Elliot

I was still feeling hazy and a little fuzzy by the time we got ourselves back in one piece and heard the dinner bell ring. Not that I was complaining. My entire body was buzzing with a high I hadn't felt in a long time. Hell, even before I'd got myself locked up, I hadn't had sex as intense and phenomenal as what we'd just done.

"God, this place is a mess," I said as I watched Reno adjust his clothing for the umpteenth time. I liked to think it had taken him a while to actually get around to dressing again because he was having a hard time walking. It would have been disappointing if I was the only one with wobbly legs, but considering how hard he'd fucked me, I'd be surprised if his legs and stomach muscles didn't end up nearly as sore as my ass.

I had only gotten a brief chance to admire him before he'd dressed. Even well-fucked and after a good orgasm, I wasn't immune to the sight of him in that chair. His well-developed legs with a dusting of red hair, the bruised sight of his stomach as he leaned back, knees apart. And, of course, the sight of his cock as it sat half hard between his legs left me wondering how long it would take for my ass to recover to make another go of things.

He had been…quiet, though, and I wasn't sure how to take that. Sure, he could be quiet when left to his own devices, but after what had just happened? I'd expected him to have a meltdown, yell at me, or shit, try to say we should never do something like that again.

I was oblivious, but I wasn't foolish. I saw how shocked he had been when I became aware of how hard he was. I mean, I was surprised too. Who the hell gets hard after an all-out brawl with someone? Apparently, Reno. But it wasn't like I could stand around and pretend like I hadn't goaded the situation from random, weirdly timed boner to full-on fuckfest.

"We can clean it up when we get back," he said, looking me over. "You going to change?"

I had managed to pull on my underwear, but other than that, I was only wearing my dirty socks and the stained, torn shirt from earlier. Then again, if Reno was any indication, putting on clothes wouldn't help much. We had both done an absolute number on one another, and there was no way in hell we wouldn't draw attention.

"So uh," I got up, yanking off my shirt and tossing it into the trash. I considered changing my underwear, but since I was going to need to shower when I got back, I left them on. I pulled on the jeans for the same reason and a new shirt from the drawer. "We're uh…kinda obvious."

"What does that mean?" he asked sharply, snapping his attention toward me.

I rolled my eyes at his sudden paranoia. "I'm not talking about the sex. Jesus, you think people are going to look at us and imagine sex did this? No, they're going to know we had it out."

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "I guess we can just figure it out. Doesn't matter."

That was unlike him…well, the lack of anger was unlike him. Giving up wasn't too far out of the norm. I'd watched him try to do it when Leon and Mona sat him down over the Riley situation.

"Okay," I said slowly, pulling on my boots. "Sure."

I watched him carefully as he waited by the door while I tied my boots. There was a frown on his face, but rather than the ordinarily pissy-looking frown, he looked…thoughtful. It was hard to determine if his shift in demeanor was because he'd had the chance to get his anger out or if getting laid really was the way to take the sting out of his tail. I wasn't looking forward to fighting him again, but I definitely wouldn't mind another round of sex when we could stand it.

We stepped out after wiping the blood off, though that wouldn't hide the cuts or the bruises, and walked quietly side by side toward the Big House. His eyes were locked onto the ground with that same intense, thoughtful look. And I had a hard time deciding if I should get him to talk or leave him to his thoughts. The guy seemed to brood most of the time as it was, and I really hoped he wasn't feeling guilty about this whole thing…did he feel guilt?

I wasn't surprised when we entered the dining hall and were met with a lot of stares as we walked to get a plate and food. I couldn't make out any conversations, but I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk had shifted to our appearance. Some tried to be less obvious about staring, but others, like Riley, were staring us down.

"I'm feeling a lot less confident about this ‘oh well' approach you suggested," I muttered to him as I grabbed potatoes and pork chops and dumped homemade gravy all over both. To balance it out, I added some of the green beans I knew Rip had made sure were cooked in real butter and garlic. "Because everyone is staring us down."

"Ignore them. It's what I try to do," he grumbled and again, I noticed a distinct lack of heat in his voice.

