So.

Annoying.

***

The Rooster was an enormous, beautiful building set high on the side of a mountain, a twisting, windy road leading to it. It’s inside lights ablaze, it had so many windows you could see through it.

I had, during the journey, managed to stay true to my vow and didn’t speak to Max. For his part, he proved a new way he could be annoying for this didn’t appear to bother him in the slightest. In fact, after five minutes of silence, he let my hand go and turned on his MP3 player, filling the cab with seventies rock music. Good seventies rock music and I noted irately that Max even had good taste in music something else I decided to find annoying.

I had, of course, taken this opportunity to pull my hand away.

To that, Max had, of course, grabbed my elbow, yanked my arm to him, trailed his hand down it until he caught mine and pulled it right back.

I didn’t fight this. Max was stronger than me and it would just be humiliating when I lost.

Now he had no choice but to let me go in order to park and once the ignition was switched off I unbuckled my seatbelt, opened the door and jumped down. I then started marching toward the front door of the restaurant as fast as my high-heeled sandals would carry me.

My swift progress was hindered when Max’s arm came around my shoulders and he hauled me into his side with such force I slammed against his hard body, my arm automatically wrapped around his waist and, for comfort’s sake (I told myself), stayed there. I made no protest and Max said no words. Thus we walked the rest of the way together.

He opened the door for me and I saw the inside was not just windows but also gleaming, light wood; super high ceilings; some well-chosen Cotton prints; some antlers; a lot of comfortable looking booths both big and small; and not a lot of tables but the chairs weren’t restaurant chairs, they were cozy, high-backed armchairs, inviting you to stay awhile.

I decided I liked this place when I spied Mindy and Brody and started to smile but Max stopped us, his arm curled me toward his front and his mouth went to my ear.

“Somethin’ you should know, Duchess.”

I yanked my head back, Max lifted his and I glared at him silently.

He scanned my face, looked into my eyes and grinned then continued, “When I met you, my first thought was you were very pretty, great fuckin’ eyes, but not my type, high class which means high maintenance. Then you got pissed and that was it. Even if you hadn’t been in that ditch, now you’d still be in my bed. So if you think this attitude is a turn off, baby, you’re wrong.”

I didn’t know what to do with that as it gave me nothing to go on but I didn’t have a chance to do anything because Max curled me back to his side and led us to Mindy and Brody.

When we stopped and Max’s hands moved to take my coat, I announced boldly, “You should know, Max and I are fighting and I won’t be speaking to him throughout dinner. I hope that won’t ruin anyone’s night.”

Mindy’s eyes got huge and Brody stared at me a second before he burst out laughing. Max, the jerk, could be heard chuckling behind me. Then he put a hand in the small of my back and pushed me into our booth.

I watched him hand our coats off to a white shirt, black pants, long black tie, long white apron wearing waitress and then he sat beside me, not delaying in sliding his arm along the booth behind my back. I unwound the scarf from around my neck and tucked it next to me with my clutch when Brody spoke.

“Well,” Brody started, still smiling, “this’ll make an already rocky evening even more interesting.”

“What?” Max asked and Mindy, sitting on the inside of the booth across from me, leaned forward.

“Kami’s here,” she whispered.

I leaned forward too and whispered back, “Oh my God.”

“It’s worse,” Brody declared. “Shauna’s here too.”

Mindy nodded to me and I repeated, far more appalled this time, “Oh my God.”

“And… get this!” Mindy said. “Harry!”

“Shit,” Max muttered and it took all my control not to look around the room.

“Where?” I asked Mindy.

“We’re the center,” Mindy explained. “Kami’s at one o’clock, Shauna’s at five and Harry’s at nine.”

“We’re surrounded,” I murmured, my voice horrified.

“Yep,” Mindy agreed and sat back.

Max’s arm curled around my shoulders, his other hand coming to my jaw and he turned my body and face to him.

Then he suggested bizarrely, “Feel like makin’ out?”

“I’m sorry?” I replied snottily, forgetting from his strange suggestion that I wasn’t talking to him.

“It’ll piss Shauna off,” Max answered. “Kami too, I figure.”

This idea had merit and therefore I considered it.

This was a mistake because Max knew I was considering it, he found this amusing therefore he burst out laughing, pulled me even closer and kissed me hard but not long, doing so even while he was mostly laughing.

His mouth broke from mine and he was spared the edge of my tongue as the waitress returned and asked, “Get you some drinks?”

“Vodka martini, up with an olive and lose the vermouth, please,” I ordered, she nodded, bent her head and scribbled and Max gave me a squeeze, gaining my attention.

“Duchess, you’re in altitude.”

“And?”

“And you had a glass of wine at home. You gotta be careful with booze when you’re not used to altitude.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You weren’t fine when you had a bottle of wine last night. You were out like a light.”

“I was tired. It was late. Now, it’s six thirty.”

“It wasn’t late, it was nine at night.”

My brows drew together and I asked, “It was?”

“Yeah, honey, it was.”

That was news; it seemed a whole lot later.

“Oh,” I muttered.

“Take it easy, all I’m askin’,” Max said on a squeeze of my shoulder.

“All right,” I agreed and Max turned to the waitress.

“Coors,” he ordered, she nodded and wandered away.

“Lucky man, Max, seein’ as Nina’s silent treatment lasts about two seconds. Most women I know can hold onto it for days,” Brody told Max but his eyes were on me and I could tell he was teasing.

“Not quite, she was silent most of the drive here,” Max shared.

“I could never do the silent treatment, I get too wound up,” Mindy added.

“What are you two fightin’ about anyway?” Brody asked nosily.

