Sorry it's been so long, and this is likely a bit boring but I'm finding it hard to get to the next part because I'm struggling to wrap my head around how I'm going to do it. But I promise I'll finish setting it all up very soon and get the next sort of 'main' part of the story underway. I can't promise how long it will take however. Onward.
Lose the Road
By - TempestRaces
Chapter 17 – Walk Away
"I don't know why she's with me. I only brought her trouble since the day she met me. If I was her, by now I would have left me. I would have walked away.
But you've fallen in love in the worst way. And if you don't go now then you'll stay. Cause I'll never let you leave, never let you breathe. Cause if you're looking for heaven, baby it sure as hell ain't me."
Bryce gave up waiting to be invited back into the room after about ten minutes. He figured they weren't going to tell him they were decent out of spite for his interrupting, so he just walked right back in. He found he was correct in his assumption. They were both decently clothed again, she in a chair and he in his bed, both pretending the other didn't exist. He sighed. Back to the dance of mock indifference. Great.
"You two gonna be mad at me for something that ain't my fault all day, or just for a while?"
"I'm not mad at you," Tempest snarled with a sneer on her face, tone totally saying she was oh so mad at Bryce even if her words denied it. And potentially with Vince as well. But mostly with herself, he was sure. And thus the overreaction level of anger.
"No, you're growling at me because you're the very spirit of good humour." Bryce answered on a sigh. Just because he understood where she was coming from didn't mean he had to be happy about being subjected to it.
"No, I'm stressed to the fucking limit. And it feels like I'm constantly wasting time putting out fires and dancing around hurt feelings and little boy attitudes rather than doing something constructive and getting everyone out of this mess."
"No one asked you to get anyone out of any mess," Vince snarled, choosing to take her comments personally, not attributing any of it to Jesse, as he likely should have done.
"No, but you got them all into the mess over your inability to pick up a phone in the first fucking place, so let's not get all self-righteous."
"People!" Bryce broke them up, and found he was getting fed up of the necessity. "You," he pointed at Tempest, "go sit with Jesse." He turned to Vince. "You, lay there and try not to piss anyone off for 5 minutes."
"I'm not interested in sitting with Jesse. Jesse can lay there and worry about whether I'm going to be ready to make up with him any time soon. Jesse, much as I love him, can go fuck himself along with the both of you." She stood up abruptly. "I'm taking my truck and going to have a proper meal because if my blood sugar stays this unbalanced I'm going to kill one, both or all three of you. Then I'm going for a run to burn off some of my energy and stress. And then I'm going to shower and change. Then I may see one or all three of you here again, after I find my ability not to punch one or all of you in the face." She left the room without saying another word to either of them.
"What the hell did you do to her?" Bryce asked Vince as he stared after Tempest's retreating form, puzzled by the fact her attitude amused him. The typical person who spoke to him the way she just had would have been slapped down a few. But when it was her, it was just so much a part of her he couldn't hold it against her.
"What haven't I done to her? I think most of this has nothing to do with now and everything to do with then and I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it. What's done is done."
"You said sorry yet?"
"Yeah," Vince gave Bryce a look like he was a moron. "Of course I have."
"Really? Like you meant it, like you acknowledged how stupid you were back then?"
"I told her I shoulda called. What else is there to say?"
"How about 'I shouldn't have done that in the first place?' How about 'I only did it because I was terrified of the things I found myself wanting and I didn't know what to do with it, so I fucked up and I wish I could take it back'? How about any of that?" Bryce snorted in disbelief. "What kind of apology is 'I should have called'?"
"Jesus, that's what she just asked. You two co-ordinate that shit telepathically or what?"
"No, just both smarter'n you I guess." Bryce sat in the chair Tempest had left empty. "You're gonna have to do better'n that."
"I know, but I'm not in the right frame of mind for it, or the right place, stuck in here."
"Yeah, well, getting physical with her before you make up with her proper ain't right. She's gonna think that's all your after again, after that's what you made her think last time."
"Damn B, she started what you walked in on, not me."
Bryce tipped his head to the side in contemplation. "I see." He wasn't sure what to make of that. He just sat with Vince in silence for another couple minutes before he spoke again. "I gotta go for a while. You alright if I do? Need anything?"
"Naw, I'm fine. They'll be bringing lunch soon, such as it is."
"Alright. I'll be back, hopefully at the same time as the wild thing, so we can work some of this out." Bryce left the room with that and Vince huffed a deep breath, trying to use the solitude to get his head around his still fucked up life.
