Kristen Ashley - The Gamble

“Okay.”

He lifted his chin and then he walked out the door.

I wandered to the computer even though I wanted to watch him leave, I didn’t want him to see me watching.

I pulled the chair up to the roll top then I sat down and clicked into the internet browser in order to access my webmail.

I heard the Cherokee depart as I typed in the web address then my username and password. I heard silence when I clicked on “compose” and more silence as I typed in Niles’s e-mail address.

Then I spent the next two hours writing to my fiancé explaining, in detail, what a timeout meant; what it meant that he didn’t know how I took my coffee; what it meant that he didn’t understand how much it hurt when he asked me to sell Charlie’s house; how lonely I was, even when I was with him; how it felt, him not making love to me, being affectionate, making me feel desired or desirable; how much it bothered me that, even though I’d talked to him about all of this, even wrote him other e-mails, it didn’t ever seem to penetrate; and lastly, the part that took the most time, how it wasn’t going to work out between us. Then I told him I’d call him in a few days and we would talk. Then I read it, edited it, read it again, added more, read it again, changed a few things, then I hit send.

It disappeared and I stared at the screen showing a list of my e-mails.

Well done, sweetheart, Charlie whispered in my ear.

He sounded sad but proud.

I started crying.

I opened my eyes, blinked at the bright sunlight and smelled bacon cooking.

I was alone in Max’s bed. Max, evidently, was downstairs cooking breakfast.

I rolled to my back and stared at the point in the A-Frame ceiling.

After sending my e-mail to Niles and crying my eyes out – so much, I had to move to the chair by the couch, curl in it holding a toss pillow to my chest in order to give myself a comfortable cocoon while letting go a part of my life that was once important to me, in fact I thought it was going to be my entire future but I’d figured out wasn’t so important anymore – I cleaned up my face. Then I threw another log on the fire. Then I stared at the log burning, trying to sort out my head. Then I failed at sorting out my head. Then when it got late, I made dinner for one and ate cookies for dessert. Then I read until it got later. Then when it got really late, I changed into my nightgown, put in a movie, slid into bed and, again, obviously, fell asleep while watching it.

Now, clearly, it was morning and Max was home.

And he said when he came home, we would finish.

And as I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I decided I was going to have to figure out a way to tell him I wasn’t ready for us to finish in whatever way that would come. I wasn’t ready for what was happening in his A-Frame on my Colorado adventure. I wasn’t ready to explore what was going on between him and me.

I wanted to, honest to goodness, I wanted it so badly it felt like an ache.

But I was coming to terms with my life changing in one way. In fact, I had realized the day before as I stared at Max’s fire, I knew before I even took this timeout that Niles and I were never going to work and I realized that I’d known that for a long time. I’d either fallen out of love with him or he’d bored the love out of me. But before I even left I had understood somewhere in head that I simply needed distance to come to that conclusion and that distance would give me the courage to carry it through.

Therefore, I couldn’t process, nor did I want to, the colossal shift back to Nina of Old. Nina who opened her heart, let loose, took adventures and even more risks. Nina who did that and got her heart trampled and her head messed with for her troubles.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to play it safe and be smart, sane and rational every second with every nuance of my life.

I was sure I’d learned my lessons way back when and I wasn’t going back to that.

I couldn’t live the life that I was living with Niles, I’d come to terms with that.

And I couldn’t go back to who I used to be. Heartbreak lay down that road, heck, it was paved with it.

And Holden Maxwell had heartbreak written all over him.

I pulled myself out of bed, went to the bathroom, did my routine and then, deciding on propriety in the face of our impending conversation, I walked to my suitcase and dug around until I found my wool robe. It was like a big, long, button-less, cardigan sweater that went down to my calves. It was creamy green and had a hood. It cost a fortune and it was lush.

I shrugged it on, belted it up and headed downstairs to face Max. I hit the bottom, saw him in the kitchen and stopped dead.

His back was to me and he was wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else. His shoulders, the muscles of his back, the wide expanse of smooth, tan skin, was all exposed to the naked eye and I was blinded by the beauty of it. So much, it was a wonder I didn’t throw out my hand and go reeling.

At that thought, he turned and gave me a view of his chest.

At this view, arguably better than his back, I sucked in breath then whispered to myself, “Oh my God.”

“Hey baby,” he called, apparently (and luckily) not hearing me and headed my way.

I stood immobile as he walked to me.

He stopped in front of me, his head tipped down and his hand came to my jaw, tipping my head up.

“You sleep okay?” he asked softly and I nodded. “Wake up at nine o’clock your time?” he went on and I shook my head. “Sorry I was out so late.” I shrugged and he grinned. “I see I got Nina Zombie.”

“Um…” I muttered.

He shook his head once still grinning then dipped his face and touched his mouth to mine. My toes curled.

“Look after the bacon, will you?” he said when he lifted his head. “I’m gonna go put on some clothes.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Might be good you get some coffee in you before you get near sizzling bacon grease,” he advised, still amused.

“Okay,” I repeated on a whisper.

“God,” he muttered, his thumb drifting across my cheek, his clear, gray eyes watching it go, “you’re cute.”

I swallowed. He let me go and walked away.

