I heard everything he said but there was only one part of it that hit me like a bullet.
He called that morning a spat.
I got up on an elbow in the bed and looked down at him, whispering, “Spat?”
His arm came up, crossing his chest and his fingers curled around the back of my neck to contain me should I wish to retreat any further and he said, “Duchess, wake up. This is us, we’re gonna fight. You gotta learn how to shake it off.”
I blinked.
“Shake it off?” I whispered and this time my whisper was both incredulous and lethal.
“Yeah, shake it off,” he confirmed, ignoring my toxic tone completely. “Either that or learn how to talk to me, how to ask a fuckin’ question once in awhile without lookin’ scared as a jackrabbit about whatever answer you might get.”
I blinked. Max kept talking.
“I ain’t a figment of your imagination, Duchess, I didn’t start my existence the night you drove up to my house. I had a life, a wife. I got a family, friends, a history. I fucked around a lot, lookin’ for somethin’ and not findin’ it, just like you.”
I tried to contain my anger and reminded him, “Yes, Max, you had a wife who was your world.”
“Yeah, she was, until her world stopped. Mine kept goin’, babe.”
“Harry said when a man has a woman who is his world, and he loses her, nothing will take the place of that.”
I watched Max’s irritation grow to anger; he twisted toward me and got up on an elbow too, all without releasing my neck.
“Don’t lie in bed next to me and throw in my face the shit Harry fed you last night,” he warned.
“But you admitted it,” I told him.
“I fuckin’ did not.”
“You told me she was your world.”
His hand tightened on my neck. “Yeah, she was, Duchess. Was.”
“Harry’s a man and men know men.”
“Harry’s no man, Nina. Haven’t you figured that out?”
Okay, he had a point there.
“All right,” I agreed and foolishly went on. “That might be true but not five minutes ago you relived that nightmare, Max, I watched you do it and you cannot lie there and tell me you’re over Anna. You loved her and her loss broke you.”
His eyes turned to stone indicating his anger deepening, quite significantly, and he clipped, “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.”
“What?”
He rolled into me so I fell to my back and he was partially on me, though not on my tender side but I wouldn’t have noticed even if he pressed his full weight into me because he’d gone way passed angry right back to what he was this morning. He was furious and I braced for impact.
“You’re a piece of work, babe.” His voice was biting as he repeated himself, his face dipping close to mine. “Is this what you wanna hear?” he asked and didn’t wait for my answer just kept on going. “She was beautiful, she was funny, sweet, mellow, laid back. So fuckin’ mellow, Christ. Life was good for Anna. She loved livin’ it and didn’t let much get under her skin. We probably had two arguments the whole time we were together. Life with Anna was contentment, absolute. She didn’t get in my face, she didn’t get in moods, she didn’t throw attitude. She woke up happy and went to bed happy and she did everything she could to give me that same harmony and I loved every fuckin’ minute of it.”
My mouth went dry at his words and I tried to slide out from under him but he didn’t let me move an inch as he carried on.
“Not you, no. You get in my face, your mood changes like lightnin’, you throw attitude better’n any woman I ever met and I grew up with Mom and Kami, so, seriously, babe, that’s sayin’ somethin’.”
“Get off me,” I whispered, his words worse than Damon’s blows, far, far worse. I was pushing against his chest but it was like I didn’t even speak and my hands on him didn’t exist.
“You’re blonde and Anna was blonde, that’s about all you two share. You’re night, Duchess, she was day.”
I felt the tears hit my eyes and I couldn’t stop them from sliding out the sides.
“Get off.”
“She wasn’t a fighter though. She wasn’t ready to take on the world. She let anyone walk all over her and they did and she didn’t react, not even a little. She just let it happen and moved on, buryin’ it deep, not lettin’ anyone see, hidin’ it even from me, not lettin’ me help. She was sweet which meant she let people in to walk all over her, never learned, did it all the fuckin’ time. And she was a good listener but she was shy. She’d stand at my side and bite her lip and look at Harry and think someone should help him but it wouldn’t be her. She wouldn’t have the courage to walk through a crowded bar and sit by his side and take his issues on her shoulders. What he said to you would have wrecked her even worse than it did to you. So I had to protect her from that shit and I did. She gave me harmony. I kept her safe so she could give it. That was us and it was a good balance.”
I didn’t know how much more I could take and my voice had gone from demanding to pleading when I repeated, “Max, get off.”
“You wanted the comparison, babe, you got it. Now you know what Anna gave me and what I gave her.”
“I didn’t want the comparison!” I cried.
“Yeah you did, you’re all fired certain you can’t compete, convinced yourself of it.”
“Well obviously I can’t because, obviously, harmony is not what you’ll get from me.”
“There’s no replacing Anna.”
I looked away, closed my eyes and quit pressing against his chest. I was going to block him out, that was the only defense he was giving me so I was going to take it.
His words still came at me though, unfortunately. I couldn’t block them just by closing my eyes.
“You lose anyone, there’s no replacing them. There’ll never be another Charlie, you know that. And there’ll never be another Anna. What you need to get is that’s precious, you get to keep that, you don’t want to replace it. That doesn’t mean you can’t find something else just as good.”