Tempest went back to the house, changed into the only thing she had brought with her passing for athletic wear, and after shoving the earbuds of her Ipod into her ears, took off out the house at a moderate pace tuned into a running mix. She ran until she could barely breathe, and her legs could barely hold her, and then she went back to the house. She showered upstairs, unable to find any motivation to clean the bathroom in the basement and god knew it would need cleaning before anyone but the guys would see fit to use it.
She then dressed in some low rise flairs and a babydoll tee shirt before pulling a light leather motorcycle style jacket on over and some chunky New Rock boots on her feet before going out and getting into the truck. She felt like she spent more time living in a truck or hospital than she did in a house lately. She scorned all the fast food she passed, and pulled into a place where she could get something that wasn't served with a side of fries. After she ate she drove around aimlessly until she felt more even and headed back to the hospital. She then found herself stood between door a and b, unable to decide who she wanted to deal with first, Jesse or Vince.
She eventually decided on Jesse and entered the room. She cut him off before he could open his mouth. "I'm not ready to make nice. But I will be. Just not right now. Not yet."
"Okay," he answered. It was more than he'd hoped for, quicker than he'd hoped for it. He hadn't really been expecting to see her again anytime soon. "You okay? You don't look good."
"I'm exhausted," she answered, forgetting she was supposed to still be angry with him. "I ran til I almost passed out this afternoon to try and just de-stress and I'm still just wrecked. Maybe that means I'll sleep tonight I guess."
"Why'd you come back here then? You shoulda just stayed at home, taken a break." She shrugged.
"Yeah but I told Bryce I'd be back later after I got chill enough not to beat one or all of you. I dunno about chill enough but I got exhausted enough that I don't got energy for ass whoopins so I guess it'll have to do." She yawned tiredly. "If this is gonna happen, I might have to leave soon. Harry made a valid point. I can't just disappear on the same day as him or they're going to be straight after me. They won't let it go as a co-incidence. I have to go a few days before. A week of the two the nurse said she could keep him here is over. In four or five days, I gotta head out."
"It's a valid point," Jesse couldn't argue but he wanted to. He didn't want her to go while he was still stuck in the hospital. No one had given him any idea when he could go home. "You been to see my dad yet?"
"Nope. Still trying to figure if it's worth the risk of him saying he hasn't got a daughter. Maybe tomorrow. See how it goes."
"Hey!" Jesse showed some enthusiasm and sat up straighter. "What if I call him? Tell him I had an accident and make like you and he might have had a big fight? Be like 'Jessica wants to come see you about what I'm gonna need when I get out of the hospital but she's scared you won't see her after all this time, but she is your daughter dad?' then he'll know to go along with it, but if they're listening to his conversations, there won't be anything suspicious for them to latch onto?"
"Worth a shot I guess," Tempest answered. "Give it a try."
Jesse made the call, and it went well. After he replaced the receiver he turned back to Tempest. "He'll see you tomorrow. No sweat."
"Good. I better go say night to Vince and B if he's around, and then go home and get some sleep."
"Ok, see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow." When Tempest looked at Jesse she could tell he was worried she was still mad at him, so she leaned down and kissed his forehead before heading for the door. She was mad, but not so mad she'd leave him worrying all night. He was in enough stress without her adding to it by leaving him thinking she was going to be pissy with him for the foreseeable.
She crossed the hall, pushed through the door, and took a moment to just take in his face before she took in Bryce sitting in the chair beside the bed.
"You look like shit," Bryce said as soon as he got a good look at her face. He rushed to correct himself, seeing the storm clouds brewing in her eyes and knowing he was soon going to be in for a set down. "I mean, you look hot as fuck, but tired as shit." He caught the look Vince was giving him that said if his brother wasn't too hurt to get out of bed, they'd be speaking with their fists. "What? She does! Like she belongs on the back of a Harley. I'm not supposed to notice? I ain't dead."
"She ain't hot to you. She's off limits to you. And she ain't never riding on the back of your bike again. Or any bike for that matter," Vince growled.
"She is stood right here, knows she looks like shit, has no desire to ride on anyone's motorcycle, and doesn't appreciate being talked about like a slab of fillet mignon."
"I didn't mean you look like shit. I meant you look tired. Very tired. Where you been?"
"Like I said when I left, I had to get a meal before I killed someone and cafeteria or fast food wasn't going to cut it. First I ran until the exact moment I almost passed out, and then I had a shower, then I had a meal, and now here I am. Too tired to try and punch any of you in the face, luckily for you both."