I stood where he left me and realized that I was, officially, in trouble. If I couldn’t function at the sight of his chest, how was I going to tell him we weren’t going to explore what was happening?

Especially if he kept touching me and calling me “baby”?

I pulled myself together enough to take one step when the door under the loft opened, my body jerked in surprise and I gave out a small scream.

A girl walked out, a woman-girl, like Becca. Wild, curly, almost frizzy strawberry blonde hair and a lot of it. Cute as a button face. Cornflower blue eyes. Long, thin, shapely legs that went on forever.

And last, but oh so definitely not least, she was wearing the shirt Max wore yesterday.

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

“Forgot to tell you,” Max called from upstairs, probably because he heard my scream, “Mindy’s here.”

“Hi!” Mindy cried brightly and skipped to me, actually skipped. “You’re Nina, right?”

“Right,” I said, immobile again, this time for a different reason.

“Cool!” she cried, grabbing my arm in one hand, my hand in the other, both with a friendliness that was unreal and she jumped up and down twice.

“I, um… need to look after the bacon,” I told her.

“Oh, sure,” she said, looking suddenly confused at my behavior in the face of her outgoingness.

“Nina’s a zombie in the morning, Mins,” Max called and I knew he could hear everything. “Maybe you should look after the bacon, darlin’.”

Mins? Darlin’?

“Cool!” she cried again as if looking after bacon was her heart’s desire, her hands moving from me. “I can do that.”

Then she turned and part skipped, part slid on the wood floors in her adorable baby blue socks with darker blue hearts all over them, part danced to the kitchen.

I followed with a lot less exuberance.

No, it wouldn’t be hard to tell Max we weren’t going to explore anything. He wanted me to be a member of his harem? No. Not me. I wasn’t going to become a card carrying member of that particular club with, apparently, Mindy, who he’d brought home when I was under his bloody roof, and maybe Becca not to mention the ex-member, bitchy, cheating, awful Shauna.

No way. No bloody way.

I went to the cupboard over the coffeepot as Mindy pushed the bacon around in the skillet and I took down a mug. Then I poured coffee. Then I spooned in some sugar. Then I went to the fridge and sloshed in some milk. All the while I did this, my mind tortured me.

Did he sleep with her on the couch when I was upstairs in his bed? He was a big guy but his couch was deep, long. Mindy was long too but she was also thin. It would be cozy but it would work.

Did they do it, Max knowing I slept like the dead?

Or maybe not caring if I heard?

And also not caring what I’d think that he had a predilection for young girls?

Not that he seemed to discriminate since he’d obviously wanted me and Shauna seemed to be about my age. Maybe he slept with anyone. Maybe that was why Sarah, the hostess at the restaurant, gave me that weird, closed down look when I walked in. Maybe he liked buxom, copper-haired, Deadheads with fabulous earrings too.

I was sipping at my coffee and seething when Mindy turned to me. “So, you live in England?”

“Yes.” My reply was short and curt and I didn’t care. She might be okay with this arrangement, seeing as Max was gorgeous and had a fantastic house, but she was young, she’d learn.

“You like it?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied again and saw Max rounding the counter in jeans, a navy t-shirt that fit him like the gray one he wore with his pajama bottoms. In other words, it fit him too well.

I had the urge to throw my coffee mug at him and then I squelched this mainly because he meant nothing to me. I barely knew him. This intensity of emotion was because I broke up with my fiancé via e-mail the day before. My emotion had nothing to do with Max.

He hit the range, his hand hit Mindy’s waist and my eyes narrowed on his touch.

“I got it now, babe,” he said softly and I felt that punch in my gut again when he called her “babe”.

Mindy moved away on another skip then she rounded the counter and planted herself on my stool.

“Duchess,” Max called and my eyes cut to him, “get Mindy some coffee, will you?”

He wanted me to get Mindy a coffee?

I was back to wanting to throw my coffee mug at him.

Max was oblivious, I knew this because he turned to Mindy and asked, “You take cream or sugar?”

“Lotsa milk, two sugars,” Mindy ordered and I moved to make her coffee mainly because this would give me something to do, something that had nothing to do with me inflicting bodily harm.

As I was filling her order, Mindy called out to me, “Hey Nina, you ever wanna move home?”

“Home?” I asked, pouring coffee.

“America.”

“No,” I lied because I did, all the time, I missed home constantly. The trouble was I was also home in England and I knew if I came back to The States I’d miss my other home so I couldn’t win either way.

Which was, I realized at that dire moment, the story of my bloody life.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” I answered when I poured in “lotsa milk”.

“She misses grape jelly,” Max muttered and I ignored him and the memory he invoked and gave Mindy her mug of coffee.

“Hey, thanks!” she cried, like it was a surprise I made it for her when she’d watched me the whole time then she continued, “Why do you miss grape jelly?”

“They don’t have it in England,” I replied and went to the fridge.

“What else don’t they have?” Mindy asked with open curiosity.

“Quite a bit,” I answered, not inviting further discourse.

I pulled out my yogurt and berries. Then I grabbed the bunch of bananas on the counter and I yanked one off. Then I pulled a knife out of the block by the range. I was going to eat my breakfast and if Max didn’t give me my keys I was going to throw such a fit that Mick, the nice police officer, would be called to the scene and then I’d damn well get my bloody keys.