Right, I thought but didn’t say it out loud but with his Wonder Max powers he must have read that word on my face.
“Christ,” he gritted out. “I don’t want harmony from you, Nina. I just want you.”
“Can you get off me, please?” I asked quietly.
“Look at me.”
“Please, Max.”
“Dammit, Nina, look at me.”
I looked at him and his eyes roamed my face then his hand came up and cupped it.
“I see what I had with Anna for the gift it was but now that’s gone. With this act, are you sayin’, in this life that’s all I get?”
“No,” I whispered honestly and the words I said next were coming from somewhere I didn’t know I had, saying things I didn’t know I needed to say but things instinctively I knew he needed to hear and understand in a belated effort on my part to protect him for his own good. “What I’m saying is, you’re you and you deserve better.”
He looked genuinely confused when he asked, “Better than what?”
“Better than me.”
I felt his big body jolt and it jarred me, sending a shot of pain through my ribs but I ignored that, focusing on his face which looked utterly stunned.
“You shittin’ me?” he asked softly.
Yes, stunned.
“No,” I replied just as softly.
His thumb swept my cheekbone and his face gentled as he murmured, “Jesus, baby.”
“Think about it, Max,” I implored urgently. “I’m argumentative and my head is messed up. Do you know, Charlie talks to me?” I asked then didn’t wait for an answer even as I took in his head jerking at the question. “He does. It started just recently but he does, like he lives in there. I’m not remembering him, things he’s said, he’s actually talking to me. And lately I’ve been talking back. It’s insane.”
“Duchess –” Max started but I kept right on speaking.
; “And I do stupid stuff all the time or at least I did before Niles and then there was Niles, who was stupid from start to finish. But before him, it wasn’t just all the bad choices with men, I was always doing crazy stuff, like Mom but not benign stuff, like concocting disgusting food. The Brain Team thing wasn’t the first or the last time I was off on one. I was always off on one. Do you know I’ve been arrested?” His eyebrows went up and I nodded my head on the pillow. “Not brawling, it was drunk and disorderly except I wasn’t really drunk, more like tipsy but I was disorderly because I was yelling really loudly and, in the end, I kind of threw a beer bottle at someone.” Max pressed his lips together, I again didn’t know what this meant but I defended myself. “He deserved it, he smacked a girl’s behind right in front of my friend, who was his girlfriend, and he was doing that kind of that stuff all the time and it hurt her so, being tipsy, I’d had enough and I let fly, shouting at him and throwing the beer bottle. Anyway, I wasn’t aiming at him so it didn’t hit him, just smashed on a wall and got some girl’s purse wet. She was kind of angry about it because the purse was designer so she was the one who called the police.”
“Babe –”
On a roll, I talked over him and continued laying out my case. “And I’m totally neurotic. I know why, seeing as my Dad left me and then I chose all of those stupid guys so I have issues with that, as you know. I just don’t know how to stop it. You told me all the guys at the bar were looking at me and even Harry said he’d do me but does that register with me? No. I can’t let people be nice to me, say nice things to me, I just can’t accept it as fact and that makes me just plain weird.”
This time, his brows knit and his face grew hard when he repeated in a low, dangerous voice, “Harry said he’d do you?”
“Yes,” I told him, too caught up in relaying my urgent message to catch his change in mood. “Harry was drunk and acting like an idiot but I don’t know why you want me. It’s mad.”
“Nina –”
“I mean, I go on a vacation to try to figure out my life and here I am, my leg’s scraped up, my ribs are bruised, I’ve been backhanded and punched, I’ve been to a hospital once and a Police Station three times and I’ve been into it with practically everyone in town and, if you take out the time I’ve been sick, I’ve only been here a week!”
“Duchess, let me –”
“What is it with me?” I asked over him then again didn’t wait for an answer, just kept blathering. “I need a timeout to deal with my timeout! That’s how messed up I am. And you’re a good guy, the best, you take care of people, everyone respects you, you’re nice and you’re handsome and you’re generous and smart and you don’t need all that is messed up me messing up you.”
“Babe, will you shut up?”
At his tone, which managed to be both commanding and gentle, my head jerked on the pillow and belatedly I focused on him.
“What?” I asked.
“Shut up,” he said softly.
“Okay,” I replied instantly because his face was also gentle, gentle to the point of being tender, though his eyes were dancing like he was laughing inside. The combination of the two was so amazing, it was beyond amazing, indescribably amazing and I could do nothing but what he told me to do.
“You threw a beer at someone?” he asked, still speaking softly.
“Not at him, it was a warning shot. But he smacked a girl’s bottom in front of his girlfriend,” I repeated on a near whisper. “But I neglected to add that the girl’s bottom he smacked wasn’t happy either, seeing as she was my friend’s friend too.”
“Babe,” he whispered, his eyes still dancing and his mouth was now twitching.
I went back to my point. “Obviously from my behavior the last week and a half, you’ll have noted there’s a good possibility I might do something like that in the future.”
His mouth stopped twitching mainly because it had started grinning.
“Yeah, Duchess, that’s been noted.”
