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?”