Private Affair(14)
“Understood,” he clipped out, reminding her that as far as he was concerned, they were sticking to the original deal.
They stood facing each other for a charged moment, and she tried to take the level of tension in the room down a notch
“Did you get enough to eat at the meeting?” she asked. “Or should I fix something?”
“I had the equivalent of dinner—if you consider dinner to be buffalo wings and chips and dip. Not exactly a balanced meal, but filling enough.” She saw him making an effort to relax as he said, “I’m going to change into something more comfortable.”
“Probably a good idea,” she agreed, glad that they were off the subject of the phone call and steering away from anything personal.
They both climbed the stairs to the second floor, then separated in the hallway. Max was sleeping in what had been the spare bedroom. She was back in the room she’d occupied when she’d lived with her parents. She could have taken the master bedroom, but that would have felt too strange, since her mother and father had slept there for so many years.
She quickly took off the pearl gray slacks and dressy knit top she’d worn to the reunion committee meeting and pulled out jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes.
After dressing, she started down the hall to the bathroom and almost bumped into Max coming from the other direction, also dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes. The bathroom situation was one of the least convenient aspects of the house. It had only one full bath on the top floor, although there was a powder room in back of the kitchen.
Max stopped short. “Go ahead. I can wait.”
She wanted to say she could also wait. But there was no point in making a trip to the potty into some kind of…pissing contest.
“Thanks,” she said, then ducked into the room and closed the door. When she heard his footsteps recede down the hall, she used the facilities and washed her hands, then walked back to the steps. In the living room, she picked up her iPad from the end table and got into her email, most of which was either ads or messages from newsgroups she subscribed to.
There was also a message from Jerry reminding her about the Million Dollar Babe shooting schedule, as though they hadn’t spoken about it a few minutes ago. It wasn’t like it was next week. She could still do it if they resolved the problem down here in time. But Jerry wanted a definite answer.
“Sorry,” she emailed back. “If you have to get someone else, go ahead and do it.”
His jaw was probably going to drop to his knees when he read her response. But she wasn’t going to cave. Not just because the murder investigation was important. Wasn’t it possible for a top model to pull back and work on an easier schedule? What if she was married or something?
She made a snorting sound. She wasn’t married to Max—or even engaged. She was just pretending to be his fiancée. When this was over, he’d go back to his work with Rockfort Security, and she would… Go back to New York? Probably. Where else did she have to go, really?
Attending the reunion meeting had made her realize more than anything else that she had severed her ties with Howard County, Maryland. Leaving had been a deliberate move on her part. You could even say calculating. She had turned away from her old life, determined to build something of her own. And she’d worked hard to do that. She’d had a goal, and mostly she had achieved it. The climb had been difficult—and exciting. Each new milestone had made her feel more like she belonged in that glittering world of success. But now that she had reached a level of success she’d hardly dared to imagine, it didn’t feel as awesome as she’d expected.
Was she passing up the chance to get married and have a family?
There it was again. Thoughts of marriage, which she’d firmly put out of her mind while she focused on her career. Was a normal life now impossible for her?
Hearing footsteps, she looked up and saw Max coming down the stairs.
He was carrying his laptop, and he sat down in the easy chair opposite the sofa and raised the screen.
She lived alone in an apartment in New York. Probably he had his own apartment in Rockville. And now here they were together—yet still separate.
Was this a typical evening for a modern family? Long ago, the people who lived in this house might have been gathered around the piano after dinner, with one person playing and the others singing. Then had come the era of listening to the radio—followed by the new invention, television. And now everybody had his own computer, which separated them again.
Max didn’t speak, and she didn’t ask him if he was checking his email or doing research on some of the people they’d met at the meeting, probably because she didn’t want him to ask her any questions. They’d been in the middle of a discussion about what she, Patrick, Gary, and Angela had in common, and she was still trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy him—and not make her cringe when she talked about her past.