"Why didn't you stay home and go to bed then?"
"There are things we need to decide, and we're running out of time to decide them. We need to sit down and start to talk about it sometime," Tempest addressed Vince's question as she walked toward the other chair in the room. "If I have to go a few days before you disappear we're running out of days. A week is gone."
"Hold up. You have to be gone before he disappears?" Bryce questioned. "Why the fuck is that?"
"Think about it B. If he and I go missing on the same day, and Jesse is still in here, they're going to be on me like white on rice from day one. If I disappear the same day as he does, they're going to really dig into who I am and what I was doing here, and if they dig hard enough they're going to find mentions of Tempest, and find no mention of Jessica before a week ago. At the very least they're going to be interested enough to find out where Tempest and Jessica live, and make some phone calls. And while the line for Jessica will forward to my cell, I don't know if they can detect it when a call forwards, and no one is answering Tempest's calls. Worst come to worst, Angelo will cover for me, and fake evidence I was there with him like I told the people at home I would be. But it'd be better if Jessica just made arrangements for Jesse and told everyone she had to go home for a while to handle her business."
"When'd you decide that?" Bryce asked, looking at her speculatively. She was completely right.
"I didn't. Harry did." Bryce cocked his head to the side with her answer.
"Shouldn't he want you to fail, or at least decide not to do this? Why's he helping you do this better?"
"He's my friend." Tempest shrugged. "He wants me to be happy. He wants me to have what I want. He doesn't want to make my decisions for me. Likely decided long ago that he couldn't anyway and might as well not waste his energy."
"Meow," Vince drawled, finally opening his mouth. "Retract the claws, Trouble. Point scored." Tempest just cocked an eyebrow his way before continuing, choosing not to dignify his assumption with acknowledgement.
"He also said we'd likely be best off getting an ambulance from somewhere and using that to move him in, so it looks legit. I'd like to go one step further and get the people who actually move him to dress like cops and act like they've come to do the transfer, have some official looking paperwork and that stuff. Make it look like the prison has come for him, so it'll take longer before anyone questions it. Hopefully long enough for the ambulance to meet me and do the swap off into the back of the truck. Plus, the stretcher out the ambulance would likely be the best thing to leave him on in the back of the truck."
"Now who's talking about who like a slab of meat?" Vince interjected.
"In this, you are just a slab of meat," Tempest snapped back. "So lay there like a good steak and be quiet." Bryce stood up, ending their bickering.
"Well, I have an ambulance to find. So I'll go work on that while the two of you bicker because I've had about enough of it today. See you both in the morning. I'll let you know how I've made out then." He turned to Tempest. "You should go home and sleep in a real bed tonight. You're getting bitchy and you're not really the bitchy sort. You need sleep. Go get some. There will come a day that I stop putting up with your attitude and start telling it like it is."
Tempest only rolled her eyes in answer and Bryce left with a sigh. She wasn't about to get into a fight with Bryce about telling her what to do. She wasn't about to explain to him in front of Vince that her stress level and thus her level of mouthing off had nothing to do with lack of sleep and everything to do with being unable to make up her mind if she wanted to kiss or kill Vince every time they were in the same room together.
"You should likely go home, get some sleep," Vince repeated once the door was shut behind Bryce.
"I know. But driving back to the house means driving the truck again today. I can't wait to give the damn truck back. I've seen well too much of the inside of it over the last week. I didn't want the truck. Angelo wanted the truck. I pimped it as best as I could, but there's only so much you can do to an Escalade and it was always for him, I never wanted it, tried to talk him out of buying it in the first place. It's just so fucking huge, too much work for me." Vince cocked an eyebrow.
"An automatic Cadillac Escalade is too much work for someone whose regular ride is a '90 Skyline GT-R? For real?"
"I can park the Skyline anywhere. I can turn the Skyline on a dime. I can make the Skyline whip donuts. I can make the Skyline spin out and still end up where I want it. With the four wheel drive the Skyline has the best manners of any 1000 horsepower vehicle I've ever been behind the wheel of. Without drastic modifications to the all wheel drive, the rear end finds it very hard to step out of line. I've done all that crazy stuff so many times that it's not effort anymore. It's just instinct. Getting that fucking boat into one parking bay is still an effort every time. I'm constantly scared I'm going to back over a pet, or a kid on a bike. You can't see anything less than 6 foot tall in the rearview."
"So at least you wouldn't back over me," Vince said, trying a joke.