Before I could say anything, a voice that made me stiffen spoke up from behind us. "Well, well, well, what's this I see?"

I turned, giving Mona a smile that was probably more of a grimace. "Well, hi there, Mona, you're looking lovely."

"I always look good," she said, arching a brow and looking between us. "What, uh, happened to you two?"

"Nothing," Reno piped up, looking more interested in deciding between corn or the green beans than in the conversation.

"Sure doesn't look like nothing," she said. "As a matter of fact, it looks like you two went a round or two with Mike Tyson…or each other."

"What? No!" I insisted, feeling my face warm. I had expected Leon to approach us. Mona rarely came to the group meals. Leon was there, of course, sitting at the end of a table, intently watching the conversation. "Nothing like that."

"Are you sure?" she asked, her eyes burrowing into mine since Reno refused to even look up from the food as he made up his mind and got corn.

My insides squirmed uncomfortably from the intensity of her stare. I usually felt like she knew a lot more than she was letting on, including my thoughts. But having her homed in on me so intensely was bringing it to a whole new level of naked discomfort. In fact, I would have preferred to be naked rather than having a stare-down with Mona.

"Elliot," she said slowly. "What's going on?"

The entire story was right on the tip of my tongue, but then what? Even if I left out the sex, which probably counted as making up…at least it did in my mind. What then? It still came down to the fact that we'd fought and hard at that. The evidence spoke for itself, and lying would probably get us both into more trouble. That was…except for one thing she'd said after Reno and I sat down together.

"Nothing happened," I told her, trying to keep my voice and eyes steady. "We decided to have a bit of wrestling and ended up getting a little too rough, is all."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, really. I'm sure if our cabin had neighbors, they'd be able to vouch for it."

"But you don't have neighbors," she said, shooting me a smirk. "How convenient."

"Is it?" I asked, sounding a bit stupid even to my ears.

"Reno?" she asked, ignoring me.

"You heard the man," he said, getting less gravy than I had. "You wanted us to bond. Well, we tried wrestling. Turns out, we take it too seriously."

"This is from wrestling?" she asked, gesturing between us.

I was glad I'd already been sweating from everything else as I forced a smile. "Oh yeah. It was…really vigorous."

As Mona raised a brow, Reno made a choking noise that I swore was him trying to swallow his laughter. She didn't look like she believed anything we said but wasn't pushing it. Not that she didn't know we were lying, but for whatever reason, she wasn't trying to squeeze the truth out of us or punish us based on the undeniable evidence.

"Well, hopefully, you two learned your lesson. There's a reason she said not to do any more wrestling," Leon spoke up, his eyes flitting between Reno and me.

"Please tell me you didn't break anything in the cabin," Mona said with a frown.

"No…well, there was a leg of a chair, but that was after the wrestling. That was…my bad," I said, though it was more like my back. There was probably a nice bruise on my back from hitting that damn thing.

"Well, that's something, at least," Leon said with a shake of his head.

"I'll get a replacement when I feel like you two aren't going to get any more brilliant ideas," she said, snatching up a piece of fried chicken. "I'm keeping my eye on you."

"Okay," I said brightly.

With a shake of her head, she walked off, giving Leon a pointed look before disappearing. For his part, Leon watched her for a moment before turning to us and sighing. "Seriously? No fighting. That was the one stipulation."

"The stipulation was that no news of us getting into a fight was supposed to reach her ears," I told him, my heart finally slowing its furious beating. "Aaaand, nothing like that has reached her ears, so?—"

"I hope you don't think that's somehow a clever loophole," Leon said. "I bet if I saw more of your bodies, there'd be no way you could say the marks are from wrestling."

I gasped, turning to Reno, who stared at me. "Did you hear that? He propositioned to have us strip for him! What are we, his personal strippers? My God, the indignities I have to suffer. First, I'm forced to see you walk around with your ass hanging out in the morning, and now this?"

