Page 12 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

When Diem still wasn’t ready to go, and I’d finished reviewing my notes, I checked the work email attached to our website, where requests for jobs sometimes came in.

I sat up straighter as I read the latest inquiry from a man who had been arrested for fraud against his company.

His court date was pending, but he wasn’t impressed with the legal counsel he’d been appointed.

He had suspicions and wanted help finding proof that his company was lying.

“Hey, D?” I called. “Did you see this new job that came through the website?”

“No.”

I gave him a brief rundown. “Can I take it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I gave you Oliver Hill.”

I scowled at the handwritten notes I’d made on the pad beside me. “I can do both.”

“You’re here two days a week, Tallus.”

“Then take the lawyer and let me have this one.”

“No.”

“Why do you get to have all the fun ones, and I always get stuck behind a computer? Don’t you trust me out in the community?”

No response.

My jaw hit the ground. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t think I can handle surveillance or tracking or investigative work. ”

Nothing.

“Don’t ignore me, Diem Krause. I did not go down to part-time at the department to be stuck behind a desk here too. I passed my test. Put me in, Coach. I can do it.”

Diem appeared at the mouth of the hallway, Echo by his side. He pinned me with a hard look. “No.”

“You’re mean.”

“Let’s go home. I’m done for the day.”

“Why can’t I take this job?”

“You’re not ready.”

“What the hell does that mean? I’ll never be ready if you don’t—”

“I said no, Tallus, and I’m not discussing it anymore.”

“You suck.” I slammed the lid of the laptop and shoved my notepad in a drawer for the following day.

A wave of petulance hit me, and I couldn’t quell my sarcastic tone.

“I can’t talk about the card. I can’t talk about juicy cases and my ability to work them.

What can I talk about, Mister I’m in Charge of Everything? ”

“Dinner. What do you want for dinner?”

“Conversation with a side of respect and acceptance for my opinions.”

Diem stormed out the door without saying another word, leaving me to lock up.

Bastard.

***

When we got home, Diem didn’t join me upstairs, declaring Echo needed to use the bathroom. “Figure out dinner,” he barked as he took off, shoulders near his ears .

Weren’t we a clashing pair. Surly and snarly. Diem’s bear was loose, and I had my cat claws and teeth out, ready to fight back. It happened far too frequently. When we loved each other, we loved each other, but when things soured, they grew volatile fast.

I slammed through cupboards, seeking ingredients for a simple meal.

I was not a chef. I hated cooking, but we didn’t have the money to eat out all the time.

Diem’s kitchen skills outweighed mine, but his recipe repertoire started and ended with his macro-friendly chicken, broccoli, and rice.

Plain, bland, boring, no-spices-included chicken, steamed broccoli with no butter or salt, and white rice. Disgusting.

My go-to meals before moving in with Diem consisted of ramen noodles, cereal, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I wasn’t opposed to eating a box of crackers for dinner on occasion.

It was why I never shared Kitty’s lunch offerings, greedily and shamelessly gobbling them up.

It was why I visited my mother for dinner weekly and stole every ounce of leftovers.

Feeling like I had to prove myself that evening—Diem was clearly in a mood and thought me utterly incompetent—I heated a pot of water for pasta, tossed a pound of frozen ground beef into the microwave to defrost, and checked the expiration date on a can of sauce that had been around since the dawn of time. Spaghetti wasn’t hard, right?

As I waited for the microwave to beep and the pot of water to boil, I found the half-empty jar of peanut butter that lived beside the boxes of teas neither of us liked and dug in.

Diem caught me spooning great wads of it directly into my mouth as he and Echo entered the apartment. He glared, but I couldn’t tell if it was a normal glare or if he was still pissed off. “What the fuck do you have against crackers?”

“Nothing. I love those tiny, happy peanut butter vehicles. Especially Ritz, but we don’t have any. I’m making spaghetti.” I gestured to the dried pasta and sauce waiting beside the pot on the stove. “It’s not gourmet, and it’s not frozen pizza, but it should fill us up.”

Diem grunted and let Echo off her leash. She trotted to her toy basket, finding her favorite stuffed animal, and lying down to have herself a good chew. The poor thing had no filling left, and the squeaker had long since been destroyed, but she loved it.

My extra-surly boyfriend watched me shovel peanut butter into my mouth without comment. Tension radiated between us. Since I’d been forbidden from discussing the two things that were likely irritating him, I made a show of uncaringly eating out of the jar.

I had a knack for getting under Diem’s skin. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it was in a good way. Not today. Today, my sass riled him up. When I should have backed down, I didn’t.

“What?” I asked when he wouldn’t stop glaring. “I’m hungry. It’s a pre-dinner snack. Problem?”

“You’ll spoil your dinner.”

“That’s never happened.”

“Other people eat out of that jar.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do my cooties bother you?”

