“You all right?” Max asked quietly when I got close and I could feel his eyes on me.

“Perfectly fine,” I answered, not looking at him and I reached into a cupboard to pull out a bowl.

There was silence a second then, ever game, Mindy called, “Why’d you move there? To England.”

Not thinking clearly and it didn’t matter anyway, I’d be out of there very, very soon, I answered, “I’ve sort of lived there on and off most of my life.”

“But…” Mindy said to my back as I started to slice bananas into the bowl, “Max said you were American.”

“I was born here,” I told the banana. “My mother is American, my father is English. They got divorced when I was a baby and my father moved back.” I finished with the banana, threw the peel in the bin under the sink and started to rinse the berries.

“So, you’d go back to see your father,” Mindy guessed.

“No, my father forgot I existed until he got remarried and his second wife had a baby, my half-brother.” I turned off the tap and shook the berries in their plastic container, the water leaking out. “She wanted her son to know his sister.”

“So, that’s when you started going?” Mindy surmised.

“Yes, when I was around seven.”

“Cool that you have a brother,” Mindy announced happily from behind me and my eyes closed automatically as I felt that punch in my gut again, this one different but familiar, it had come at me a lot over the last three years but it never hurt any less.

“Yes, cool,” I said and opened my eyes then turned to my bowl, dumping some berries in and setting the rest in the container aside.

I looked at Max who was watching me closely, his face carefully blank but his eyes alert and asked, “Where’s my granola?”

“Cupboard with the oatmeal,” he answered and I turned there.

“I’ve got a brother,” Mindy shared. “We’re close but he lives in Seattle now, which is a bummer sometimes and not a bummer others ‘cause he can be kinda, in my life. YouknowhatImean?”

Yes, I knew what she meant. I knew if her brother knew that she was carrying on with a mountain man Lothario who was old enough to be her much older brother, then her real, Seattle dwelling brother would be in her life.

I didn’t say this, instead I said, “Of course.”

“You close with your brother?” she asked.

I poured granola on my berries then set the box down and answered, “I moved to England permanently because of him.”

“Yeah?” Mindy prompted.

“Yes,” I said, spooning out my yogurt and not measuring my words, not even knowing why I was speaking at all. “He was in the Army, sent to Afghanistan. When he was there, a bomb blew his legs off.” I heard Mindy gasp and I felt something coming from Max but I was impervious, like I was in a different world. “My father, who is not a nice man, turned his back on his golden boy when he felt he was no longer…” I hesitated then said, “Golden.” I shook my head at the still painful memory and put the top on the yogurt. “His fiancée broke things off with him and he was having trouble adjusting. So I moved to England to help.”

There was silence as I mixed my fruit, granola and yogurt and I turned to face the kitchen. When I did I saw they were both staring at me. Well, Mindy was, it was more like Max was watching me, closely.

Mindy broke the silence, saying quietly, “Jeez, Nina, I’m sorry. He okay now?”

“No,” I told her bluntly, looking right at her. “Charlie never adjusted. He committed suicide three years ago.”

“Holy crap,” Mindy breathed and I watched the color drain out of her face.

“That pretty much sums it up,” I told her.

“Mins, do me a favor. Go upstairs, get yourself one of my t-shirts to wear into town, yeah?” Max said and Mindy’s eyes moved to him.

She also saw him watching me, how he was watching me, her body jolted and she hopped off the stool.

“Yeah, right, um… a shirt…” she hesitated, her eyes going back and forth between Max and me.

“Just lose yourself for awhile, okay?” Max ordered, not taking his eyes off me.

She didn’t answer or maybe her answer was her skip-dancing away.

I looked at Max and took a bite of my breakfast.

“What was that about?” Max asked, not moving toward me.

“What?” I asked back, my mouth full, well beyond thinking it rude to speak with my mouth full.

“Closed up tight for two days, you share a tragedy and you do it like that?” Max asked and it dawned on me that he looked angry. “What’s that about?” he demanded to know.

“Mindy was asking,” I explained after I swallowed.

“You didn’t have to tell her like that,” Max returned.

“Oh, sorry, Max,” I said, my voice tinged with sarcasm. “Does she have a delicate disposition? Should I have shielded her from that?”

“Yeah, considerin’ she was raped three weeks ago and her boyfriend’s bein’ a fuckin’ dickhead that would have been good.”

I felt every cell in my body cease moving and I stared at him.

Then I whispered, “What?”

“Mindy was raped three weeks ago. She was in Denver with Becca. They were out clubbin’ or whatever the fuck they do these days and got separated. Mindy was raped. She went through that, they haven’t found the guy, she gets home, her boyfriend who she lives with starts actin’ like an asshole. Then more of an asshole. Brody, her brother and my best friend who lives in Seattle, asked me to come home and look out for her seein’ as he can’t.”

Oh my God.

Mindy and her baby blue socks with darker blue hearts, skip-dancing, jumping up and down when she met me was raped.

“So, Nina,” Max cut into my thoughts, “I’ll ask again, what the fuck was that?”

“I thought…” I shook my head and looked away, closing my eyes, feeling like a bitch because I’d been a bitch then I looked back and whispered, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, yeah, it does, considerin’ she’s like my sister too and she and Brody talk and you didn’t make a very good impression. This’ll be all over town and to Seattle and people’ll think I got another Shauna in my bed.”

“I –”

He cut me off. “I don’t care what people think but I do care what Mindy thinks and I care what Brody thinks.”