"Oh, you asshole," Reno said, narrowing his eyes. "I do not?—"

"Just…stop," Leon said in a pained voice. "The last thing I need is for people to think doing a strip show for me will get them out of trouble."

"I didn't know we were in trouble," I said with a shrug. "We had a…bonding moment today. An intense one but bonding all the same."

"The evidence tells me you did not, in fact, bond," Leon said dryly. Then, a strange look came over his face as he looked between us. "And yet?—"

"Ugh," Reno grunted, grabbing me by the elbow. "C'mon, he's doing that thinking thing he does. I'm sure he has some big idea locked in that head of his but he's not sharing. And I want to eat."

For the first time, his touch didn't irritate but instead sent a tingling wave through me. It surprised me enough that I let him all but drag me toward one of the tables. It took me a moment staring at my plate before I realized I was still being watched, but not by Reno, who was focused on his plate.

I turned to find Riley beside me, watching me with open interest. He was a strange guy, but in a good way, and I could see the concern on his face. Honestly, he couldn't be more the opposite of Reno if he tried. He was happy, caring, openly kind to people, and always showed an interest. And now he was looking at me like I was a battered wife or something.

"Well, hiya, Riley," I said, stabbing my fork into some green beans. "You know, if you take a picture, it lasts longer."

"Uhh, I don't wanna pry…" he began.

"But you will anyway," Reno grunted.

Riley frowned. "Only because I'm worried about you. It does look like you guys went a few rounds."

"Why do you care?" Reno asked him, turning his green eyes onto Riley with what I could see now was puzzlement. "I mean, sure, Elliot here is like your butt buddy."

"Oh fuck off. I can be nice to someone without wanting to sleep with them," I snapped at Reno and then cocked a brow. "The opposite is true too."

Reno met my gaze, and it was hard to tell from his glare if that was his way of thinking about whether he could get away with screwing me again or if he wanted to punch me again. Come to think of it, he'd looked that way when we'd been having sex. So now I had to wonder how long he had wanted to fuck me and how much of it was just him being angry.

Riley sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I just care? I'm allowed to care, aren't I?"

"Yeah, fine, whatever…but why? You don't owe me shit."

"Because caring isn't about what's owed or deserved, Reno."

"Even when it's someone who cheaply knocked your block off?"

Reno looked surprised when Riley laughed, nodding his head. "Even then. But I'm not worried about that."

"And why's that?" Reno asked doubtfully.

"Because you're never going to get in a cheap shot like that again," Riley said with a smile. But even I could see something hard and flinty behind his eyes flash to the surface before disappearing.

If I had caught it, Reno surely had, and he stared at Riley for several seconds before surprising me completely and chuckling. "Alright, fair enough. Guess I can't expect to get away with it twice."

"You're not getting away with anything at all," I told him, now glaring. "Jesus, Reno, at least have the decency to apologize for being a prick."

"It's unnecessary," Riley said, sounding slightly uncomfortable.

Reno continued glaring at me, and I waited until he either stomped off or snapped at me to mind my own business. Instead, his lips twisted downward, and he gave a soft sigh. "No, the idiot is right. I shouldn't have done that, and I should have owned up to your face a long time ago. You didn't deserve that, Riley. I was…well, I don't have any good excuse. So, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

If Riley was anywhere near as surprised as me, he didn't show it when he smiled at Reno. "Apology accepted. I forgave you for it already, but it's nice to hear."

I wasn't sure what to be more puzzled by, the fact that Reno had outright admitted he'd screwed up or the fact that he'd done it at my prompting. Sure, he had been balls deep in me like half an hour ago, but unless there were magical switches in his head triggered by getting laid, I had no idea what was going on. He had been eerily calm ever since we'd recovered from our orgasms, and now this?

I was shaken from my thoughts when Dom sat across the table, looking at the two of us and sighing. "Do I want to know?"

"It's nothing to worry about, Jesus, Mom," I grumbled.

"Seriously though, what happened?" Dom asked, narrowing his eyes at Reno.

And so I said the only thing I knew would take care of the problem, looking Dom in the eye and, in my most deadpan voice, told him, "We had rough sex."

