Page 13 of Close Quarters

That didn’t stop me from being pissed, however, and once they’d taken Riley away, I stepped up and gave Reno a hard shove. “Are you fucking kidding me, Reno? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The anger returned to his face, his lip curling in a snarl. “You want some, too?”

“Fuck you,” I snapped, giving him another shove. “Then fucking hit me. At least I’ll fucking see it coming, you piece of shit! At least I’ll be able to put up a fight! Fucking coward.”

His face twisted, and I braced for what was coming, what I had basically provoked into happening. I wasn’t a stranger to fighting, having had to do my fair share in my life, but Reno was probably stronger and definitely meaner. My only hope of winning was that he had worn himself down with the day’s work and the wrestling, while I hadn’t even had a chance to go into the ring yet.

“Enough,” a deep voice snapped, and a hand came down onto each of our chests and shoved us away.

It was more the sudden bark of the person than anything else that startled me back to reality. The sharp, stinging anger that demanded I let it all out and deal with what had pissed me off disappeared and left me feeling ashamed of myself. It was just one more side effect of the little gremlins that lived in my head. Sometimes, instead of letting me react normally, they took the dial on a particular emotion and cranked it up to maximum.

Leon had stepped in and stood off to the side, his hands still on our chests. I wasn’t trying to fight him, and from the looks of it, neither was Reno. If anything, it was the first time I’d seen Reno look…wary? Scared? His face was hard to read when he wasn’t looking pissed or annoyed.

“Leon,” I began in protest, but the hand on my chest came up to clamp over my mouth.

“Don’t start talking, or you won’t stop,” Leon warned me.

“Pfft,” Reno began, and then his eyes widened when a hand also covered his mouth.

“And don’t think your ass isn’t in deep trouble,” Leon told him in a foreboding tone. “You two had lunch yet?”

“Uhh…no?” I answered in confusion.

“No,” Reno said in a more neutral tone, but I thought maybe his furrowed brow was more confusion than anger, which was still hard to read.

“Fine. Both of you, with me,” Leon said, pulling his hands away.

“What the fuck did I…” But my protest was cut off, once again, by a hand clamping over my mouth. I glared at Leon, not caring if it got me into more trouble because this was absolute bullshit. Sure, I probably shouldn’t have tried to pick a fight with Reno, but I’d love to see how Leon would have reacted if he were in my shoes.

“You done?” Leon asked, raising his brow. I rolled my eyes until I realized he was waiting for a silent response, and with a heavy sigh, I nodded. At that, he removed his hand. “Good, now follow me.”

I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from saying anything. I begrudgingly followed Leon, but he never said I couldn’t silently communicate, so I gave Reno a glare and the finger for good measure. He scowled but didn’t do anything else, looking down at the path as we walked, his face screwed up, entirely unreadable because of it.

I hadn’t thought about where Leon was taking us, but I hadn’t expected to head toward the Big House or through the front door. Everyone who came to the program was brought in through the front door on their arrival…and departure. Problem was that departure could happen at any moment if you fucked up enough. Which made sense for Reno. There had been no need for that attack, but fuck, was I also on the chopping block?

Even worse, we were led up the stairs along a hallway and into a small room. Well, I’m sure it was small by Big House standards. The thing was bigger than the cabin I shared with three guys. It looked like…well, I guess you could call it a sitting room. I didn’t know if a sitting room had a specific use other than…well, sitting.

Leon pointed to a round table in the back corner. “Sit.”

Which seemed appropriate given my assessment, and I did as I was told. I wasn’t surprised when Reno sat on the other side of the table from me. I would have preferred it if he had sat next to me. Then, it would have been easier to pretend he didn’t exist. Now, he was directly in my line of sight, and I would have to work twice as hard to ignore him.

“You two stay here. No talking, no more fighting, understand? Any fighting and you two will be in deeper trouble than you already are, and no talking to me!” he told me sharply when my mouth parted and snapped shut. “Stay here. We’ll deal with this when I come back, got it? Just nod.”

I nodded, and after a moment, Reno did the same, even as he shot Leon a dirty look. If Leon noticed, he certainly didn’t show any sign of caring as he left the room. At that point, I was left with a sullen Reno, the sound of my breathing, and the clock ticking on the wall. Personally, I would have preferred something else as background music because that ticking took a whole minute before I thought it was going to drive me insane.

“Oh fuck,” I grunted after another minute passed and got up.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Reno hissed as I opened the clock and began fussing with it.

“My dad had one of these,” I grunted and then let out a sigh of relief when the ticking stopped. “There. Jesus.”

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded.

I whirled around and glared at him. “Really? You want to go there after what you just fucking did? You want to compare making that fucking noise stop to decking someone like Riley when he wasn’t even looking?”

His nostrils flared, but he looked away, lips going thin. I gave him a moment to respond before returning to my seat and dropping down. The silence wasn’t strictly better. I had always needed some background noise to keep my brain from overloading, but at least that ticking had stopped. Now, I just had to endure the pain of silence while we waited for whatever hammer was going to come down on us.

“What was wrong with the ticking?” he asked.

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