I stared at him as he pulled the stems off of the (unwashed) berries and started to add them to the banana.
“Ty –” I whispered and he turned to me.
“Spit it out. I’m not fuckin’ with you. I’m not in the mood for this but if you got something to say, say it.”
I swallowed against a throat that was closing and this was because, suddenly, I wasn’t pissed anymore.
I was something else.
And that something else was understanding that I’d been wrong that day we’d arrived in Carnal. He hadn’t shut down after our kiss. This wasn’t the closed Ty. This was a different Ty. This was an asshole Ty.
And it hurt to know that there was an asshole Ty.
“I…” I started, not knowing what to say, he went back to his strawberries and then I tried to start with something easy. “I don’t know what you want me to be doing.”
He didn’t respond. He finished with the strawberries, leaned way to the side, opened a drawer, grabbed one of our awesome new spoons and went after the yogurt.
“Ty,” I called. “I can’t spend my days hanging around and watching TV. What am I supposed to be doing?”
“Starting a life,” he told the blender, spooning in yogurt.
“How?” I asked.
“How?” he asked the blender.
“Yeah, how?”
He opened the big vat, dug in with his hand, came out with a scoop full of powder and dumped it in the blender saying, “What people do. You want a job, get one. You don’t want one, I can cover you. Deal with your shit in Dallas. Buy groceries. Clean the house. Do what people do.”
He screwed the lid on the vat of powder and went to the fridge. I watched him get a big handful of ice and go back to the blender and drop it in. Then he went back to the fridge, got the milk (Maggie had kindly stocked us up) and splashed some of that in. He put the milk beside the blender, shoved the lid on top and fired it up. Then he stopped it, took the lid off and drank directly from it.
I didn’t speak throughout this. I didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t like the feeling that I was right there and he was acting like he didn’t know I was even on the same planet.
He was halfway through his shake when I said quietly, “Something’s changed.”
He turned to me and leaned his hips into the counter.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Something’s changed. We’re here. This starts. No fuckin’ around. I got shit to do, it’s important and I gotta focus on it. Vacation’s over. Time to earn your fifty K.”
Then he threw back more shake like he hadn’t just delivered a verbal blow to the gut. And this blow was reminding me about the fifty K, something, for some stupid, insane reason, I thought we’d gone beyond making us something we obviously were not.
Even so, to remind him of who I thought we had become, when he dropped his arm, I whispered, “That wasn’t nice.”
His blank but still beautiful eyes leveled on mine. “Never promised I’d be nice.”
“You’d been being nice,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he affirmed then said, “Mistake. Told you in Vegas, been in chains five years, don’t need anything chaining me.”
Blow two.
“I’m not chaining you,” I told him, my voice trembling.
“Woman, you’re * and never met * that didn’t come with a chain. Some of them are heavier than others. Don’t wanna find out how heavy yours is.”
Another blow. That one savage.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” I whispered.
“Well I did,” he replied then threw back the last of the shake, put the blender on the counter and left the milk, banana peel, strawberry stems and everything where it lay as he headed to the steps saying, “Hittin’ the shower then goin’ to bed. Wood’s comin’ again in the morning to get me. Man who was lookin’ after my ride’s bringin’ it back tomorrow. Probably see you tomorrow night.”
Then he was up the steps and gone.
I stood at the counter seeing nothing. Then I moved around the island and cleaned up his mess. Then I went back to the TV.
I didn’t go to bed until way late and I did this only after spending a good deal of time wondering if I was going to do it at all. And that wondering included whether I should sleep on the couch or whether I should write him a note, tell him to go fuck himself and shove his fifty K up his ass and then get in my car and go.
For some reason, I went up to bed.
Now was now.
I stared at the ceiling realizing that I was hurt and angry, both in equal measure. Ty had opened to me and showed me something beautiful then for some fucked up reason all in his head, he snatched it away from me.
And I had two choices. Either I break my back and work him to pull that back out again, help him to deal with whatever he was dealing with, get him to trust me, show him that whatever demons he was battling, he could let them go and I could give him a good life. Or I could do my job, collect my fifty thousand dollars and move the fuck on.