The reaction was immediate. Dom looked horrified at the very idea I'd just put into his head. Riley burst into laughter, which sounded like a donkey, and Reno immediately started choking on his burger.

"What is wrong with you?" Dom demanded, covering his eyes and shaking his head like that would dispel the mental image.

"Plenty of things," I told him, pounding on Reno's back. "Don't choke. I don't want to have to stick my fingers down your throat. Plenty enough of me has been in there already."

Which, of course just made him turn even more red as Dom bowed his head, sighing heavily. "Why did I expect you to give an honest answer?"

"I, for one, am personally offended," I told him in my best haughty voice. "I opened up to you about my new lover, and you're accusing me of lying?"

"Why…are you like this?" Reno demanded, though his anger was ruined by his wheezing attempts to speak.

"There are theories that I was dropped on my head as a child, but my dad never bothered to confirm or deny it. Maybe I'm just special," I told him as his breathing eased. I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to try the Heimlich before he passed out.

"Jesus," Riley gasped, apparently done having a laughing version of a panic attack. "I wasn't ready for that."

"None of us were," Dom grumbled, poking at his corn.

"You've known me too long to be surprised by what comes out of my mouth," I told him with a laugh. "C'mon now, Dom, you know me better."

"I said I wasn't ready. I didn't say I was surprised."

"Kinda the same thing."

"Not really. Now, can we talk about something other than your depraved fantasies? Reno looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel. Dunno about you, but it would probably look really bad if your bunkmate had a stroke because you're an idiot."

Riley continued snickering. "God, that's one way to tell people to mind their own business."

I wasn't surprised my tactic worked. There were few things capable of making Dom swerve away from something. Riley, too, seemed dissuaded from asking, though he hadn't struck me to be as much of a busybody as Dom, so that made sense. I'd apparently almost killed Reno in the process, but at least now, normal color was returning to his face even as he stared at me with what could only be called vexation.

"How'd the whittling shit go?" I asked, assured the topic could be safely changed without it reverting back.

Dom stared at me for a moment before grunting. "My dog turned out like shit."

"Wait, that was a dog?" I asked in surprise.

"Well, yeah. I had a couple growing up, love the hell out of them. Wanted to get one once I got outta my parents' house, but…probably a good thing something kept getting in the way. I don't even know how they handle your parents when you get locked up," Dom said with a shrug, a shadow crossing his face. He'd never told me what he'd done to get locked up, but there was always an air of deep unhappiness about him when he was reminded.

"Oh," I said, seeing the concern flit over Riley's face and knowing it was a bad idea for him to show concern. Dom wasn't nearly as bad as Reno about accepting the better sides of people, but that didn't mean he welcomed it. "I thought it was a pig with a birth defect."

Dom's gaze snapped to me, narrowing. "You're an asshole."

"I'm just saying! Maybe you could get Leon to help you. He seemed to have a pretty good hold on it," I told him with a grin.

Dom rolled his eyes. "It was my first time doing something like that, alright? What the fuck was I supposed to do, create a masterwork?"

"I tried making a truck. You should have seen Max laughing his ass off when I showed him later," Riley said with a shrug.

At that, I raised a brow. "Max…can laugh? Like, he can…laugh?"

"Everyone can laugh," Riley told me.

"Well, yeah, I thought so. But I always thought something was…wrong with Max's body that he couldn't ever laugh."

"He's physically capable of laughing. And mentally at that," Riley rolled his eyes. "Are you going to tell me Reno isn't capable of it even though he always seems grumpy?"

Admittedly, Reno had chuckled a few minutes ago, so Riley had me there. The only thing I could do was shrug. "Well, I guess I can't talk about Max since I've…almost never spoken to him. But I can promise you, Reno is almost always grumpy."

"Yeah, fuck you too," Reno muttered beside me, but it lacked the normal anger he carried whenever he swore at me.

"Which tells me a lot," Riley chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"You said ‘almost.' Which means he's not always grumpy."

"I mean, he sleeps. So there's that."

