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through a bunch of old crap from her childhood, trying to mend fences with her family, had been helpful but every once in a while, those ‘triggers’ got the best of her like they had today.
    She was in bed when Brendan came in, stretching and circling his neck. Tracy was almost always in bed when he got home. Such was the nature of his work, but even for him, coming in after eight p.m. was late.
    He yawned. “Hey,” he said.
    Tracy didn’t respond.
    “Are we still beefin’?” he asked, pausing before going into the closet. “Because if we are, I’ll save myself the energy trying to get you to talk to me.”
    “Brendan, we’re not beefin’ . I just didn’t like what you had to say today, that’s all.”
    “Well like it or not, Tracy, what I said was true. Every word of it. I don’t like having to apologize for you, or overcompensate with niceness because you’ve been terse with someone when you didn’t have to be, or just downright rude.”
    Pinpricks of tears had already begun at the backs of her eyes. It was one thing when they were in the middle of a heated argument—in those she could more than hold her own—but when he very calmly and matter-of-factly told her the ways in which she let him down, it reduced her to tears every single time. No one else in the world could make her cry as easily.
    Seeing the look on her face, knowing she was close to tears usually broke him down too. It was at about that point that he would come to her and soften his tone, but tonight Brendan simply sighed and walked into his closet where Tracy could hear him removing his clothes.
    “ Please don’t start with the crying,” he said, exasperated. “I’m not telling you anything you shouldn’t know, Tracy. This is shit you learned in the first grade—do unto others . . . you know the rest don’t you?”
    If she didn’t know him so well, she would have missed the significance of his tone. This wasn’t Brendan annoyed , this was Brendan mad . He rarely if ever raised his voice to her. When he was very angry, he didn’t get hot, he instead became very, very cold. Tracy could only guess at what happened after she left his office. He’d probably apologized to Brett. And knowing women as she did, Tracy had no doubt Brett milked it for all it was worth, and perhaps even squeezed out a few tears of her own.
    I don’t know why she doesn’t like me, Mr. Cole. Every time she comes in, I’m always very polite to her . . .
    And Brendan probably felt like crap, and had all but patted the girl on the back, or even hugged her.
    And was it true? Was he always apologizing for her?
    He came out of the closet barefoot, wearing only lounging pajamas, hanging low on his hips. Tracy quickly wiped away the tears that threatened to stream down her face.
    “Is there anything to eat?”
    “Chicken cacciatore,” she said, her voice croaking. “I left you a. . .”
    “You have to treat people with respect, Tracy. Even if you don’t believe they deserve it. Or don’t rise to the level of meriting your . . .”
    “Is that what you think of me?” she said, her head snapping up. “That I think some people are beneath me?”
    Brendan said nothing.
    “Brendan, that isn’t . . .”
    “That’s what it looks like. That’s what you act like. And I don’t get it. People look at you, and  . . . you’re . . . beautiful, Tracy. They want to like you, and they want you to like them. And you . . .”
    “While that sounds great, Brendan,” she said, feeling a sudden surge of self-protectiveness, “that’s not the way it works. In reality, people look at me and they don’t want to like me. Especially not the women you work with.”
    “Why?” he asked dryly. “Because they’re all trying to sleep with me? You really need to get over that bullshit and stop using it as an excuse to . . .”
    “An excuse? Because I just want to treat people like crap, is that it?”
    “Oh, so you do acknowledge that you treat them like crap,” he