Kristen Ashley - The Gamble

“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 Arlene 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.”

Then he pulled my face even closer and he kissed me.

And then, apparently our conversation was over because he kissed me for a good long while, so long I totally forgot about our discussion. When he stopped kissing me, he turned out the light, settled in and told me to go to sleep. And his kisses were so good, his body so warm, he felt so good at my side, I was so exhausted, I just cuddled into him and did what I was told.

But I did it with that feeling of hope drifting back into my heart and this time, it drifted in with the clear intention of staying awhile.

I woke when Max’s heat moved away from my back, the weight of his arm gliding from around me. He did this carefully, with that exquisite gentleness unreal in such a powerfully-built man.

I didn’t open my eyes. I felt like I’d had around fifteen minutes of sleep and like I needed fifteen days to catch up.

And anyway, when Max was being gentle like that I thought it would be better to shut off the other senses and experience nothing but the feel of it.

I was sliding back into dreamland when I heard the distinct murmur of voices. The owners of the cabin complex might have taken pride in their facilities but the cabins themselves were a fair shade less well made than Max’s A-Frame. With the way I could hear the conversation, I knew the walls were paper thin.

“Nina had a rough night,” Max’s gravelly voice explained.

“Oh dear,” Gladys replied and my eyes flew open.

“And you are?” Norm asked.

“Max, Nina’s boyfriend,” Max answered.

“Nina’s boyfriend who left her alone all day yesterday to do nothing but stare at the river like her world had ended and then left her alone last night to have dinner with two old coots like us?” Norm asked, sounding somewhat surprisingly belligerent, and his tone, not to mention what he gave away about me spending the day pining for Max, made me throw the covers back and jump out of bed, ignoring the shot of pain that emanated through my ribs as I did so.

“Norm!” Gladys cried on a gasp.

“Yep,” Max replied, sounding not affronted but amused. “That’d be me.”

On Max’s remark I had made it to the door and I threw it open, rushing out into the living room.

“Is it eight thirty already?” I asked on a smile I hoped didn’t look fatigued.

Max, wearing jeans, his long-sleeved t-shirt but in bare feet, turned to look at me and when he did, his lips pressed together and weirdly, his ear tilted to his shoulder at the same time he was giving short shakes of his head.

Both Norm and Gladys were staring at me, for some reason openly gobsmacked.

Then Norm moved, luckily not quickly for I could see his intent and I was able to cry out “Max!” in time for Max to turn back to Norm and then duck clear of Norm’s flying cane.

“Norm!” Gladys screeched.

I ran forward as Max retreated, his torso swaying back to dodge the swipes of the cane Norm was wielding like a rapier as he advanced on Max.

I got in front of Max and threw my arms out, shouting at Norm, “What are you doing?”

“Missy, your face!” Norm shouted back, swirling his cane in the air before he planted it on the floor, leaned into it, turned to Gladys and ordered, “Go get our cellular whozeewhatsit and call the police!”

Oh dear, even feeling the pain in my body, I’d still forgotten about my face.

“Max didn’t do this,” I told Norm and Norm turned narrowed eyes back to me.