"Don't bet on it," she quipped back. "We ain't anywhere near ok with each other for me to promise you that I wouldn't at least try. Driving it right over the Maxima has some appeal as well. Bet in low range 4x4 it'd crawl right up the hood." She wasn't even able to find it in herself to feel guilty when he turned even paler than he was.
"My poor car hasn't done anything to you!"
"No, but you have. You never took enough time to get to know me well enough to know if I'm the type of girl who keys fenders and slashes leather seats and tires. Let alone drives tons of American heavy metal onto ridiculously tuned Nissans."
"I think I do know you well enough to know that isn't you. Destroying my clothes I can imagine. Kicking the crap out of me face to face, oh hell yes. But destroying a nice car, no matter whose it is, isn't your style."
"Maybe you do know me better than I thought you did then." He looked visibly relieved when she confirmed she wasn't about to go pour gasoline all over his interior and strike a match.
"I'd like to think I was starting to."
"Not well enough, obviously. Practically crawling down racer chaser Barbie's throat right in front of me was the ultimate way to end things to inspire all kinds of evil revenge plans and I'd have thought even you'd have been clever enough to figure that one out. And now you're all drugged up, weak as a newborn kitten and about to be totally at my mercy for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't describe you as the sharpest tool in the shed at any point of that scenario."
"I wouldn't call me the sharpest tool in the shed in any scenario. I know it was stupid. I didn't know how to take it back and I never figured it out. That'd be why I never called you, that'd be why I tried to get you to come to me. I didn't know how to take it back and obviously I still don't."
"You can't take it back. There's this huge 'what would have been' hanging over us now, and now that you've all done this and gotten caught at it, not only will we never know what might have been, we'll never even know what we could have made of it all if you'd come after me straight away. If you'd called straight away. Not left it two years and decided you couldn't even man up enough to come to me, you had to try and find a way to make me come to you, even though it was clear to everyone else that it was your move to make, not mine."
"So now what?" he asked, after taking a moment's reflection on everything they've said. He couldn't argue with anything she'd said. He'd played it all wrong.
"Now, we forget about what might have been and try to learn to be ok with what will be I guess. But I need time to wrap my head around it. I'm not going to just forgive you and turn the other cheek. I'm really not going to when you haven't even asked for forgiveness, or tried being actually sorry for anything. So now, all we can do is find out if we can be ok with what comes." She sighed. "I guess I should go say good night to Jesse and head for home."
"You sound like you don't really want to." Tempest shrugged.
"I don't. I'm tired, and it's late. Driving home in the dark to an empty house that isn't even mine isn't high on my list of priorities but I can't keep sleeping in the hospital, least of all in here. Eventually someone but Martha is going to walk in and see it, and tell the wrong person and we don't need that cop any more interested. Besides that I'm off to see Jesse's dad tomorrow and I know I'm going to need a good night's sleep before that."
"Why do you need to go see Jesse's dad?"
"To try and make sure Jesse has someone to look after him when he gets out of the hospital. Calvin is almost due to be released so I'm hoping he'll need somewhere to stay for a piece and if so he can find somewhere with Jess. He can't stay alone."
"I guess not." Vince looked her way. "So, I'll see you tomorrow?" He was too unsure of things between them after the things she'd said to take it for granted.
"Yeah, at some point, in the afternoon most like. Tell Bryce that I said that if I ever find myself about to take his orders on when and where I sleep, I'll fucking off myself when you see him would you? He got out the door too quick earlier for me to tell him myself." Vince laughed, he couldn't help it.
"You always did have to have a smart ass retort to everything."
"Nothing much has changed."
"Not at all." He watched as she stood up. "Don't go, stay here." Where it came from he didn't know. His words checked her, and she stood with her back to him for a few moments like she didn't know what to do. She turned back to him.
"I would if I could, but it'd be seriously foolish." She took in the weary lines around his eyes that hadn't been there the last time they'd known each other, a mere two years previous. "It's only for another couple days then you're out of here. I'm going to go say night to Jess then I'm headed for the fort." Vince nodded and she left, knowing if she went close enough to touch him, and if he touched her back, she wasn't going anywhere. She would end up sleeping in her clothes in his hospital bed with him again, and she was right when she said it couldn't keep happening if they weren't going to end up being closely watched. She said good night to Jesse and drove to the fort like she'd said she would. She chose to sleep in Vince's bed in the basement again. It was as close as she could safely come to sleeping with him and she knew she'd never get any sleep at all if she felt like she was on her own.