Charlie didn’t respond as I finished smoothing the duvet, fluffing the pillows and then I took a shower.
* * * * *
We were driving through the streets of town and I was looking out the side window, thinking maybe I could go for another buffalo burger sometime relatively soon when Max asked a question.
“Niles loaded?”
I turned to look at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Niles. Is he loaded?”
Something clawed at my insides coming close to tearing away precious tissue.
“He makes good money,” I said off-handedly, looking out the side window again. “His parents, however, are loaded.”
“Your Dad looked loaded.”
I pulled in breath through my nostrils then said, “Dad’s loaded too but Niles’s parents are on a whole other level of loaded.”
There was silence a second before Max said softly, “Thinkin’ today, Duchess, you might’ve gotten written out of your Dad’s will.”
That claw curled up and slid away and the tension in my body relaxed as I murmured, “No big loss.”
He glanced at me and stated, “You make good money too.”
That claw came back with a vengeance.
“I’m not loaded.”
“Nina, don’t know much about ‘em but your f**kin’ purse looks like it cost more than my couch.”
“It didn’t,” I replied sharply and hurriedly.
“You know how much my couch cost?”
“Unless you got a major bargain, it didn’t cost less than my purse,” I retorted.
He glanced at me again and said, “All right, relax.”
“I’m relaxed,” I lied.
“You’re wound up tight,” he observed accurately.
“I am not,” I lied again.
“You got a problem makin’ more money than me?”
“I don’t know that I do.”
“Honey, you’re a lawyer.”
“So?”
He didn’t answer my one word question, instead he asked one of his own. “Can you practice in The States?”
I looked out the side window again and informed him, “I passed the bar and practiced here before moving there, worked for a small firm and I’m still licensed in America. I had to take a conversion course when I moved to England.”
“Then you’re set,” he muttered under his breath but I heard him.
I looked back and asked, “Set for what?”
He again didn’t respond to my question but turned my attention back to one of his. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I was getting confused. “What question?”
“You got a problem makin’ more money than me?”
“If that is, indeed, the case, why would I?” I asked back.
“It’s important to know.”
“Why?”
He glanced at me again and repeated disbelievingly, “Why?”
“Max, seeing as you’re a man and you brought this up then my question would be, do you have a problem with it?”
“Nope,” he replied immediately.
“Then why are we talking about this?”
We’d driven out of town and he made a turn into a residential area as he said, “You get used to that kind of life.”
“What kind of life?”
“The life you get bein’ with someone who’s loaded.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
“Duchess, not sure I get what’s funny,” Max said over my laughter.
I shook my head and looked out the windshield. “It isn’t exactly champagne and caviar on his yacht. He doesn’t own a yacht and I’ve never tasted caviar. Niles mostly watches TV.”
Max made another turn out of the residential area, up an incline and asked, “TV?”
“TV,” I repeated.
“Think things’ll be more excitin’ in the mountains, babe.”
He could say that again. Though I wondered why he said it at all.
After we went up a ways, he pulled into a lane that led up to a huge, nearly ostentatious, weirdly almost overbearing house that looked down on the town as I said, “Now, can I ask, why we’re talking about this?”
He stopped in front of the house, turned off the ignition, undid his seatbelt, I undid mine and Max twisted to me, draping one forearm over the steering wheel.
“Why?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
He looked slightly thrown, slightly annoyed. “Are you kiddin’?”
I felt my brows draw together in puzzlement and I replied, “No, I’m not.”
“Duchess, what do you think is happenin’ here?” he asked, his hand at the steering wheel flipping out with his question, now he sounded slightly annoyed, slightly incredulous.
The claw was long gone, now my insides were seized with something else. It didn’t feel bad, entirely, but it was still downright terrifying.
“Max.”
He took his forearm from the steering wheel, reached out, hooked me at the back of my neck and leaned toward me as he pulled me toward him.
When we were close, he started talking. “You got a lot to think about but today you proved you can handle it so I’m layin’ it out. When I say I want to explore this, what happens this afternoon is half as good as the promise of you, I mean that seriously. And I sure as hell am not gonna f**k around with this over an ocean and I’m also not leavin’ my land. So that means you come here. You need to visit there, we’ll do it as often as we can but you’ll be here, with me, on my land. Yeah?”
“Sorry?” I whispered, now I was thrown, so thrown I was having trouble breathing because I was mentally trying to catch up and he shook his head impatiently.
“I’m not doin’ that long distance shit,” he explained.
“Long distance shit?” I repeated, still whispering.
“Nina, we’re as good together when we’ve actually been together as we are now, when we haven’t, I’m not havin’ you sleep in a bed half a world away from me.”
“We’re good together?” Yes, I was still whispering.
“You had better?”
“No,” I said before I thought better of it.
His face got soft and he murmured strangely, “Yeah.”
I blinked then stammered, “Are you saying you want me to… to… to move in?”
He smiled and replied, “It works out, Duchess, I don’t wanna live in the A-Frame while you take a house in town.”