Crow’s Row (26 page)

Rocco looked jittery as he willed his brother to look at the documents. “But I want to talk to you about this. Look I’ve done all of this work—”

“I said not tonight,” Cameron snapped.

Rocco and I both jumped. He looked at me despairingly. I didn’t know what to say.

He glared at Cameron and then flung the papers on the table. He stomped back to his room and slammed the door behind him. It was a déjà vu from this morning.

Cameron continued absentmindedly picking at his food. I scowled, but he didn’t notice.

I got up and decided to let him brood in peace.

“You were talking to Frances today?” he called out as I reached the doorway.

“Yes,” I responded, refusing to look at him.

“What did you talk about?” he asked evenly.

I spun on my heels.

“Why?” I said, attempting to mimic his coldness.

“Because I have a right to know what goes on under my roof.”

“We were outside,” I snipped back.

Cameron fixed his stare, waiting for an answer.

“We talked about Bill,” I finally conceded.

“Anything else?” he probed

“Nope. What else is there?” I fumed. That was a lie, but I figured that my rage would hide any traces of it.

Cameron didn’t answer and took a bite of his food as he stared me down.

The fact that he was still angry with me, that he had taken his anger out on his little brother suddenly made me furious. My blood boiled, and my breath felt like it was going to spew fire. I wasn’t holding anything back this time.

“Cameron Hillard, I know that you’re still upset with me because of last night, but you have no right to take it out on Rocco. Rocco worked really hard today, and he was excited to show you what he did. You just blew him off like he’s one of your foot soldiers. He’s your brother,” I almost spelled out for him. “Your brother is a really great kid, who deserves better than to be ordered around like a maid. And Frances and I didn’t talk about much, but if I wanted to talk to her some more, I would. This might be your house, but you don’t control me or what I do. I will talk to whoever I want, whenever I want.”

By the end of my speech, I was seething and panting.

Cameron was frozen at the table, his eyes the size of a shot glass. I turned around and calmly walked upstairs. I gently closed the door behind me and sniffed a bit, but did not cry.

Downstairs, I heard Cameron’s chair fiercely pull out and the clinging of a bowl getting pitched into the sink. I was afraid that he was going to come running after me and that I would have to think of a new speech.

He never came. After a few stomped footsteps, the house was dead quiet once again.

The release of fury must have been therapeutic, because I slept quite well that night. I was awoken only once by the usual sound of scratching and whining at my bedroom door. I drowsily got up and let Meatball in for his bedtime.

I had never grown up with a dog—it was definitely strange to have Meatball sleep next to me at first. But I was surprised by how quickly I got accustomed to the brute being there. It was appeasing, even if, deep down, I knew that whatever the reason he slept in the same bed, it was not out of any sense of duty to me.

 Chapter Fourteen:
 The Proper Kind of Diversion

In the morning, a light knock at my door brought Rocco into my room. He lounged himself on my bed while I got dressed in the washroom.

“I heard you and Cameron arguing last night,” he told me.

“As far as I know, it takes at least two people to have an argument. It was more like I talked loudly to myself while Cameron watched,” I yelled back through the door.

“Yeah, that’s usually how it goes with Cameron. It takes a lot for him to lose his cool, which is really annoying when all you want is to just have it out. Sometimes I wish he would just be like everyone else and fight back instead of acting like such an adult.”

I pasted a smile on my face and walked out of the room with a towel coiled on my head.

Rocco was lying on his side watching while I towel-dabbed my hair. “I heard all of the stuff you said about me to Cameron … It was really nice of you,” he said, squinting. “But you should know that you’re really not my type.”

This made me smile, genuinely. “I didn’t think that fifteen-year-olds could even have a type. Don’t you just go for anything with breasts?”

“Maybe that’s why you’re not my type,” he said. “Besides, I’m much more mature than most fifteen-year-olds.”

“Yes, I forgot that only real men throw tantrums in their rooms when they don’t get their way.”

He shrugged. “Well, thanks for sticking up for me. I’ve never heard any one talk to my brother like that.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “Not that it did either of us any good. I didn’t get to fight it out, and you didn’t get what you wanted.”

“Actually, after you left last night, Cameron came into my room,” Rocco told me with his big grin. Something was up—he was getting eager and fidgety. I waited patiently, excited with his excitement. “Our plan worked,” he finally spilled. “Cameron said that I could go with him next time. That I could be more than just a lookout.”

I didn’t know what being more than a lookout meant but I was glad to see Rocco so happy again. “When do you leave?”

Rocco scowled at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I forgot to ask.”

Contently shrugging his shoulders, he slumped around on the bed and looked outside.

When I turned around to go hang my towel in the washroom, I saw Cameron standing in the bedroom doorway. I froze and Cameron formed a wary smile on his lips. I wondered how long he had been standing there, how much he had heard.

“Can I come in?” he asked with his velvety voice. He was wearing a red T-shirt, making his beautiful features even more noticeable to me. I was now sure that he did these things on purpose.

Rocco looked at me, awaiting my response, but I went to the washroom to hang my towel. “Join the party,” he responded for the both of us.

I came back out and fingered my hair into a wet bun while Cameron sat on the edge of the bed. He raised his eyebrows at his kid brother.

Rocco rolled up and cleared his throat. “I better get going.”

But on his way out, he squeezed me in a bear hug until my feet were no longer touching down. “Thanks, Emmy,” he murmured into my ear and let me go so that my lungs could suck air once again.