“Nothing,” I replied immediately.

“Nina movin’ here,” Max said over my word.

“Max!” I snapped, twisting my neck to look at him.

“You’re moving here! Awesome!” Mindy screeched very, very loudly and many of the other patrons turned to look.

In fact, when I swept my eyes self-consciously across the restaurant, I spotted Shauna who, from the look in her eyes which were glaring ice daggers at me, heard every word.

As embarrassed as I was, since she was with another man thus rubbing Harry’s nose into her betrayal further, I forced an expression of surprised delight on my face, lifted my hand and gave her a happy, “Hey, I know you!” wave.

She turned away.

“Christ, you’re cute,” Max muttered and I looked at him then caught Brody and Mindy both turning back from checking out Shauna, Mindy giggling, Brody grinning.

Our menus, at that point, arrived. Our drinks came not long after.

Kami came after we’d placed our food order and were enjoying a basket of fresh, warm, delicious bread.

She stood at the end of our table, her eyes were locked on Brody and she said not a word of greeting to her brother, Mindy or me.

“Brody, you’re home,” she announced as if Brody brought the black cloud of plague and death to Gnaw Bone upon his dastardly arrival.

“Yep,” Brody answered the obvious but shared no greeting either.

Her eyes came to me and she said, “Nina, congratulations, I see you’ve made it a week.”

I opened my mouth but Max got there before me.

On a sigh, he ordered, “Kami, tone it down.”

Kami’s eyes went to her brother and she asked in a way that stated she thought I shredded them then doused them with gasoline and set them afire, “Did Nina give you the papers?”

“Yep.”

“You talk to Trev?”

“Nope.”

“Max,” she hissed and in doing so got his full attention. Or I could say his full, scary attention. So scary I couldn’t help myself and partially shrunk away from him.

“Not gonna tell you again, Kami, that ain’t happenin’.”

“So, it’s up to me to take care of Mom all the time.”

“She’s not invalid.”

“She’s a pain in the ass.”

“So don’t give into her shit.”

“Easy for you to say, and do, not bein’ here hardly ever.”

“Maybe we can talk about this later when I’m not spendin’ time with Brody, who I rarely see.”

Kami didn’t feel like being generous and therefore asked, “You rarely see Mom and me either, Brody more important than family?”

“Yeah, Kami, if Brody walked up to my table at a nice restaurant, said shit to my woman and got in my face, he wouldn’t be too important. Seein’ as he don’t treat me like dirt then he is.”

Kami’s face got red, I took a hasty sip of my martini thinking I’d need it and my eyes slid to Mindy who looked pale, her eyes were wide but she still appeared to be trying hard not to laugh.

Kami appeared to have found a new direction for her ugliness because her eyes came to me and I was glad I took that sip of martini.

Then she looked back to Max and asked, “You gonna jerk her around like you did Shauna?”

Mindy gasped. Brody sucked in an audible breath and straightened. Max just straightened.

“Kami, careful, now you’re pissin’ me off,” Max stated in a tone that underlined his words unmistakably.

“She know?” Kami asked, either not processing or ignoring Max’s threat. “She know what you did to Shauna?”

“She knows we were together, she knows now we’re not,” Max returned. “You wanna carry on this conversation, we’ll do it outside.”

“You don’t want her to know,” Kami shot back and Max slid out of the booth but Kami’s eyes came to me. “Led her on, took her ring shoppin’ then scraped her off, givin’ her no reason whatsoever. Just ended it,” and she lifted up her hand and gave a loud snap with her fingers.

“Where’d you hear that shit?” Brody asked, his tone scathing.

“Shauna told me,” Kami answered.

“Shauna lied,” Max stated, his hand on Kami’s arm. “We’re finishin’ this elsewhere.”

She pulled her arm out of his hold and took a step back, accusing, “Shauna and I have been friends since forever and you treat her like that?”

Well that explained the attitude about Max and his supposed player status. Shauna had fed Kami lies and Kami, being what I knew of Kami, lapped it up.

My eyes went to Mindy and she bugged hers out at me in a “See!” look.

“Kami –” Max began but she kept talking.

“That’d be like me messin’ with Brody’s head.”

“Like that’d happen,” Brody muttered, visibly shivering in revulsion at the thought and it was my turn to fight back a laugh and I did so by taking another healthy sip of my martini.

Kami gave him a glare then turned to Max and dealt her death blow. “Or like when you fucked things up with me and Curt.”

My head snapped around at this interesting news and I stared at Kami.

“Uh-oh,” Mindy muttered.

“Kami, for fuck’s sake,” Max bit out.

“Christ, Kami, that was twenty years ago,” Brody put in.

“Not quite,” Kami snapped.

“You wanna do this here, great,” Max stated and crossed his arms on his chest. “Curt fucked things up with you and him, not me. He always wanted Bitsy, Kami, even when he was with you. He got his chance, he took it. Truth hurts but there it is. Curt’s dead, Bitsy’s broken and it’s time for you to get the fuck over it.”

“Bitsy’s not broken, she may be stuck in that chair but she’ll be rollin’ in Curtis’s money for the rest of her life.”

This utterly nasty comment was when I felt it necessary to intervene, why, I didn’t know, it was insane. But I did it.

“You’re a cow,” I declared and her eyes narrowed on me.

“What’d you call me?”

“A cow. We use that expression in England when we’re talking about a bitter, whinging woman.”

“What’s ‘whinging’?” Mindy asked on a whisper and I didn’t take my eyes off Kami as I answered.

“Moaning, complaining, nagging, bitching. That’s whinging.”