The words had no sooner left my mouth than I felt a shove. With a yelp, I slid off my chair and hit the ground. A groan erupted from my throat as the ass I'd been trying to ignore gave a mighty complaint from hitting the unforgiving floor. Looking up, I found Reno smirking, something playful glinting in his eyes as he stared down at me.

"Oh, sorry," he said, not even trying to sound like he meant it. "Did I hurt your ass?"

The asshole knew damn well I was tender and probably would be for days after what we'd done. I glared up at him. "Yes, as a matter of fact, you did a number on it."

"Keep it up, and I'll do it again," he said, returning to the remnants of his meal with that smirk still on his face.

"Oh baby, you know I like it rough," I grumbled sarcastically, even as I felt my stomach flip. I wasn't exactly the person you came to when you wanted to have someone else's words picked apart and discover their exact meaning, but I was pretty sure the asshole had just flirted with me. And if that was his way of subtly offering another round down the road, I wouldn't argue.

"Wow, that was almost affectionate," Riley said, smirking at Dom.

"Trust me, when it comes to E, you have to be a little rough. It's the only way he learns limits," Dom told him with a shake of his head.

"Not true," I protested, trying not to be obvious about my discomfort as I slid into my seat and sat down again. "I accept a gentle approach."

"No, you don't," Dom said with a roll of his eyes.

I knew pushing him further would result in him bringing up stories to prove his point, and I did not need Reno to have ammunition ready in the chamber down the road. For the rest of dinner, I shifted the conversation away from anything that might put me in a bad light. Thankfully, Dom didn't bring anything up that could further embarrass Reno and me, and while not including himself, he didn't act as surly as I might have imagined.

By the time we left, the sun was approaching the horizon. There were still people milling about, playing cards, sitting in the shade, talking while nibbling sandwiches, or just relaxing in chairs to whittle away the last few hours. No one paid us much attention as we walked past, though we got a few casual glances as we entered the rows of cabins.

"I actually thought you were going to crack," Reno said as we walked.

"Huh?"

"When Mona was giving you the stare-down treatment."

"Oh. Well, I kinda thought I was going to as well. Like, I felt ready to tell her everything."

"Everything?"

"In detail."

"Fuck," he snorted. "If it didn't mean we would have been in the deepest shit imaginable, I would have wanted to see that. The expression on her face and everyone else's who heard would have been great."

"Yeah," I drew out and then snorted. "But somehow I thought that telling her we...well, telling her what happened would probably be the bad option."

"Also thought you might tell Riley or Dom…especially Dom."

"Now, hold on," I told him, stopping as we reached the door to our cabin. "I know I talk a lot, and I can blurt shit out, but that doesn't mean I have a big mouth. I know how to keep quiet about shit."

"Yeah," he grunted. "That was what I was trying to say."

"It sounded more like you giving me shit."

"Well, I wasn't."

"Alright, well, you can say it differently. That might help."

His jaw tensed as he stared at me for a few heartbeats before grunting and looking away. "Fine, whatever. I was wrong. I didn't give you enough credit. Now I am."

Not exactly the most flawlessly humble thing in the world, but from Reno, it was practically award-worthy, so I'd take it. In fact, it made me smile, and I reached out to squeeze his arm above the elbow before opening the door, which was the quickest way for me to stop and stare at what sat before us.

"Aw hell, I forgot about that," I said with a sigh. In the face of the distraction of dinner and conversation, I'd almost forgotten the mess we'd left behind. Thankfully, I hadn't lied to Mona; only one chair was broken, but we had knocked things all over the place. If anyone had been there to see the mess, there would have been even less doubt that we'd fought each other.

"Well, we might as well get started cleaning it up," he said with a grunt. "Because if you think it looks like a lot to clean up now, just wait until you're tired and sore tomorrow after working."

"I'm tired and sore now," I complained, closing the door behind us.

He turned, scowling. "More tired and sore."

"I can't decide if I'm going to be worse or better tomorrow."

"We're both going to be worse tomorrow. So, even more reason to suck it up and do it now."

