Held A New Adult Romance(39)

"Were you a Girl Scout?" I ask.

She sits back on her heels. "Nope," she says. "Arsonist."

Her expression is solemn and it's only when she glimpses genuine fear in my eyes that she laughs.

"That's not funny," I say.

"Shut up. It's hilarious."

"It isn't. I don't know what's going on with you. How do I know you're not an arsonist or a murderer or something?"

She gathers up the take-out cartons and glares at me. "I told you," she said. "I had a bad relationship."

"You didn't tell me anything," I start to say, but she gets up and carries off the empty cartons into the kitchen. I'm comfortably full for the first time since breakfast, but now that I've taken care of some of the basics I'm faced with the next tier on my personal version of Maslow's pyramid - what the fuck is going on with Amber?

She comes back in, hands me a Diet Coke and sits down heavily on the couch. "His name was Justin," she says. "He was abusive and I was an idiot. That's pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell."

"I'm sorry." I want to tell her that she wasn't an idiot - it seems like the right thing to say - but her eyes are already shining and I think she might be about to tell me more. The last thing I want to do is distract her.

She swallows and picks at the ring pull of her drink, twisting it around. "I was eighteen when I first met him," she said. "He was twenty, which was enough to make him seem exciting on its own. But he also had tattoos, and a motorbike and a well-thumbed copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Obviously I thought he was hot shit. We were going to get married - Thanksgiving weekend. We were going to go to Las Vegas and do it - Elvis impersonator, drive through wedding chapel, the whole stupid thing."

Amber sighs. I get up on the couch beside her. I hope this isn't yet another preamble to trying to jump me.

"I forgot," she says. "That when you're a Hollywood brat the chances are that you personally know half the acts playing Vegas at any given time. You know Max Mayer, the magician?"

I nod.

"He's an asshole," she says. "Fucking douchebag. He's like forty and acts like he's twenty-five. He saw me with Justin and was like 'Oh, hey Amber, what are you doing here? Wanna a see a magic trick?' - like I say, douchebag. We'd been drinking in the hotel room and Justin was all 'Don't fucking come onto my fiancée - we're getting married'."

She pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt tight around herself and draws her knees up. "You have no idea, Jaime - it was all so dumb. The hold he had over me, I mean. He was a nothing. Nobody. Just some pretty boy with long eyelashes, great abs and an accent. Max is embarrassing as hell, but you can't say he's not somebody - I mean, I'm not into card-tricks, but I guess he's something to people who do care about that shit."

"I'll say. My little brother loves him."

Amber looks at me for a moment, like she wants to ask more about my family, but I want her to stay on track. I feel like she kind of owes me this much. Is that unreasonable? She did have a gun pointed at my head this afternoon. "What happened?" I ask.

"I was standing there," she says. "Scared out of my wits. Scared out of my mind. And embarrassed. The number of times he made me ashamed - I lost count. Justin was always making me sorry for something. I was always apologizing for his bad behavior - I'd had a gutful of it back in San Diego where I was at college. After the shit he pulled over Thanksgiving dinner - he said he was part Cree - I mean, how fucking ridiculous is that?"

"Was he?"

She snorts. "God no. Part Creole, maybe - like six generations back. But otherwise white bread." She shakes her head. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, obviously..."

I laugh. "What? To my maybe two drops of pure Aztec blood? Go on. What happened at Thanksgiving?"

"He made a mess. As usual. I had no idea if my roommate was even speaking to me - this is a girl I'd been friends with since we were thirteen. And I treated her like shit. That's what happens with people like Justin. They're like asshole black holes of dumbass drama. He insulted and alienated my best friend and there he was in Vegas facing off against Max Mayer. I remember it so clearly. There were all these slot machines in the background and the noise was insane - I don't know if you've ever been to Vegas, but the casinos are loud. And I can't stand loud repetitive noises - I was on my last nerve as it was and I was just tired. Bone deep tired. And somehow over the endless noise of coins falling out of slot machine there was this little voice in the back of my head that was like 'Why are you still putting up with this bullshit?'"

"Smart voice."