“If you’re hungry, sweetheart, make yourself at home. Open up and dive in,” he said quietly.
She lifted her beer to her lips and swung her eyeballs around in a way it was clear she was avoiding looking at him, standing right in front of her, tearing open a package of hamburger meat.
What the fuck?
Whatever.
He was not fucking asking again.
“Right, you in the middle of one of the movies?” he asked when she’d dropped the beer.
“Always,” she answered.
“Okay. Give notice. Tomorrow.”
That made her look at him. “What?”
“Dad reckons Valenzuela considers this a professional relationship,” he explained. “The legal kind. And we can hope that’s true. So, give notice. Say you’ll finish the film you’re doing now, but once that’s done, you’re out. You realized porn isn’t for you and you got an offer of a job you couldn’t turn down.”
She turned her head to stare at the potato chip bags again.
“You got a contract that says you can’t do that?” he asked.
“I have a contract that states what my credits will be on the films I make, and I don’t use my real name, so it doesn’t matter anyway. I didn’t want royalties for obvious reasons. Valenzuela was suspicious of that, but considering it’s porn, he let it go. I’m employed by Luxe Films, Limited, I’m salaried, not hourly, I get paid a shit-ton of money I don’t use, and that’s it.”
“Okay, then give notice tomorrow. In writing.”
She reached out and touched the potato chip bag with the tip of her middle finger like she was carefully stroking the cheek of a sleeping infant.
Okay.
What in the fuck?
With fingers gunked to shit, he stopped forming a hamburger patty.
“Rebel—”
Her focus cut to him, and when it did he knew instantly she was back.
And just as instantly, he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
He’d find he was wrong.
But first he was right.
“Don’t be mad,” she said fast. “Rush, please don’t be mad. But I’m not pulling out.”
She could ask.
But she wasn’t going to get that.
He wasn’t mad.
He was pissed.
“We decided this,” he growled.
“I can’t pull out.”
“You can’t stay in,” he bit off.
She shook her head, sharp and fast. “Really, really, baby,” she slid a hand across the counter toward him, “I have to keep at it.”
Oh no.
Fuck to the no.
She wasn’t gonna call him “baby” for the first time trying to get her way to keep doing something that might get her dead.
“We’ve been together twice, had two conversations about this, and came to a decision. I’m not talkin’ about this every fuckin’ time I see you, Rebel.”
“Maybe we can discuss how we can work together to bring down Valenzuela and Chew,” she suggested, sounding desperate, looking it too, leaning toward him across his own fucking kitchen counter.
She sat in his car trying to decide how to broach this with him.
She walked into his house, not the least curious where he fucking lived, working that through her head.
And now she was trying to play his ass to get him to agree not only to let her risk hers but help her do it.
“I’ve answered that question,” he stated, dropping the meat and going to the sink to clean his hands.
“Rush—”
“Rebel, this is dinner. Talking. Getting to know the woman I thought I might like. I thought was interesting and cute and sexy and funny. The woman who is not all about Diane Ragowski and Benito fuckin’ Valenzuela and shit-for-brains Chew Lannigan and all that other garbage—”
“Diane isn’t garbage,” she snapped.
He tore the dish towel off the hook and swiped his hands, turning to her and firing back, “You know what I mean.”
“I’m sorry I’m all about my dead friend, Rush,” she said sarcastically. “My raped and murdered friend.”
“First, don’t lay that fuckin’ guilt trip on me. And second, it’s been nine fucking months, Rebel. It’s time for you to find a way past it.”
She leaned over the counter and spat, “I am!”
“A healthy way.”
She reached out to the purse she’d put on the edge of his counter.
“Maybe I should get a Lyft home,” she suggested.
“Maybe that’s a good idea,” he agreed.
Her head snapped up from looking in her purse, something moved over her face he felt sear low through his gut, then she turned her back on him and walked quickly out of this kitchen, by his dining room table, and into his living room, her head again bent to her purse.