The Grumpy Landlord, page 15
Regret tasted like bile in my throat. But the anger was still there, fueling me. The fear was driving the bus. If I couldn't keep the table clean, how could I keep her safe? How could I keep myself sane?
"You're overreacting," she whispered.
"Am I? Or are you just under-reacting to the fact that you treat my home like a frat house?"
"I treat it like a home!" she shouted back. "Homes are messy, Ethan! People live in them! They leave things out! They make mistakes!"
"I can't afford mistakes!"
I threw the rag down. It landed with a wet slap on the granite.
"In my world, mistakes kill people. In my world, if you leave a tool out, someone bleeds out."
"We are not in the OR!" she screamed. "We are in a kitchen in Ohio! Nobody is going to die because of a spot of red paint!"
She stepped into my space. She poked me in the chest.
"You are not a surgeon right now. You are my boyfriend. And you are being an ass."
I stared at her.
She was furious. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were blazing gold.
She wasn't afraid of me.
She wasn't afraid of the anger or the volume. She was standing her ground against the monster I tried so hard to keep chained up.
"Boyfriend," I repeated.
"Yes. Unless you're firing me again."
"I'm not firing you."
"Then stop treating me like a subordinate who failed inspection."
She grabbed my hand. The one that was clenched into a fist at my side.
She pried my fingers open.
"Look at the table, Ethan."
I looked.
"It's dirty."
"It's lived in," she said. "It's proof that I was here. That I exist."
She looked up at me.
"Do you want a pristine table? Or do you want me?"
The question cut through the red haze in my brain.
I looked at the paint. I looked at her.
The fear drained away, leaving me hollow and aching.
"I want you," I rasped.
"Then let the paint dry."
She squeezed my hand.
"It's just a table. It's stone. It's stronger than you think."
She moved closer. Her body pressed against mine. Softness against rigid tension.
"And so are we," she whispered.
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since I walked through the door.
I wrapped my arms around her. I buried my face in her neck. She smelled like sleep and turpentine.
"I hate the mess," I mumbled against her skin.
"I know."
"It makes my skin itch."
"I know."
She ran her hands up my back.
"But you love me."
I pulled back to look at her.
"Yeah. I do."
I lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around me, familiar and easy.
I sat her on the edge of the table. Right next to the paint.
"You're sitting on a sketch," I warned.
"I don't care."
She pulled my head down. She kissed me.
It wasn't a sweet, apologetic kiss. It was a challenge. It was teeth and tongue and heat.
"Make a mess, Ethan," she murmured against my mouth. "Ruin something."
I groaned.
My hands gripped her hips. I pulled her forward until there was no air between us.
"You," I growled. "I'm going to ruin you."
"Promise?"
I kissed her neck. I bit down on the sensitive cord of muscle, hard enough to make her gasp.
"You drive me crazy," I muttered, moving lower. "You push every button I have."
"Someone has to."
She tugged at my scrub top.
"Take it off."
I ripped the shirt over my head. I tossed it onto the floor.
"If I get paint on these pants," I said, unbuckling my belt, "you're buying me new ones."
"Shut up and kiss me."
I leaned in.
My phone rang.
The sound was shrill. Cutting through the heavy, heated air like a scalpel.
I froze.
Willow groaned, letting her head fall back.
"Ignore it," she pleaded.
"I can't."
It was the specific ringtone. The one that bypassed 'Do Not Disturb'. The one that meant disaster.
I stepped back. I was breathing hard. My body was screaming in protest.
I grabbed the phone from my discarded pile of gear.
"Rourke," I answered. My voice snapped instantly into command mode.
"Dr. Rourke. This is Dispatch."
The voice on the other end was tight. Controlled panic.
"We have a mass casualty event. Bus rollover on Route 9. Multiple pediatric traumas. We need all hands."
The world went cold.
The lust vanished. The anger vanished.
The machine turned back on.
"I'm ten minutes out," I said. "Prep OR 1 and 2. Get the blood bank on standby."
I hung up.
I looked at Willow.
She was still sitting on the table. Her hair was messy. Her lips were swollen. She looked like a dream I had to wake up from.
"Ethan?"
"Bus crash," I said. "Kids."
Her face paled. She hopped off the table instantly.
"Go," she said.
She grabbed my keys from the counter and pressed them into my hand.
"Go save them."
"I..." I looked at the paint. I looked at her. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Just go."
She reached up and kissed me. A quick, hard press of lips.
"Come back to me," she whispered.
I nodded.
I turned and ran out the door.
I left the paint drying on the table. I left the woman I loved standing in the middle of the mess.
And as I sped toward the hospital, toward the blood and the noise, I realized something.
I wasn't running away from the chaos anymore. I was running toward it.
Because I had something to come home to.
Lonely in the Studio
Willow
The silence in the guest house wasn't peaceful anymore.