Cameron was shaking his head in wonder as Rocco closed the door. “Funny kid,” he said, chuckling uneasily.

I had decided that that exact moment was the perfect time for me to put away the clean laundry that had been sitting in laundry baskets. I had also decided that this chore required my complete and undivided attention.

The room was tensely silent while I folded laundry and opened and closed drawers.

“You’re still angry with me,” Cameron finally caught on after a few minutes.

I briefly lifted my eyes but otherwise ignored him and continued my imperative chore.

Defeated, he fell backward on the bed, his hands passing over his face and halting forked in his hair. “This is so much more complicated than I ever thought it would be.”

“I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience to you,” I snarled. Then I remembered that I wasn’t talking to him and went back to the laundry.

He laughed and shook his head at the ceiling.

“I should be mad at you, you know,” he said. “There’s no way that Rocco could ever come up with a plan to blackmail me into letting him work for me.”

“You wanted something, he wanted something. That’s called bargaining, negotiation, not blackmail. Anyway, you don’t give Rocco enough credit. He’s a really smart kid.”

“Are you saying that you didn’t put the idea in his head?”

“He would have eventually found a way to get what he wants, whether or not I helped him,” I responded, avoiding the finger-pointed question.

He turned his head to gaze at me. “Having Rocco follow in my footsteps could get him killed. That’s not something that I can live with.”

“You know,” I said with an elongated sigh, “for someone so smart you can be really dense. None of this has to do with working for you. Rocco is just looking for a way to spend more time with you, his big brother. Since you work all the time and won’t talk to him about your life, he probably thinks that working
for
you will get him more time
with
you.”

I could feel Cameron’s eyes on me while he considered this.

“You think so?” he finally asked.

“I know so,” I said while I rolled socks into each other. “This has everything to do with you and Rocco and nothing to do with me. I’m just trying to give Rocco something to look forward to for once. Something beyond channel-surfing.”

“This place isn’t so bad, is it?” he asked me with an edge of concern in his voice.

“It’s definitely one of the nicer prisons I’ve been in,” I mumbled. “You can be mad at me all you want for not following your rules, but Rocco is bored and lonely. You really need to keep his mind busy. Doing dishes, babysitting me just won’t cut it.”

“Rocco likes to be around you,” he said. “I don’t think he feels like he’s babysitting you.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m a very poor substitute for you.”

Cameron sat back up, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. I could sense that he was studying me, and I tried to ignore that.

“Emmy, can you look at me?” he asked. “Please?”

I finally let him see my eyes, since he had said please.

His lips curved a little higher, but his eyes were still very tight. “I didn’t come in here because I was mad at you,” he told me. “I came here to apologize. I didn’t react very well after you had a nightmare because it was hard for me to see you be afraid of me. The last thing I wanted was to make you fear me. It made me feel sick to my stomach, but I don’t blame you for having the reaction of a normal person.”

I exhaled overdramatically. “Cameron, I had a bad dream. People have bad dreams all the time. And I’m definitely not afraid of you. If that makes me abnormal, then that’s nothing new.”

“You need to be scared of people like me, Emmy. We can hurt you.”

I crossed my arms like a five year-old. “If you came here to order me to be scared of you, then you might as well just turn around, because I don’t feel like being ordered around again today.”

“I never order you around,” Cameron said.

“What about yesterday when you gave me the third degree for talking to Frances? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” he reminded me, like a broken record.

“You use the words protect and control interchangeably,” I shot back and hurriedly stashed away a stack of my unmentionables into the top drawer, slamming the drawer shut with more force than necessary.

“You just need to trust my judgment,” he said, softly. “Believe me, I know better than to try to control you. You can do whatever you want here. Just think of this place as a long-deserved rest, like a spa or one of those places girls like you pay a lot of money to be forced to relax.”

I felt my ears grow hot, fully aware that he had put me in the box that I hated so much. “If I can’t go anywhere or talk to anyone, then I am in a prison. This is no spa that girls like me pay a lot of money to go to,” I pointed out to him with added harshness to my voice.

He was surprised by my change in demeanor. “I didn’t say that you couldn’t talk to anyone and you can walk around as much as you want. I’m just asking you to stay away from Frances.”

“But I can’t leave the grounds, and I have to stay away from Griff too.”

“Who’s Griff?” Cameron’s face was impenetrable.

“Griff … one of your guards … the one who’s been told to stay away from me, or else,” I reminded him, with as much patience as I could muster.

“You mean the big tall guy with the red hair who keeps looking at you with goofy eyes?” he mocked, but his expression had grown severe.

“So you’ve met,” I said with torrential sarcasm.

“I didn’t say anything to him. Why would I?”

“Maybe you didn’t but Spider sure did. Spider works for you, doesn’t he?”

“Security is Spider’s job. I don’t mess with his business, and I certainly don’t question how he manages the watchdogs,” he scoffed. Then he bent forward slightly. “What’s your interest in this Griff guy anyway?”

“We’re just friends,” I sighed. “Unless you lock me in here, you can’t expect me to barricade myself in your room when you’re gone all the time.”

Cameron smiled ruefully. “Why not? You could sit here, counting the minutes till I came home after a hard day’s work and made your wait worthwhile.”

I threw a T-shirt at him. He caught it in midair, tried to fold it, and threw it back onto the pile.

“Fine. I get it. You need some diversion. But does it have to be with that guy? I mean, can’t you just hang out with Rocco?”