“Why’d you stand me up?” he repeated into the void.
“I didn’t. You said you were coming over but I didn’t agree.”
“You stood me up.”
“I didn’t.”
“Mara you did and you did it, essentially, twice.”
My head jerked to face him again and I snapped, “No, I didn’t!”
He shook his head and muttered, “Jesus, you got your head so far up your ass it’s a wonder you can breathe.”
“Pardon?” I hissed.
“You heard me.”
“Yes,” I bit out. “I did and what you said was not very nice.”
“No, baby, it wasn’t but it was the fuckin’ truth.”
Was I sitting in Detective Mitch Lawson’s SUV fighting with him? Two Point Fives didn’t fight with Ten Point Fives. It was against all the laws of the universe. How did this happen?
“I don’t have my head up my ass!” I snapped somewhat loudly.
“You live in a whole different world,” he retorted.
“Do not!”
“Oh yeah, sweetheart, you do.”
I crossed my arms on my chest, looked forward and announced, “Well I’m glad to know you can be a jerk. It’s easier to deal with a hot guy who’s a jerk than it is to deal with one who’s unnaturally nice.”
Of course I sounded like a fool but I didn’t care. I always sounded like a fool and anyway, he’d told me I had my head up my ass. What did I care that he thought I was a fool?
“Finally, I’m getting somewhere,” Mitch returned. “All I gotta do is be a dick to you, you let go and a little of that Mara Light shines through. What now, Mara? I keep bein’ a dick to you, you let me get my hands down your pants and the only way I can keep that privilege is continue to treat you like shit? Then eventually you’ll kick me to the curb and it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy that all men are dicks? Is that how it goes so you can retreat into that cocoon you’ve built around you and rest safe in the knowledge that you’re makin’ all the right moves?”
My head swung to face him again. I was breathing heavily because he was, indeed, being a dick and he’d intimated he wanted to get his hands down my pants, which was insane.
“Are you insane?” I asked with my voice pitched high.
“This is what I know. I’m nice to you, you’re scared as shit, you barely speak without ums and uhs and at one point you ran away from me, literally. I’m a dick; you got no problems communicating with me. Is that an insane conclusion?” he asked, shook his head at the windshield and answered his own question. “Fuck no.”
“Can you explain exactly why you were so all fired up to take me to Billy and Billie? Is it so you could be an asshole about not getting to taste my pizza?” I asked acidly and with very bad timing.
We’d come to stop at a red light which meant he could turn his full attention to me. This he did, with his arm draped on the steering wheel and his eyes locked to mine.
Then he said, “I hope I got a little window into Mara World and this gets through because it’s really fuckin’ important,” he growled, at least as angry as I was, maybe angrier. “I don’t want to taste your pizza, Mara. I don’t give that first fuck about your pizza. Clue the fuck in, sweetheart, before you wake up at eighty-five years old and wonder where your life has gone.”
I stared at him, or more like glared at him and shot back loudly, angrily and with a fair amount of exasperation, “Then why’d you make such a big freaking deal about the pizza?” I hesitated then finished on a near shout, “Twice?”
He glared back at me and his glare was pretty scary. Luckily I was so angry I didn’t care.
Then he closed his eyes, turned his head away and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
I faced forward and informed him, “The light’s green.”
I heard him pull in a deep breath.
Then we were moving forward.
Chapter Four
Exactly the Kind of Friend I Intend to Be
Mitch had barely come to a halt in the parking space outside the door to the Stop ‘n’ Go before I had the door open and was jumping out.
This was because I wanted to get to the kids but it was also because I was freaked out and really, really pissed off.
It was late April nearly May. We were having a warm spell so I was in flip-flops, jeans (unfortunately the jeans that Bradon told me to wear last Saturday, which even I had to admit did great things for my ass) and a tee. My flip-flops were thin strap Haviannas and a nice, muted gold color and my tee was cream with a square neckline, cute, pleated ruffles as sleeves and it clung to my breasts and ribs fairly provocatively. Not exactly skintight but it stated its case. My hair was in a ponytail at the back of my head, that fat, stupid lock at the front had fallen out. I shoved it behind my ear as I yanked open the door.