Inferno Part 4

~10~ Being Bossy

Ellie's POV

"Luke, why did you take my AirPods?" Shay asks as she comes down the stairs with a funny look on her face.

Taylor stops cleaning his guns and looks up at her, surprised by her somewhat irritated tone...Shay NEVER gets annoyed or frustrated.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't find my headphones yesterday when I wanted to go for a run. Why are you so upset?" Luke asks as he gets up from the table and walks over to her.

"Because you left them in your pants pocket and I didn't know. I just washed them."

Luke closes his eyes for a minute and then kisses her cheek once he opens them.

"I'll get you a new pair. I'm so sorry."

Shay shakes her head and sighs. "No, I don't want another pair."

She walks over to the trash can and puts them in the garbage, and then goes to the fridge to get a drink.

Luke follows her and shuts the fridge, taking the water out of her hand and tucking a short strand of hair behind her ear as best as he can.

"I'll replace them, baby. I'm sorry."

"You can't replace them," she snaps.

Her tone makes Luke jump, and Taylor's eyes widen.

She takes a big breath and blows it out. "I'm sorry," she says softly as she goes upstairs to their apartment.

Luke looks at us and shrugs. "I know I messed up, but what am I missing?"

Taylor sets something that he uses to clean his guns down on the table and scratches his cheek.

"I bought those the first day I took her to chemo, and we used them every time we watched a movie. We both decided that they'd be lucky."

"Damn," Luke mutters as he goes into the trash and gets the discarded AirPods, and silently follows after Shay.

I roll my eyes as I go up to Taylor. He can tell what I'm doing, so he moves his chair away from the table and opens up his arms up for me. I sit down in his lap and snuggle into his strong chest.

"You ok?" I ask as he wraps his arms tightly around me and kisses my head.

"Not really—Shift sucked. I don't wanna keep disciplining him, but I have to. If this would've been anyone else....I can't just give him back his truck and act like everything is ok. I have to continue making him suffer."

"I deserve it," Wes says next to us.

We both look up and see a sad looking Wes standing next to us at the table.

Taylor is silent as he watches Wes, and Wes sighs as he sits down. "I came over to give you an appropriate apology. How I acted...I'm sorry, Chief. Next shift I'll do whatever you're wanting, and you'll get the respect you deserve."

"I appreciate that," he says in a still hard tone as he shifts me so I'm sitting further up on his left thigh.

Wes nods once and thrums his fingers on the table, his mind a million miles away. "Trace just came over and gave me hell. He said that it was weird seeing me disciplined. He hated it."

"Me too," Taylor nods.

"I just need you to know that if I were actually drunk, I would've taken furlough. I wasn't drunk, Taylor."

"Doesn't matter, Wes. I don't care if you would've blown a 0.01....There can be NO trace of alcohol in your blood when you walk through those doors."