Chapter Text
"Oh, this is just great!" Abby couldn't help muttering under her breath when she saw that she had spilled coffee all over her blouse. She put her phone on speaker and let it ring before she started to change her bra and top.
"Hello, this is Lisa at Bell Gardens home care; how can I help you?" The woman on the phone sounded way to chipper and perky for that time in the morning and Abby had to bite her tongue not to snap at her and make Lisas the innocent victim of Abby's own foul mood.
"Yes, hello, this is Abby Clarke, your agency helps me care for my mother Patrica Clarke during the days?" Having finally gotten a new blouse on she picked up the phone again and went to the kitchen to see if her mother had started eating her breakfast yet.
"Yes, that seems to be correct! Is there something I can help you with today Ms. Clarke?" Again, Abby reminded herself that Lisa was just doing her job and snapping at her would help no one, just ruin the day for the poor woman on the phone.
"Yes, my mother’s aid Anya was supposed to be here forty minutes ago but never showed up and I can't reach her on the number I got when she started? I can't leave my mom alone and I really need to get to work." Patrica gave her a sour look over her cup and made a huffing sound before drinking some of her coffee. She was having one of her not good days, one of the ones where she didn't want any help and felt like Abby was treating her like a child. Those were always not good days and it often meant fights between them all day over small things, things Patricia wanted to do by herself and Abby knew she needed help with.
"I see, I am so very sorry about that. Let me see if we have anyone available who could be there on short notice." The sound of keyboard keys clacking sounded in the background and Lisa made a slight humming sound. "I see here that there is actually a temp who should be available, would you mind being on hold for a moment while I call to make sure?"
Abby looked at her mother’s untouched breakfast and gave her a strained smile while pointing towards the plate, something Patricia choose to ignore in favor of reading an article in the morning paper. "Sure, no problem." Music started playing on the phone and Abby walked a step closer to her mother to move her plate closer to her and push the paper out of the way. "Please eat, mom, at least the eggs, ok?"
Her mom turned an angry glare at Abby while pushing the plate away from herself. "I can decide for myself if and when I eat! I’m not a toddler!" Patrica grabbed the paper while she got up from the table and then she rushed out of the room in a temper. After a moment Abby heard the TV start up in living room. She sighed and poured out her mom’s coffee in the sink and put the plate of rapidly cooling eggs and buttered toast on the counter. This was turning into a really bad day and it had only just started.
"How is it going with the agency?" Tommy asked walking into the kitchen to get his lunch for work from the fridge and giving her a worried look. Tommy tried to help Abby with her mom, but it was always a little awkward and none of them were wholly comfortable with the situation since they had all moved in together, even if it was getting a little better every day. Tommy and Patricia got along great when it came to watching movies together or solving crosswords at the kitchen table together, but when it came to the basic care Patricia needed with hygiene, food and taking care of herself they were suddenly strangers all over again.
"They found someone who might be able to make it, I’m on hold while she checks with them." Abby could hear the frustration in her own voice and sighed trying to let some of the stress go while leaning against the sink. She didn’t want to make Tommy the victim to her bad mood either.
Tommy placed his lunchbox on the counter next to the plate with the eggs and came up next to her and pushed some of her hair away from her face with a small smile. "It will be alright, worst case maybe we can ask Hannah again?" He said trying to reassure her.
"No, she is only seventeen and she has school. And I don't really feel comfortable leaving her with mom for a whole day." Hannah was a girl living two floors down who usually babysat for a few families in the building but who had also stayed with Patrica for a little over an hour once when Anya had had to leave suddenly and Abby couldn't come home right away.
The music suddenly stopped on the phone and Abby could hear the clacking of keyboard keys again. "Hi, Ms. Clarke, are you still there?"
"Yes, I’m here." She said while watching Tommy watch her and holding up her crossed fingers for him to see hoping they had a temp who could be there soon.
"The temp I spoke to was available and will be there within thirty minutes, is that ok?"
"Yes, of course! Thank you so much!" Abby smiled at Tommy and gave him the thumbs up, getting one of his rare crinkly smiles in return before he took her hand and kissed the back of it.
"Ok, you have a great day now!" Lisa hung up before Abby could thank her again, but Abby was too relived to be annoyed by it. She had been stressed all morning thinking that she would have to take a sick day and stay home to care for her mom and she really couldn’t afford that on top of everything.
She hurried to send Sue a text telling her she would be a little late because of problems with her mother’s care and turned to smile at Tommy again, who held out his arms for her in a hug. She couldn't keep herself from breathing him in and relaxing slightly when she felt his arms go around her and give her a comforting squeeze.
"Do you want me to drive you to work before my shift?" His voice rumbled low in her ear making her hair tickle against her neck when it moved from his breath.
"If you have time that would be great?" She still felt stressed and a little antsy from everything that had gone wrong so far this morning and had not been looking forward to driving in rush hour traffic with her nerves still on edge.
"Sure, it’s no trouble, my shift doesn’t start until nine." Hearing that made her a little annoyed, that meant she could have left already. He could have made the call to the agency and she would have been on time for work. But she knew Tommy wasn't all the way comfortable being alone with Patrica for longer times yet, so she pushed those feelings down and decided to focus on getting everything ready instead. There was no reason to take her bad mood out on Tommy, he was helping her, she just wished he would help more with the practical stuff around her mom too sometimes.
Abby was still looking for the folder with all the instructions and phone numbers to give to the new temp when there was a knock on the door. "Honey, could you get that, its probably the temp!" She called out down the hall to Tommy while looking for the folder in the bureau in her mom’s bedroom, she couldn’t remember where she put it last.