“I –”

“Jesus,” he muttered, looking away and I noticed he’d taken the bacon off the burner and it was sitting in its grease then he went on as if talking to himself, “was I wrong about you?”

There it was. My opening.

“Yes,” I told him and he looked back at me. “I’m a screaming bitch.” He stared at me and I went on, “It was jetlag, I think, making you think I was cute… or… whatever. Really, I’m like this. I act like this all the time.” He didn’t speak just kept staring at me so unwisely I went on. “I’m over my jetlag. I’ll probably be bitchy willy nilly to just about everyone.”

His head cocked to the side and his face got dark in that scary way before he repeated, “Willy nilly?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly, “to everyone.”

“So, what you’re sayin’ is, you’re actin’ like a bitch to me and to Mindy in an effort to bullshit me into givin’ you your car keys back so you can run away because you’re scared as shit of what’s happenin’ with us?”

No, that wasn’t what I was saying. At least, it didn’t start that way.

I looked at him in an effort to assess my next move and he looked really mad so I found it difficult to assess my next move.

Then I said carefully, “No.”

He moved toward me, I retreated and hit counter. He didn’t stop until he was super close, he pulled the bowl out of my hand, set it to the side and then he put a hand on the counter on either side of me and leaned in.

“Duchess, let me explain somethin’,” he said in a low, quiet, angry voice. “Bitches, real ones, don’t say the words, ‘willy nilly’.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to reply.

“You talk to him?” he asked and I got confused because I was thinking he was changing the subject.

“Talk to him?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

Him,” Max clipped and I realized he was changing the subject and I tensed, didn’t answer and Max said in a low, warning voice, “Nina.”

“Kind of,” I whispered quickly.

“How kind of?”

“I sent an e-mail.”

“You sent an e-mail,” Max repeated, his face disbelieving of the fact I’d send a breakup e-mail to my fiancé and even in my state, I had to admit it did sound bad.

“I’m…” I hesitated, “better at saying things when I write them down. I can edit. Make sure that it says what I need it to say and I don’t…” I licked my lips, “that I can make it so it doesn’t…” This was hard but for some reason I kept going. “I had to do it so it didn’t… hurt too much.”

Some of the anger slid from his features and he muttered, “Baby.”

“Can you move away?” I asked quietly.

“No.”

“Max, please.”

He ignored me and asked, “That really happen?”

My head jerked and I asked back, “The e-mail?”

“Your brother.”

My whole body jerked and I looked away.

“Nina, look at me.” When I didn’t, his hand wrapped around my jaw and he made me look at him or he made it so he could study me which he did a long time before murmuring, “What else is behind that fuckin’ shield?”

He really didn’t want to know, if he did he’d know why I jumped to conclusions about him with Mindy with Becca and he’d know just how messed up my head was. I wanted to be gone but I didn’t want him to think I was messed up and just that was messed up.

I didn’t answer and his hand at my jaw became fingers sliding into my hair.

“I’m sorry about your brother, honey.”

I pressed my lips together, felt the tears hit my eyes and then whispered, “Me too.”

“You were close,” he stated, I nodded and when he opened his mouth to speak, I beat him to it.

“Please, don’t. Please don’t, Max. You can’t be nice to me, not about Charlie. You can’t be nice. Anyone who’s nice… when people are nice…” I stopped talking and tilted my chin down to hide my face.

His fingers were in my hair, cupped against my head and he pulled me into him so my forehead was against his chest.

“All right, Duchess, I won’t be nice.”

My hands went to his stomach and I pushed at it as the tears clogged my throat and I choked, “You’re being nice!”

“Honey –”

My fingers curled into his t-shirt and I demanded, “Stop it!”

His hand at my head twisted it so my cheek was against his chest, his other arm went around me and he pulled me to his body which was shaking. “Baby,” his voice had laughter in it, “I’m not doing anything.”

I felt my breath hitch and at the sound his arm got tight and his fingers flexed against my scalp.

“I miss him,” I whispered and I didn’t know why, I didn’t even think the words before they came out of my mouth.

“I can tell.”

I pulled in a shaky breath then another one and the third went in smooth so I told him, “You can let me go now.”

“Keep tellin’ you when you’re in my arms, I like you where you are.”

“Max –”

His hand in my hair pulled my head back and when I was looking at him he declared, “Next up, we’re talkin’ ‘bout your Dad.”

“I don’t have a Dad.”

His brows slid together and he said, “You mentioned him earlier.”

“No, I mentioned my father,” I stated clearly. “I don’t have a Dad.”

“All right, then we’ll talk about your father.”

“No, since I never talk about him.”

“Nina.”

“Max.”

“Did I stay away long enough?” Mindy called, Max twisted, I got up on tiptoe to look over his shoulder and Mindy halted at the counter. “Whoops, see I didn’t.”

“You did,” I said quickly.

“I can come back.”

I pushed against Max’s stomach again, he released me and moved to my side as I said, “You’re fine.”

“Sure?” she asked.

“Definitely,” I replied.

Her eyes hit the stove and she observed, “Bacon’s all greasy, Max.”

“I’ll sort it out,” Max told her.

She skip-danced around the counter, throwing him a cheerful smile and I marveled this girl was raped three weeks ago. Marveled at the same time that the knowledge hit my stomach like a rotten pit.

“I’ll do it,” she offered and I saw she was in one of Max’s t-shirts and obviously her own jeans for they fit perfectly.

“You need a shirt?” I asked and she looked at me as she pulled paper towel off a holder.