rogue and I would probably head home after seeing Richard for a bit more, and leave Mom there.
It hadn't been that long since I’d quit my job, but it was already becoming a habit. Sometimes it was broken by Rogue staying at the hospital instead of Mom. Richard was at least awake a lot of the time and I got to see he was happy to see Rogue out of prison, and the two of them talked plenty, too.
Rogue had changed a lot in the time since he’d been staying with me. Every time I watched him, it felt like my heart was aching, and not necessarily in a bad way.
“You and Rogue seem to be getting along really well,” Mom said.
I was startled, and I turned back to her with slightly wide eyes. She had her head tilted and she was watching me intently, and I felt my face warm up as I struggled not to look away.
Rogue and I were still sleeping in the same room, the same bed. Now that work wasn’t taking up all my time, and I had days with not much to do, Rogue wasn’t holding back. There were nights when I didn’t even get to sleep thanks to that asshole, not that I ever said no or anything. We hadn't had that talk yet, and I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to happen, or if we were both just running away from it as we fell deeper into each other.
I was trying to keep it from Mom, but I wasn’t good at this. Outside of work, I didn’t keep secrets from Mom, because before she met Richard, it had been just me and her for a long time, and we were really close. There were some things about me she could just tell, even when I tried to hide it.
“He’s not as bad as I used to think,” I said quickly, looking away. “He…he’s actually trying not to get himself in trouble. His parole officer keeps dropping by to check up on him, but he hasn’t stepped out of line.” Well, technically, he did that one time, but it wasn’t like it was illegal for him to get drunk or anything.
Still, I was proud of him for going straight, even though I hadn't thought it would be possible in the beginning. Even Ms. Brent had admitted to being surprised during one of her visits. Though she’d also said a bunch of cryptic things that made me wonder what people thought about my step-brother staying with me, because she probably had the same thoughts about us that Simon had. Not that they were wrong, but if we were going to keep it under wraps, then people suspecting it wasn’t a good thing. But then I realized that I didn’t know that many people anyway, and two of them suspecting wasn’t so bad since neither were in a position to say anything.
The problem would come in if Mom figured it out, though.
“Sorry for the wait, ladies,” Rogue crooned as he came back to the table with a couple trays. He set one in front of Mom then sat beside me, the two of us sharing a tray of food. “I hoped you didn’t get bored waiting for me.”
I wanted to speak up, say how he wasn’t helping with Mom being suspicious already, but in the end I didn’t say anything.
“We didn’t wait too long,” Mom said, waving at him.
We dug into the food, chatting lightly among ourselves, though the mood was somewhat subdued. Mom was keeping a close eye on us, though, and it made me self-conscious. It also made me realize exactly how Rogue and I acted around each other that gave us away without us even realizing.
When we ate, or talked, we were almost always looking at each other, and Mom had to speak up at times as if to remind us she was still there with us. Rogue and I would eat from each other’s plates, and when I got food on my mouth, Rogue wiped it away with his thumb, then he licked it. I didn’t even notice anything off about, because it happened a lot now that I got to eat dinner with him at home every day, with him doing most of the cooking. But I noticed Mom staring and realized what happened.
After lunch was over, Rogue went to toss the trash and get us some drinks. There was a vending machine a distance out of the cafeteria, and I almost begged him not to leave me alone with Mom as he left.
I had my head ducked down, eyes on the table as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world, trying to ignore Mom’s laser eyes boring into me.
“Claire, what exactly have you been doing?” she asked, voice several degrees lower. I hadn't heard Mom sound so clod in a while.
“Hmm?” I hummed, because I couldn’t bring myself to lie or act stupid.
Mom sighed. It was a simple, light sound, but the disappointment in it pierced my chest. “Claire, the way you and Rogue are carrying on…you don’t need me to tell you that I’m not happy about it, right? Or you would at least look at me while I talk to you.”
Tentatively, I raised my gaze. “But I thought you wanted us to get along instead of trying to kill each other?”
“You shouldn’t be messing around with that boy. I love Rogue, but you know what kind of trouble he gets up to. You’re smarter than that, Claire, so I thought you knew better.”
She sounded frustrated, and right then, I got my first good look at Mom. Before, I’d been distracted, then trying to avoid looking at her out of guilt. But looking at her right then, I realized just how awful she looked when she wasn’t trying to pretend that everything was all right with a smile on her face.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked immediately.
She sighed and dropped her face in her hands for a moment, then looked up at me. It was only a short moment, but it seemed like she aged a few years right in front of my eyes. The crow’s feet and lines on her fate looked more prominent, and the underside of her eyes had dark bags that told me she wasn’t catching much sleep. Not to mention how pale she was.
Nothing else could worry her so much in the current situation.
I thought Richard was doing well?
“What’s going on?”
I looked up, surprised Rogue had come back without me noticing. His eyes jumped between Mom and me as he handed us our drinks and sat down with us. We both looked to Mom, but for a long time, she didn’t say a thing. Then, she looked up at us and stood.
“Thank you…both for worrying,” she said. “But it’s nothing.”
Rogue and I shared a glance, neither of us convinced at all. But she spoke again before either of us could.
“I want to thank you, too, for coming today. But if you both don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone with Richard for the rest of today, so can you both just go home, please?”
I’d wanted to see him at least a bit more before we left, since we’d only had about an hour this morning before Rogue and I got kicked out. But as I saw Mom turn to walk out of the cafeteria, I didn’t call out to her or try to follow her.
If she wanted alone time with her husband, as her daughter, I wasn’t going to stand in her way.
Chapter Twenty-five
Rogue
We sat there for a long time after Hannah had left, and Claire didn’t look like she wanted to move. She didn’t even try her drink, just holding it between her palms, warming it up. After a long moment, when I couldn’t stand seeing the lost look on her face anymore, I sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Did something happen between you two that I should know about?” I asked. “What were you two talking about before I came back here? Is something wrong that I should know about?”
Claire sighed and looked at me, a tiredness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? Of course it matters! Does it have something to do with Dad?”
She bit her lip, looking unsure. My heart suddenly felt cold, thinking it might actually have something to do with Dad.
He had been getting better recently. He was awake more often, he looked more alert. His face looked fuller, though his color only looked a little better. I wasn’t naïve enough to think he was completely out of the woods just because of that. Actually, I was really wary of the sudden good luck, because the doctor and nurses still showed up pretty often to check his condition, I figured they were worried about a relapse.
Was is happening already?
“Claire?” I asked, my voice a little sharper.
She looked at me. “You don’t have to worry so much, Rogue. She didn’t say a thing about your dad. She’s…actually worried about you and me.”
That surprised me enough to make me forget to worry. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me. She…might have figured out what’s going on between us. And she’s of course not happy about it…”
Bad Apple_A Stepbrother Romance Page 11