It was heavy.
It pressed against my eardrums like water pressure at the bottom of the ocean.
I sat on the stool in front of my easel. My brush hovered over the canvas. The acrylic paint on the bristles had dried ten minutes ago. It was stiff. Useless. Just like me.
I looked at the phone on the crate I used as a side table.
Black screen.
Silent.
Ethan had been gone for thirty-six hours.
He had come home once. Just for an hour. To shower and change his scrubs.
I had tried to talk to him. I had tried to offer him coffee, food, a hug. Anything.
He had looked right through me.
His eyes were usually the color of the ocean. Deep. Stormy. Alive. When he walked through that door yesterday, they were flat. Dead. The color of a frozen lake.
“I can't,” he had said. His voice was a rasp. “Not now, Willow.”
He hadn't touched me. He hadn't let me touch him. He moved like a machine that was running on fumes and muscle memory. He showered, scrubbing his skin until it was red, dressed in fresh scrubs, and walked back out the door.
He didn't say goodbye.
He just left. Back to the blood. Back to the bus crash. Back to the children who were hurt.
I looked down at my hands. They were clean. I had scrubbed the paint off from our night on the floor.
I felt stupid.
Here I was, playing with colors. Making pretty pictures. Worrying about composition and light.
And five miles away, Ethan was holding people's lives in his hands.
I felt small. Insignificant. A splash of neon paint on a concrete wall that was crumbling.
I dropped the brush. It clattered onto the floor.
"Meow."
Charlie rubbed against my ankle. He looked up at me with wide, yellow eyes. He missed him too.
"He's busy, Charlie," I whispered. "He's doing important things."
Unlike us.
The thought was a weed. It took root in the cracks of my insecurity and started to grow.
I couldn't stay here. The gray walls of the cottage were closing in. The memory of Ethan painting my skin with gold felt like a dream I had invented.
I needed to get out. I needed to see something other than my own failure.
I grabbed my bag.
"Guard the fort," I told the cat.
He licked his paw, unimpressed.
* * *
The town was quiet. It was a Tuesday afternoon. The sky was a low, oppressive gray that threatened rain but wouldn't commit.
I drove the van to the gallery.
I needed Riley. I needed a reality check. I needed someone to tell me that dating a trauma surgeon didn't mean I had to stop existing.
I parked in the alley. I walked around to the front.
The sign on the door said OPEN.
I pushed inside.
The bell jingled.
"Riley?" I called out.
The gallery was empty. No Riley at the desk. No music playing. Just the hum of the track lighting and the smell of floor polish.
I walked further in.
My display wall—the one Marian had defiled—was empty. The slashed canvases were gone. The wall had been patched and repainted a stark, blinding white.
It looked like I had never been there.
"It's an improvement, don't you think?"
The voice came from the shadows near the back office.
I froze.
Marian DeWitt stepped into the light.
She looked immaculate. Of course she did. She was wearing a navy blazer over a cream silk blouse. Her hair was a helmet of blonde perfection. She held a tape measure in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
"Marian," I said. My voice sounded thin in the empty space. "Where's Riley?"
"Bank run," Marian said. She tapped the clipboard with a manicured nail. "Something about a loan extension. Poor thing. Always scrambling for pennies."
She walked toward the empty wall. My wall.
"I'm just measuring," she said. "The board finalized the schedule this morning. My installation goes up on Monday."
My stomach dropped.
"Monday?" I asked. "But... my show was just on hold. Riley said it was a probation."
Marian laughed. It was a soft, pitying sound that made my skin crawl.
"Oh, honey. Probation is just corporate speak for 'go away quietly.' You didn't really think they'd let you back in, did you? After the vandalism? After the scene your boyfriend made?"
She emphasized the word boyfriend like it was a dirty joke.
"Ethan defended me," I said. I crossed my arms, trying to hide the tremor in my hands. "He stood up to a bully."
"He acted like a lunatic," Marian corrected. She stepped closer. She smelled of expensive flowers and cold ambition. "Do you know what people are saying, Willow? They aren't saying he's a hero. They're saying he's unhinged. They're saying the war finally broke him."
"That's a lie."
"Is it?"
She tilted her head. Her eyes bored into mine.
"I heard about the bus crash. Terrible business. Dr. Rourke has been at the hospital for, what, forty hours straight?"
"He's dedicated."
"He's obsessed," she said. "He uses work to hide from real life. Everyone knows that. He buries himself in trauma because it's the only place he feels comfortable."
She gestured to me. To my paint-splattered boots. To my wild hair.
"And you," she said softly. "You're just a distraction. A colorful little toy he picked up to amuse himself. But now that the real work is calling... well. Toys get put back in the box."
"You don't know him," I whispered.
"I know men like him," she said. "Serious men. Men with heavy burdens. They don't end up with girls who finger-paint for a living. They need stability. They need status. They need someone who understands the weight of their world. Not someone who adds to the mess."