"Sure!" She heard him reply and his steps walking to the door but then she stopped listening, instead walking into the living room to look in the bookcase for the missing folder. After a few moments she finally found the folder lying on the lower shelf of the coffee table under a few magazines. Her mom was apparently still not happy with her and refused to look at her even when Abby had to move her mom’s feet to reach under the coffee table to grab the folder.
"Darling, this is Evan, the temp from the agency." She couldn't help but look at Tommy before looking at the temp. His voice sounded hoarse and strange, also he had never called her any type of pet name or nickname except for honey before. He looked stiff and almost angry and it made Abby wonder what could have happened in the few short moments since he went to open the door. She tried not to let her worry show on her face while she turned to look at Evan, the new temp. He was young and very attractive; she would almost call him beautiful even. He had short blonde hair and sky-blue eyes with a pink mark over one eyebrow. He was smiling shyly at her and Patrica, who had stopped watching the TV and was watching Evan and Tommy instead.
"Hi Mrs Clarke." Evan said and gave Patrica a slightly awkward wave while also squirming a little where he stood.
"I like him!" Her mom whispered to Abby out of the corner of her mouth with absolutely no subtlety. "He is very handsome."
She could see Evan blush and Tommy made a small grimace with his mouth like Patrica had said something offensive before he quickly left for their bedroom, probably to grab the last of his things for work.
"Hi Evan, thank you for coming on such short notice! I will be back again around five this afternoon but if you need anything before then please call me. All the important phone numbers and other information is in this folder, allergies, meds, routines and the like." She turned to her mom and put a hand in her upper arm. "I love you mom, have a good day ok?" Her mom seemed to still be focused on Evan and just nodded to show she had heard. Abby gave a tired smile and walked over to Evan to give him the folder. "She hasn’t eaten anything yet, she only drank some coffee earlier so if you can get her to eat some breakfast that would be wonderful."
"Sure thing Ms. Clarke." He said giving her a stunning smile that made her feel almost flushed. She wanted to shake herself to a little to snap out of it but just gave him the folder instead and then walked passed him to meet Tommy by the door who was holding her bag out for her. He seemed to have gotten over most of his irritation with Evan and was instead busy checking that he had all his things. "You’re a firefighter?" Evan asked with a beaming smile pointing towards Tommys bag with the LAFD logo on it. "That is so cool!"
Tommy just glanced at him and rolled his eyes making Abby feel embarrassed about him being so rude towards Evan. "I’m really sorry to just run like this but I’m late for work and Tommy is being a sweetheart and driving me in before going to his own shift." She babbled with an awkward smile hoping to tell Evan how sweet Tommy usually was without actually saying it.
'It’s fine, I get it, have a great day!" He said with a small shrug of his shoulders, but Evan’s smile had dimmed a little and he seemed to have become somehow smaller after seeing Tommy roll his eyes at his question. She saw Tommy straighten up out of the corner of her eye and heard him clear his throat before nodding stiffly towards Evan once and then walking out of the apartment, she also gave a slightly tight smile before leaving and locking the door behind her.
Neither Abby nor Tommy said anything in the elevator on the way down or while getting into the car. They sat in silence for almost twenty minutes before Abby felt she had to say something. It was not until Tommy steered the truck onto the highway that Abby couldn't hold it in anymore and had to ask. "What happened back there, with Evan? Did he say something when you let him in?" Tommy was one of the calmest and most collected people she knew, he almost never showed such strong emotions about people, especially ones he had just met, which made her worried about his reaction to Evan.
Tommy just glanced at her for less than a second before looking back to the road. "No." He said, but she could see his knuckles turning white from him squeezing the steering wheel too hard, clearly still tense from whatever had happened back at the apartment.
Abby waited a few moments for him to elaborate but he remained silent. "You seemed to really dislike him?" She asked at last hoping that he would open up to her about what was bothering him.
"No, why would I dislike him? I’ve never even seen him before." He said still not taking his eyes of the road or relaxing his hands.
"You tell me? You looked at him like he had insulted your mom or something and then the sneering when he asked about you being a firefighter?" She couldn’t help but get annoyed with Tommy and his reaction to the situation. If Evan had done something inappropriate, she wanted to know what it was since he was going to be the one taking care of her mother. If he had said something offensive or behaved strange in any way she had the right to know, the man would be alone with Abby’s mom for the whole day and anything could happen.
"I just don't like people who act like that around firefighters." He said with a shrug, still stubbornly refusing to look at her. "All that hero worship and stuff." What he said made no sense to her, she had seen Tommy around people like that or worse before and he had never reacted to anyone of them as he had reacted to Evan this morning.
Abby couldn't help frowning. Tommy had been annoyed with the guy before Evan even said anything about firefighting at all, he was irritated when they were in the living room. Instead of pushing she took a deep breath through her nose, she didn't have the energy to make a big deal about it and instead just decided to keep an eye on both Evan and Tommy if Evan came back to temp anymore in the future. If Tommy kept acting strangely around the guy she promised herself she would push. Maybe she would even have a chance to ask Evan about it later that day when she got home from work, maybe he could tell her what was going on with Tommy.
When Tommy pulled the truck up along the curb outside the dispatch center she kissed him quickly before getting out, and got one of his more awkward and stiff smiles in return, he still didn’t let go of the steering wheel and she could feel how stiff his whole body was when she put her hand on his neck to lean in. She wished she had the time and energy to ask him more about his reaction to Evan and what was going on but instead she just gave him a small wave over her shoulder and then rushed into the building hoping it was just the stress of the morning that made him behave so strangely