"You're right," I admitted, shoulders sagging. "I don't want you to be right, and I hate you for being right but fuck me?—"

"I don't think you can stand another dose," he muttered, picking up the broken chair legs and then the chair itself. "I'm putting this outside."

"Easy for you to say," I told him as I picked up things to put them back where they belonged. "You're not the one with a sore ass."

I expected a snide or unhappy comment, but I was given a faint chuckle as he opened the door, setting the chair beside the stairs and stacking the two broken legs atop it. At the very least, it was a sign he wasn't pissed off about what happened, but that still left me curious about where his mental state was at the moment. He didn't seem too unhappy about what happened but didn't seem thrilled.

As we cleaned, I watched him, trying to catch his expression and measure what could be going through his head. The problem was, even when he wasn't looking pissed off, his face was pretty stony and hard to read. Even the few times I caught him looking my way, his expression never changed, never gave anything away. I had never met someone so maddeningly expressionless before, and I wondered what had happened to him that made him that way.

I had to pick up his mattress and shove it back into place, adjusting his sheets carefully so they were neat again. As I tucked the last corner in, a glimmer caught my eye, and I crouched to find a necklace with what appeared to be a silver rectangle dangling from it. Curious, I picked it up and turned it around in my hand while Reno scrubbed blood off the floor.

Seeing a seam, I tucked my nail into it and pushed it slightly. It opened, and I realized it was a locket with two pictures. One was clearer than the other. Reno, not much younger than the one scrubbing the floor with a woman beside him, her hair a lighter shade of red, but both had bright, wide smiles. The other was a much younger Reno, I guessed in his mid-teens, sitting on a porch with an older woman, smiling at the camera as they held glasses.

"Umm, I think this is yours," I said, turning around to hold it out to him.

Reno looked up, and the expressionless mask on his face slipped. I saw two things, panic and anger. I knew we were allowed private items, so long as they weren't dangerous. Most guys tended to keep theirs openly or nearby, but I had never seen this in Reno's stuff before. Clearly, he'd hidden it, and his reaction didn't surprise me.

"I didn't know what it was," I said softly, hoping not to set him off. "So I opened it, but it's okay. There's no damage."

The white-knuckle grip he had on the brush eased before he let out a breath. Taking another one, he stood up and allowed me gently to drop the necklace into his hand. His fingers closed around it carefully, holding it tight as he drew his fist close to him, staring at it.

"I wasn't trying to go through your stuff," I told him.

He looked up at me, lips twisting. "Yeah. You can be pushy, but you've never set foot on my side of the cabin. At least not till today."

"I think that doesn't count," I said, trying for a smile. "Considering we were both all over the place."

"Yeah," he said, opening his hand and staring at the locket. "Thanks. This uh…this means a lot."

"I figured," I said, keeping my distance while I watched his expression shift slightly. Something was clearly going on in his head, and if I wasn't completely dense, I could barely catch several sad emotions. "I uh…who are they?"

"They're…" he began roughly, then cleared his throat, closing the locket back in his fist. "My sister and my grandmother. One of my sisters anyway."

"I guess the other siblings aren't as important to you?"

"Useless wastes of space, users, and abusers. Just like our parents, just like?—"

I winced as he stopped. "You're not…you're not an abuser."

His eyes moved to mine, his brow furrowing. "What would you know? You're the one who accused me of it."

I shifted uncomfortably. "I was just saying that to get under your skin, piss you off. Weird as it might sound, I know you've got a temper, but…you don't strike me as the domestic abuse type."

"And what if I said I got in here because I beat the living shit out of my ex-boyfriend and his best friend?"

"I'd say they don't let domestic abusers in here."

"You know that for sure?"

"Well…no, but?—"

"But what? I beat the shit out of you, didn't I?" he asked with renewed heat in his voice. "And I did it to Riley without cause, right?"

"I…are you trying to get me to agree that you're a shitty person or something?" I wondered. "Like…is that what you want? I mean, I don't know why you'd want me to say that."

