“You tell this chowderhead to pull it together,” Lila said. “I can’t do a goddamn thing without him telling me what to do.”
“You needed to be told what to do. I have experience trailblazing, and you don’t. I don’t know why you find it so painful to take direction from somebody who has more experience than you.”
“I’myourboss,” she said.
“Yourbrotheris my boss, and even then, I would tell him to fuck off if I felt like it.”
“Okay,” Cody said. “No one is anyone’s boss. Nobody. Why? Because I couldn’t fire anyone here without having to hear about it for the rest of my life. It wouldn’t be worth it. I would rather keep you miserable assholes on payroll for the rest of my days than deal with the fallout of firing you. That means I can’t really be your boss. Also, Lila, he’s right. He has more experience with that kind of thing than you. You should’ve let him help.”
“You’re saying that without having witnessed how condescending he is. If he had been talking to you that way, you would’ve punched him in the face.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Possibly. But he wasn’t talking to me that way, and I wasn’t there, oh, and I don’t care. Pull it together.”
“So, how was the hotel thing?” Walker was clearly ready to leave the petty disagreement behind them, too.
“Well, her husband left her.”
“What?” At the same time, Nolan said, “Whose husband?”
“And, Nolan,” Lila said, “not only were you condescending –”
“Hang on a second,” Nolan said.
He grabbed hold of Lila, bumped her over his shoulder, and stood upright, clinging to her calves like she was a bag of feed, and then he walked straight into the living room anddumped her over the back of the couch while she screamed bloody murder.
“The adults are talking,” he said.
“FuuuuUUUuuck you,” she shouted, her middle fingers held high over the back of the couch and swirling in circles, the only visible part of her.
“Anyway,” Nolan said, his expression bright. “I’m sorry, start the story over.”
“I’m going topoison your food!” Lila shouted.
“Fine, if you shut the fuck up for a minute, you can poison my foodlater, you ungodly porcupine,” Nolan said. “Please go on.”
“I hired a couple, a married couple, to run the hotel. Plus, I hired the husband’s sister to run the bakery.”
He might have gotten into the middle of Lila and Nolan’s fight, but it was just a regular Tuesday with the two of them, so there was no point inserting himself, or even really remarking on it.
They were oil and oil, that was the problem. Not opposites, so much as way too much alike. That had always been true. They’d been at each other’s throats since Lila was so small she shouldn’t have been able to have a mortal enemy yet.
But she’d made one out of Nolan from moment one.
“Anyway, they showed up, it was just the two women. Turns out the guy asked for a divorce after they got all packed up to come out here.”
“Shit,” Walker said.
“What an asshole,” Lila said, clearly forgetting her rage at Nolan for a moment, because there was another man who deserved it even more.
“What are you going to do? Do you have to hire another person?” Nolan asked.
“We’ll see. But I didn’t really feel like I could throw her out on her ass, first of all because we need somebody,and I don’t have the luxury of waiting around to find a new candidate, and second of all because… I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. “
“Why? Is she hot?” This question came from Walker, and Cody found that he wanted to punch his brother in the face.
“What do her looks have to do with anything? I wouldn’t feel right about putting anybody out in the cold in this situation.”
“Liar,” Nolan said at the same time Lila said, “Lies.”
