“What?”
“If you told me you needed a timeout, first, I wouldn’t f**kin’ let you have one, second, I wouldn’t give you reason to f**kin’ want one, last, you took off anyway, I’d f**kin’ phone.”
My head tilted to the side and I felt my body start warming up not, this time, with fever.
“You wouldn’t let me have one?”
“Fuck no.”
“Ergo, you would not be my man.”
“Ergo?”
“It’s Latin, it means ‘therefore’.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, “I gotta go.”
“Hang on,” I snapped. “You may think you know me but I was delirious. I didn’t get to know you.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“So you think you’re leavin’?” He switched the subject.
“I am leaving,” I declared, happy to be on this subject.
He stuck his hand in his front jeans pocket, pulled out the keys to the rental, dangled them in front of me for a brief flash then his hand closed around them and he shoved them back into his pocket.
“Be hard gettin’ down the mountain on foot, carryin’ that huge-ass suitcase of yours, which weighs a goddamned ton, your overnight bag, your purse and a shitload of groceries,” he informed me.
“Give me those keys,” I snapped.
“I’d tell you to go for them, honey, but don’t have time to play.”
At his words, my mouth dropped open again, he grinned, chucked me gently under the chin with the side of his fist (yes, I will repeat, he chucked me under the chin) and then he walked away.
I stood staring at the space he used to be in then, when I heard the front door open, I ran to the railing.
“Max!” I shouted.
“Later, Duchess,” he called, a hand up, two fingers flicking out, he didn’t even look back.
Becca looked back though, and up. She gave me a wince-I’m-sorry-face and a finger wave and I knew she heard everything. I’d totally forgotten she was there.
Then I watched Max throw his now black leather jacketed arm around her shoulders and I wondered who Becca was and what she was to Max who was just upstairs, semi-fighting with me and also, if I wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t think I was, flirting with me in a rough, macho, mountain man kind of way
They talked for a few seconds at the side of her car then they separated. Becca got in her sporty, red, mini-SUV. Max got in his black Cherokee. They both drove away.
I looked down at the bottom floor and saw my cranberry juice, my coffee and my untouched oatmeal all sitting on the bar.
Then I looked out the window at the wilderness.
The internet advertisement for the A-Frame said it was fifteen miles away from the nearest town, secluded, quiet, the perfect holiday destination for a calm, relaxing, peaceful getaway.
The Nightmare Holiday Destination if you had to walk fifteen miles to town carrying a suitcase, an overnight bag, a purse and a shitload of groceries.
Tackle a problem prepared, Charlie advised in my head and I nodded like he was there with me.