I swallowed and tilted my head on the pillow as I summed up quietly, my words heavy and utterly true, “I’m not harmony, Max.”
His grin didn’t die even hearing my leaden words. “No, honey, that you aren’t.”
“You deserve that,” I whispered.
His hand shifted so his fingers could trail at the wetness my earlier tears left at my temple as he said, “That’s sweet you think that, baby, but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s not what I want.”
I blinked slowly then I asked, “Sorry?”
“To get that means not to get you so that’s not what I want ‘cause, like I said earlier, what I want is you.”
“My dead brother talks in my head,” I reminded him.
“And I used to see Anna walkin’ down the sidewalk when I drove through town. That shit happens in one way or another to everyone who loses someone. It’ll pass.”
Well, even though it made me sad he used to see Anna still, that was a relief. I thought I was going crazy.
Nevertheless, I persevered, “I’m messed up.”
“You’re cute.”
“Trust me, Max, you may think it’s cute now but it’ll get not so cute.”
“What’s not so cute is Harry tellin’ you to your face he’d do you, he was drunk or not, but that’s between me and Harry.”
“What?”
He ignored my question and stated, “But the rest is you, babe, and you need to trust me, it’s cute.”
“You deserve better,” I reminded him.
“You repeatin’ that means you haven’t been payin’ attention,” he informed me.
“I’m sorry?”
His hand moved back to cup my face, his thumb moving over my bottom lip and he spoke while he was doing this. “Harry didn’t lie, I fucked around. After Anna there were a lot of women. After all of them, and there were some good ones, babe, but not even one sparked anything in me, nothin’, after all of them, what do you think it says I choose you?”
Oh my God.
My entire system went still from the inside out because I had to admit, he had a very valid point.
“I lucked out, baby,” Max went on. “When I was young life handed me somethin’ beautiful. Then it took it away. Ten years down the road, somethin’ different, but no less beautiful, showed up right at my front door. I knew it almost the minute I saw it and nothin’ has happened since to shake that. You think, findin’ that in you, I’m gonna let you change my password, write me some fucked up note and walk away?”
“But you were right this morning, I should have known what you were going through this week and I shouldn’t have been so selfish.”
“No, babe, I was pissed this morning and, in case you haven’t noticed, when I get pissed, I mouth off and say shit I shouldn’t say. What you gotta learn to do is call me on it, give me the attitude you serve up to everyone else like you did the other night when I was outta line.”
“Max –”
“Or, at least, learn to control your wild hairs and let me burn it out and then call me on it.”
“Max –”
His face got close, so close I could feel his breath on my lips as he said, “It kills me to say this, babe, the guilt burns so bad but, this week, I couldn’t help but think about what life would be like with you and the ways it would be better than what I had with Anna. And knowin’ you throw beer bottles and give back as good as you get, I like it, Duchess, that passion. It’s in everything you do and, swear to Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that beautiful. Anna loved life but, honey, when you forget to let those little fears you got cobble you, fuck, you devour it. It’s unbelievably amazing, awesome to witness. That passion makes you look at Cotton’s pictures like you’re experiencing bliss. And it makes you fight Kami’s corner when she’s been nothin’ but a bitch to you and fight it like you’ll go down with her and so will the whole of Western civilization. And, Duchess, other people think it’s beautiful too, it draws them to you, makin’ friends outta folks like A
rlene and your cabin neighbors Norm and Phyllis –”
“Gladys,” I corrected him.
He grinned, his thumb caught on my lower lip and he muttered, “Whatever.”
Then he stopped talking apparently thinking his final point was made.
I stared at him and I did this for a long time. And I came to the conclusion that Max didn’t need to say any more.
His final point was made.
And I realized, very late, that he didn’t even have to talk to make it. He’d made his point hours earlier by showing up to take me “home”.
Though I decided not to share this with him. What I did decide was we had to talk about one more thing.
So I called, “Max?”
“Right here, honey.”
Yes, he was, right there, with me, in a cabin, by a river, fifty miles away from his house.
I closed my eyes then opened them and admitted, “You scare me.”
“You told me that before.”
“I have?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“When?”
“That first night I fucked you.”
Oh yes, right, I was half asleep, I forgot about that. Of course, Max didn’t since he obviously had the memory of an elephant which, I figured, did not bode well for me.
He was still grinning, likely reading my thoughts on my face (which, I should add, also didn’t bode well for me) and his thumb went back over my lip before I asked, “What if this goes bad?”
“Like I said then, I can’t give you any promises but we’ll do the best we can.”
“Is that enough for you?”
He stared at me then he burst out laughing, collapsing on top of me for a second before his arms went around me and he rolled carefully, taking me with him until he was on his back and I was partly on top of him, partly pressed to his side.
I lifted my head, looked in his eyes and asked, “What’s funny?”
Still smiling big, he remarked in a way that I knew he was blatantly lying, “It cuts deep, Duchess, knowin’ you’re settlin’ for me.” His hand went into my hair and cupped the back of my head as my eyes got wide. He pulled my face closer and muttered, “But you should know, the answer is, yeah, it’s more than enough and, you settle for me, I’ll settle for that.”
The Gamble Page 55