Diem’s storm-cloud eyes narrowed. His jaw ticked. “I’m not trying to upset you, Tallus.”

“Great, because I’m not upset.”

“You’re acting like a petulant brat.”

My brows kissed my hairline. “I’m sorry. A brat? Did you just—”

“You’ll get better jobs when I think you can handle them. Surveillance and sneaking around to gather information requires the art of subtlety. Sometimes, it’s dangerous, and—”

“Are you saying I can’t be subtle?”

“I’m saying you have a bold personality and tend to fly on instinct. You don’t think. I don’t want to put you in danger. ”

I balked. “Excuse me? I do not fly on instinct.”

Diem deadpanned. “Remember the cabin?”

Scoffing, I tossed the peanut butter spoon into the sink and crossed my arms, taking a stance and exercising my so-called bratty petulance, or whatever he called it.

Oh, I remembered the cabin. The fire. The panic.

The fear. Diem’s race to rescue me. But it was my instinct that had gotten us answers.

I was the one who had given a dying case direction.

Without looking into my hunch, we might never have solved it, and that case had been the pinnacle of saving Diem’s company.

We wouldn’t be where we were without my flying on instinct .

I could have pointed that out, but instead, I rode the sass train right into the station. Iron Bull, meet Iron Bull. “Yeah, well, you’re six and a half feet tall and built like a fucking tank. How is that subtle?”

“It’s not.” Diem scrubbed a hand over his face.

“My size is my downfall. I recognize that. I don’t blend well, but I’ve adapted.

I use my strengths where I can. I puzzle out situations and make them work for me.

When that doesn’t work, I get help. When you learn to rein it in and think before acting, you can take the riskier cases too. ”

“You’re treating me like a child.”

“No, Tallus.” His voice rose. “I’m trying to teach you, but you don’t listen.”

“How will I learn if you don’t let me try?”

“Start by adopting those principles into your everyday life.”

I threw my hands up. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re impulsive.”

“I am not impulsive.” I was extremely impulsive, but my defenses were up, and he was pissing me off.

Diem pulled the leather pouch from his pocket and dangled it between us. “Not impulsive? If I left this up to you, you would have conned Ruiz into helping you sell it on the black market, so you had extra cash to spend on whatever Gucci Vuitton outfit bullshit recently caught your eye.”

“That’s… not a thing. They are two separate companies. And my clothing choices are not bullshit.”

Diem arched a brow. It was not the point, and I did not think about the wish list I’d made while at work because it only proved he was right.

“Fine. I’m impulsive.” I spun and tore open the new bag of pasta, dumping the entire thing into the boiling water. Dry noodles clattered over the counter and onto the floor, drawing Echo’s attention.

“For fuck’s sake. You’re making a mess,” he yelled, then, quieter, to the dog, “Echo, girl, don’t touch that. Go lie down.”

“You know what, Diem? I liked it better when you didn’t talk. Your grunts and growls left the conversation open to interpretation. Words turn you into an asshole.”

Whatever he said next came out in the exact growly incommunicado tone I was used to hearing at the beginning of our relationship.

I pretended he said Yes, Tallus, you’re right, Tallus.

I am an asshole, Tallus. It was unfair of me not to trust you with the card or to offer you better cases.

You aren’t impulsive at all. You are smart and witty and—

The slam of our bedroom door jarred me from those make-believe thoughts. “Asshole,” I muttered, finding the broom to sweep up the spilled pasta.

What hurt most was that he was right.

In the six months I’d spent living with Diem, I learned a few things.

Blending two lives was not easy, especially when our personalities clashed.

As Diem learned to express himself with words and maneuver his feelings openly, I needed to learn when to shut the fuck up because not every thought had to be expressed.

We were both combative when provoked. His hair-trigger temper was not always easy to avoid.

Our relationship was an ocean. It ebbed and flowed.

Waves rocked us this way and that. Mostly, we worked together, holding each other up.

We suffered each other’s flaws, but at the end of the day, it was those imperfections that made us who we were.

It was the ability to see past those faults that created the foundation of the love we had for one another. We loved hard but fought without mercy.

On days like today, it felt like all we did was push each other underwater in a sick competition to see who could hurt the other worse.

I sassed, snarked, and grew irritatingly petulant—bratty, apparently.

Diem yelled and slammed doors, which also meant he would likely drink himself into oblivion later from a sheer lack of knowing how to handle the stress of fighting. Worse, he shut down and stopped talking. I hated that most of all.

He returned from the bedroom a few minutes later, marching to the door. “Come on, Echo. Get your vest on. Let’s go visit Nana.”

Echo bounded over, clearly pleased with that decision.

“What about dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

The microwave beeped as the front door slammed. The meat was thawed. Cursing, I turned off the element under the water, leaving the partially boiled noodles in the pot. I retrieved the peanut butter and spoon again and landed on the couch, turning on the TV.

Fuck it.