She turned back to the wall. She extended the tape measure. The metal snapped against the white paint.
"Go home, Willow. Pack your boxes. It's only a matter of time before he realizes you don't fit in his life. I'm just doing you a favor by telling you now."
She looked over her shoulder. Her smile was sharp.
"Besides. I need this wall. Real art takes up space."
I couldn't breathe.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. I wanted to channel Ethan and tell her exactly where she could shove her tape measure.
But the words stuck in my throat.
Because a small, terrified part of me believed her.
I turned around.
I walked out of the gallery.
I didn't look back.
* * *
The drive home was a blur.
I didn't remember the turns. I didn't remember the stop signs.
I just remembered the feeling of Marian's words settling into my chest like lead weights.
A distraction.
A toy.
He uses work to hide.
I pulled into the driveway.
Ethan's truck was still gone.
The house was dark. The windows stared at me like empty eyes.
I walked to the guest house. I unlocked the door.
The smell of turpentine hit me. Usually, I loved it. It smelled like possibility.
Today, it smelled like failure.
I walked into the center of the room.
My easel stood there.
On it was a canvas I had started two days ago. Before the crash. Before the silence.
It was a painting of the garden. But not the real garden. A fantasy version. The flowers were exploding with impossible colors. The trees were twisting into shapes that looked like dancers.
It was whimsical. It was bright. It was joyful.
I stared at it.
It looked childish.
It looked trivial.
"What is the point?" I asked the empty room.
People were dying. Children were hurt. Ethan was cutting people open and sewing them back together. He was dealing with blood and bone and the harsh, brutal reality of existence.
And I was painting flowers that didn't exist.
I felt a surge of heat in my chest. It wasn't passion. It was shame.
I was wasting my time. I was wasting space.
I was just a mess he had let into his house because he was lonely. And now that he had real work to do, real pain to manage, I was just... clutter.
"Stupid," I hissed.
I grabbed a tube of black paint.
I wanted to cover it. I wanted to erase the joy because it felt like a lie.
But the cap was stuck.
I twisted it. My hands were sweaty. It wouldn't budge.
"Open," I gritted out.
I twisted harder. The plastic dug into my skin.
It wouldn't open.
Even my tools were fighting me.
I threw the tube across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud and didn't even burst. It just fell to the floor, useless.
I looked at the painting. The happy, dancing trees seemed to mock me. Look at us. We're so pretty. We don't matter at all.
A sob ripped through my throat.
I grabbed the palette knife. The metal was cool in my hand.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "None of it matters."
I didn't think. I just moved.
I drove the knife into the canvas.
Riiip.
The sound was satisfying. It was a scream made of fabric.
I slashed again.
Through the bright orange flower. Through the dancing tree.
I slashed until the canvas hung in ribbons. Until the frame was exposed, naked and wooden.
I grabbed the top of the easel. I shoved it.
It crashed to the floor.
The jar of water tipped over. Murky gray water spilled across the concrete, soaking into the ribbons of the ruined painting.
I stood there, chest heaving. The palette knife was still clutched in my hand.
The room was silent again.
But the silence wasn't heavy anymore. It was shattered.
I looked at the wreckage.
I had destroyed the only thing I had to give.
I dropped the knife.
I sank to my knees in the puddle of paint water. The cold liquid soaked into my jeans.
"Ethan," I whispered.
But he wasn't there.
He was saving lives.
And I was just making a mess.
* * *
Night fell.
I didn't turn on the lights.
I sat on the floor, surrounded by the debris of my tantrum. The water had dried, leaving sticky stains on the concrete.
I heard a car.
My head snapped up.
Headlights swept across the window, illuminating the destruction for a brief, cruel second.
The heavy rumble of a truck engine.
He was home.
I should get up. I should clean this up. I should hide the evidence of my instability before he saw it and realized Marian was right.
But I couldn't move.
I heard the truck door slam. Heavy footsteps on the gravel.
He went to the main house first. Of course he did. He needed to wash the world off.
I waited.
Ten minutes. Twenty.
Then, the back door of the main house opened.
Footsteps on the patio stones.
He stopped at the glass door.
I held my breath.
The door handle turned.
He pushed it open.
"Willow?"
His voice was a gravelly whisper. Exhausted. Worn down to the bone.
He didn't turn on the light. He just stood in the doorway, a large shadow against the moonlight.
"I'm here," I said. My voice sounded dead.
He took a step inside.
His boot crunched on a tube of paint.
He stopped.
"What happened?"
"Nothing," I said. "Everything."
He flipped the switch.
The light flooded the room.
Ethan blinked, his eyes adjusting. He looked at the overturned easel. The slashed canvas. The puddle on the floor. The paint tubes scattered like spent shell casings.
He looked at me. curled on the floor, hugging my knees.
