The Gamble

“No point,” Max calmly replied to Mom.

“No… no… no point!” she yelled, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Mom, what on earth is happening?” I asked but before Mom could answer, Dad spoke.

“Nina, good God, aren’t you even going to say a single word to your fiancé?”

I glared at my father then I looked to Niles and tried to rearrange my features into something a little less angry and a lot more sensitive.

“Hello Niles,” I greeted softly.

Niles’s eyes had moved from Max to Max’s hand clasping mine and he’d grown pale.

Then he looked at me and stated, “I don’t understand.”

I blinked at him, not understanding what he didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“I don’t…” His eyes went back to our hands and then came to my face. “What’s happening?”

I felt Max tense beside me but I was still blinking at Niles.

“What’s happening?” I repeated.

“This is… you’re standing there holding hands with another man,” Niles replied.

I pulled in a breath as the guilt hit me, harder this time, I gave a tug at my hand but Max held firm so I stopped tugging and said softly, “I know, I’m sorry, this must be shocking, it’s –”

“How did you taking a holiday in the Rocky Mountains translate to you standing across from me, a week after you left, holding hands with another man?” Niles asked, his eyes had gone narrow and color had suffused his face.

“I wasn’t on holiday in the mountains, Niles,” I reminded him gently. “I was taking a timeout.”

“Timeout from work,” Niles said instantly.

“Timeout from you,” I said back, “from us. I told you that, I don’t know how many times.”

Niles’s head tilted to the side and he retorted, “I don’t even understand what that means. I didn’t then and I don’t now.”

“Then you should have asked me when I explained it to you, told me you didn’t understand.”

“I didn’t think it was worth discussing and I certainly didn’t think it would mean it would lead to this.”

He didn’t think it was worth discussing?

Now it was me who I suspected looked like I’d been punched in the stomach.

I let that go, it wasn’t easy but I did it and instead, asked, “Did you read my e-mail?”

“I scanned it, I didn’t have time –”

Max got even tenser at my side but I was concentrating on the fact that I was getting tense too. Very tense. Ultra tense.

“You scanned it?” I asked quietly but I wasn’t being quiet in an effort to be gentle. I was being quiet in an effort to control my temper.

“Nina, things are busy at work, you know that, that’s why I couldn’t come with you on your holiday,” Niles replied, sounding like he was getting irritated though only mildly so.

“Niles, I didn’t ask you to come with me. The whole point of a timeout is to be apart so you can think about whether or not you want to be together. I explained that to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Niles returned and that dangerous film of red that boded bad things started to coat my vision.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Max muttered while I concentrated on trying to clear my vision so I didn’t end up screeching like my mother.

“You can stay out of it.” My father entered the conversation by speaking to Max.

“Sorry, Larry, I’m in it,” Max shot back and if things weren’t going so very, very poorly I might have laughed. Dad hated to be called Larry, hated it.

“And who are you?” Niles asked, scowling at Max.

“I’m Holden Maxwell,” Max answered immediately, in other words before I could. “I own the house Nina rented. There was a mix up, I had to be in town on personal business and Slim didn’t tell Nina. She showed up at the house and I was there. Lucky I was. She was sick as a dog, lapsed into a fever so bad she was delirious for two days and I was worried I’d have to take her to the hospital. The fever broke and since then things have advanced between us. We’ve gotten to know each other, we both like what we know and, bottom line, you didn’t take care of what was yours. Now, as Nina has explained, you’ve lost it, I found it and it’s mine.”

As usual, Max didn’t mince words and Niles was now scowling at him but doing it with his mouth hanging open.

Max ignored Niles’s scowl and, his head swinging between me, Mom and Steve, he asked, “We done here?”

I heard Steve chuckle.

However, Mom declared, “I’m not done.”

“Yeah you are, sweetheart,” Steve said, pulling her back a couple of feet.

“I’m not done, either,” Dad stated and finally stood.

“You got nothin’ to say. Far’s I can see, this ain’t your business,” Max told him.

“She’s my daughter,” Dad declared.

“You fathered her but that doesn’t make her your daughter,” Max retorted and Dad’s face got red.

“As far as I can see, this isn’t any of your business either,” Dad returned.

“Then seems to me you aren’t seein’ very well,” Max replied.

Dad didn’t continue because Niles spoke.

“I lost it and you found it and now it is yours?” Niles asked Max and Max looked to Niles.

“That’s what I said,” Max answered.

I decided to wade in. “Niles, please, listen to me –”

“This is unbelievable,” Niles snapped at me, definitely mildly irritated, maybe even more than that though that surprised me. I’d never heard him snap, not in all the years I’d known him. “I heard his voice over the phone and I couldn’t believe it, not even after Lawrence told me what was happening. I’m standing here looking at you now and I still can’t believe it.”

My patience waning, I explained, “I’m uncertain what you can’t believe since things haven’t been good between us for awhile, a long while, Niles. And I told you I was taking two weeks to think about our relationship. Then I wrote you an e-mail which, incidentally, it took me two hours to write, explaining we weren’t going to work and all the reasons why. Then I phoned you and told you we were over.”

“Perhaps, if you were feeling this way you could have spoken to me, face to face, not in an e-mail or over the phone,” Niles suggested patronizingly. “And you wouldn’t be acting like your mother, performing this drama which forced me to leave work and fly halfway around the world.”