The Gamble
“Bitsy’s life has been threatened too.”
Thoughts of gloves made out of razor-sharp blades flew from my head, my body jerked and my head swiveled around to look at him.
“Curt didn’t tell anyone, he hired a PI,” Max continued.
I broke my silence and asked, “Is she going to be okay?”
“Mick’s set something up.”
I thought of Bitsy alone in that big house, unable to move around except in a wheelchair.
“I should go stay with her,” I declared to Max and his brows knit.
“What?”
I yanked out of his arm, rolled off the bed and threw down the pillow saying, “You’ll have to take me.”
“I’m not takin’ you to Bitsy’s.”
“Then I’ll call Arlene,” I stated as I threw open the door to the closet and turned on the light.
“Nina, get in here.”
I ignored him and walked to my chocolate colored cords on a hanger, pulling them off.
“Nina,” Max called and when I continued to ignore him and examine my sweater selection on the shelves I heard him mutter, “Jesus.”
I selected a cream colored, cable-knit but I barely pulled it from its position on the shelf before it was yanked out of my hand by Max. Then he tossed it on the shelf (now not folded which was a shame, Caroline was good at folding sweaters). Then, while I was still staring at the untidy sweater, my cords were yanked from my other hand and tossed on the floor.
Belatedly I turned to look up at Max and exclaimed, “Hey!”
He grabbed my hand, flipped the switch to the closet light as he pulled me out and then he closed the door.
I twisted my hand in his and snapped over the dying screams of (undoubtedly) the young lovers on the television, “Let go.”
“No, we’re gonna talk.”
“I think you said enough earlier.”
“Babe, I was pissed and I’ll admit I didn’t handle that very well.”
I felt my eyes narrow as I repeated, “You didn’t handle that very well?”
Max ignored that and moved on. “You also didn’t catch my meaning.”
“Oh, no, you’re wrong. I caught it all right.”
“No, I don’t think you did.”
“Trust me, Max, I did.”
“I’m not Niles.”
That brought me up short and the only thing I could do was stare.
Then I hissed, “What?”
“I give a shit,” Max stated.
“You give a shit about what?”
“Everything.”
“Perhaps you’d like to give me more detail,” I suggested and tried to twist my hand out of his again but he only used it to tug me closer and then his other hand lifted and his fingers curled in a way that could not be mistaken around the side of my neck. It wasn’t painful, not in the slightest, but it was firm and it sent a message.
I stilled.
“All right, Duchess, you want detail, here it is. Brody’s my best friend and I know he wouldn’t f**k me over and I’m takin’ a wild guess the amount of times you’ve been f**ked over, you wouldn’t either. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t that, it wasn’t even you sittin’ in his lap, though, I’ll repeat, I didn’t like that one f**kin’ bit.”
“That isn’t detail, Max,” I pointed out. “That’s you repeating yourself.”
“It was you callin’ him ‘darling’.”
I blinked and shook my head briskly, once.
“I’m sorry?”
“You sat in his lap with your hands on him and you called him ‘darling’.”
My blood started heating and I cried loudly, “He was upset about his sister!”
“Yeah? Well, so am I.”
“Yes, and if I remember, I call you darling too.”
“Yeah, but you’re sleepin’ with me.”
I pulled against his hand, sputtering, “I… you… I don’t get…”
“That’s mine,” Max declared and I stilled my struggling and stared at him.
Then I informed him, “You call other women ‘babe’ and ‘darlin’’ and –”
“You’re my only Duchess.”
He had me there.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I told him and his brows drew together dangerously.
“Duchess doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“No, me saying ‘darling’.”
“It means something to me.”
“Well, I didn’t know that,” I defended.
“Yeah, so now I’m tellin’ you.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me before you get angry at me for doing something I didn’t know you didn’t want me to do. And maybe when you get angry you’ll find a way to let me know you are without being a total jerk.”
“And maybe you’ll cut me some slack when I got a friend with a murdered husband, a dead man writin’ me notes, a sister who’s been raped and we found face down in a river, a new girlfriend whose Dad’s a dick and whose fiancé is an ass**le and both of ‘em are in town and a future that means the end of my mountain as I know it.”
“And maybe you’ll cut me some slack when I’ve broken up with my fiancé and I just found out he’s an ass**le and he’s in town and so is my dick of a Dad. Not to mention, a girl I’ve come to care about tries to commit suicide like my brother did. And, on top of all that, I’ve decided to up stakes again and move to a different country again and gamble on a man I barely know but who is annoying, impossible and can be a jerk. I’ve got to find a job and buy a big lawyer desk so people will take me seriously and my mother and Steve are so excited about all of this, they’re already planning to park their new RV beside your house and use your bathroom and kitchen!”
I ended this on a shout, so absorbed in my tirade I didn’t see his expression change. When I noticed his eyes had gone warm and his face had gentled, I saw my mistake immediately but had no time to backtrack. Max dropped my hand but wound his arm around my waist and started shuffling me back toward the bed.
“Max –”
“I knew somethin’ changed this morning.”
“Max –”
“You’re movin’ here.”
“Max –”
“You’re buyin’ a lawyer desk.”
“Max –” I stopped talking this time because I fell back to the bed and Max fell on me.