His eyes widened. “I was gone for three hours. From what I can see, there isn’t anything in this place you haven’t touched and straightened. Christ, why do you insist on doing dumb shit like this?”

Tears sprang to her eyes and she looked away, quickly wiping them with the back of her hand. “Because I can help too. You don’t have to do everything.”

“Actually, I do.”

A fat worm of anger twisted in her gut. “Fuck you, Andrew.”

“I wish you would.”

He grabbed the bags and stormed to the kitchen, slamming the front door shut. Through it all, Buttons had found a chair to settle on, eyes flicking back and forth between them, bored with having to be subjected to the same old clash of two overstressed people.

It always happened like this. They went along fine; then something would have them both exploding way out of proportion to the core of their disagreement.

They didn’t argue as much as they used to, but when they did, it was always a no-holds-barred affair.

Andrew bringing up the very sore subject of sex was a button neither of them liked to push.

She thought she’d smelled beer on his breath.

“Are you driving drunk now?” she asked as he slammed cans and boxes onto the counter.

“What?”

“You smell like a brewery. I hope you didn’t hit anyone on your way home.”

She knew he wasn’t drunk. So what if he had a beer or two with his lunch? But she also knew that it was the right button to push.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said. “Maybe if I could be on the pills you take, I wouldn’t need a beer to relax every now and then.”

Another low blow. Kate wanted to spit at him.

“So now you’re saying I’m a junkie?”

When he didn’t respond, only giving her a cutting glance, she wanted to do more than spit at him. Yes, he was scared and worried for her, but why was he being such a monster? Moments like this, Kate thought it was a good thing she was disabled, because if she weren’t, it might come to blows. Then again, if she weren’t, they wouldn’t be having these arguments.

She lay back against the pillows, trying to shut out the sound of him clunking around the cottage and slamming doors.

He finally settled in the bedroom. Neither of them spoke for an hour. Sometime during their argument, he’d put a new bottle of Tylenol on the table next to her along with a glass of water.

Seeing the pills and water, she was torn between wanting to launch the glass at the wall or cry. Even throughout them being awful to one another, he cared enough to make sure she had what she needed.