"You already have," he said, turning away and shoving the necklace into his pocket. "That's all any of you have to say about me. Which, fine, whatever, I fucking deserve it. But don't turn around and act like I"m suddenly not a bad person. So fuck off."

It was only the realization that he seemed to want me to treat him like a terrible person that kept me from spitting the acid I could feel building on the tip of my tongue. I didn't know what had happened in his life to make him so…God, I didn't even know the right word, difficult? Who the hell wanted to be treated like the bad guy?

Well…no, I suppose I couldn't blame him too much for that. Not long ago, I was a teenager and then a young adult who pretty much faced life with a devil-may-care attitude. Who cared if I got hurt? Who cared if I caused trouble? No one had ever cared what I did unless I was making a mess of things, so why not just be the mess everyone already believed I was?

Was that what happened with Reno? Had he just…reacted to how he'd grown up in a way that made him stand out? If his family was as bad as he said, I doubted he had a happy home life, and I remember once being told that the tallest nail gets the hammer…or something like that. Was he like me, a tall standing nail that felt the brunt of the hammer's impact one too many times and was now stubbornly being what he'd always been accused of?

Then, a thought occurred to me. "You apologized to Riley."

He paused. "What?"

"You apologized to Riley, told him you fucked up, and it shouldn't have happened. And you wouldn't do something like that again."

"Yeah, so? Pretty sure he threatened me."

"Pretty sure he told you it wouldn't happen again because he's probably better at handling himself than we think."

"Okay, so?"

"Say whatever the fuck you want, but people who are abusive don't apologize and mean it."

An unexpected, ugly laugh emerged as he dipped the brush into the bucket. "Trust me, Elliot, they do it all the time. They sound very convincing."

"Alright, I guess I'll pretend you didn't just say ‘they,' not ‘us.' We can just pretend."

"Whatever."

I walked around him, standing before him until he looked up. "You know what?"

"No, and I don't want to know, but you're sure as shit going to tell me anyway."

"Ah, he can be taught."

"Fuck—"

"The thing is," I interrupted before he could get his oh-so-witty retort out. "I don't think you're as bad as I used to think you were or as bad as everyone else thinks. And there's no fucking way you're as bad as you think you are. Being that way makes it easier because that's all you know how to be."

"Wow," he said, eyes going wide. "How very insightful. Anything else? Or can I go back to being in peace? Or as much peace as possible with a bunkmate like you?"

Huh, now that I'd peeked behind the curtain a little, I wasn't as bothered by his sharp tongue. It felt like he was doing it to keep people from getting too close. Too close to him, too close to the truth, too close to much of anything he held close to the chest. It was one hell of a gamble to take, but I had spent my whole life taking repeated gambles and shit, some of them had turned out alright, some even turned out great.

"You want me to treat you that way? Well, tough titties, it's not fucking happening. You're an asshole, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, and I'm sure as shit not going to treat you with kid gloves, but I'm not going to make you into the villain." I told him, giving a shrug and crossing my arms over my chest. "So you can either prove you right or me right. That's up to you."

His brow shot up so far that if his hair was any longer, it would have disappeared. "Are you fucking serious right now?"

"As serious as cancer," I told him, turning away and walking over to the nearby closet and yanking out a towel. "I'm going to take a shower, and you can brood on that shit all you want. Because my sore body and I are going to bed after I get out."

"Is this you trying to have the last word?" he demanded angrily, still not having moved from the floor.

"No," I told him, turning in the bathroom doorway and staring at him. "And for the record, I'm all for sleeping together again. No pressure, demands, or daydreams about settling down on a farm and raising two and a half kids. You're hot, I'm pretty hot, the sex was fantastic, and I'm down to do it again. So if you're down, you can fuck the shit out of me again when my ass doesn't feel like a tenderized burger, or if you're not strict, I can screw your brains out in the next couple of days. The ball's in your court."

Reno stared at me, his eyes wide as he held the brush loosely. There was no anger, no frustration, just pure shock on his face as he stared at me without saying anything.

"Now that was me having the last word," I told him, closing the door behind me.

At least there was one way to shut him up.