I forced my eyes to look ahead and I forced my brain to find an explanation for this madness.
“You’re just being nice,” I whispered.
“I’m a nice guy,” he agreed. “But I’m not bein’ nice. I’m bein’ real. And now what I’d like to know is why every time I give you a compliment, you freak out and twist it into something bad.”
“I don’t do that,” I denied.
“I told you, you had good taste in music and you immediately jumped to the conclusion that it annoyed me because you played it too loud. How do you go from someone saying you have good taste in music to it being a complaint about you playin’ it too loud?”
I had to admit that sounded absurd.
“Um…” I mumbled.
“Same with your laugh. I say I like it, you take it as me sayin’ it’s too loud.”
He needed to quit talking.
“You need to quit talking,” I blurted and wished I could clap my hands over my mouth because I sounded like a fool.
I should have lied to him earlier. I should have kicked him in the shin and run away. I shouldn’t be in his SUV with him. I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.
“Yeah,” he muttered, “I bet you need that.”
My head jerked to face him. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Why’d you stand me up on Sunday?”
Uh-oh.
“I didn’t stand you up.”
He glanced at me again and I felt his anger, which had dissipated, start to fill the cab again.
He looked back to the road and said, “Mara, we had plans. Pizza at seven thirty.”
I looked back to the road too and said, “I don’t really want to talk about this.”
“Yeah, I bet you need that too.”
I ignored what he said and told him, “I need to focus on what I’m going to do with Billy and Billie and what I’m going to say to Bill.”
“Yeah, I know, you need that too. You need to focus on anything other than what’s goin’ on with you.”
I fought back the urge to clamp my hands over my ears and chant “la la la” and decided to stay silent.
“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.”