“Duchess –” Max started but I kept right on speaking.
“And I do stupid stuff all the time or at least I did before Niles and then there was Niles, who was stupid from start to finish. But before him, it wasn’t just all the bad choices with men, I was always doing crazy stuff, like Mom but not benign stuff, like concocting disgusting food. The Brain Team thing wasn’t the first or the last time I was off on one. I was always off on one. Do you know I’ve been arrested?” His eyebrows went up and I nodded my head on the pillow. “Not brawling, it was drunk and disorderly except I wasn’t really drunk, more like tipsy but I was disorderly because I was yelling really loudly and, in the end, I kind of threw a beer bottle at someone.” Max pressed his lips together, I again didn’t know what this meant but I defended myself. “He deserved it, he smacked a girl’s behind right in front of my friend, who was his girlfriend, and he was doing that kind of that stuff all the time and it hurt her so, being tipsy, I’d had enough and I let fly, shouting at him and throwing the beer bottle. Anyway, I wasn’t aiming at him so it didn’t hit him, just smashed on a wall and got some girl’s purse wet. She was kind of angry about it because the purse was designer so she was the one who called the police.”
“Babe –”
On a roll, I talked over him and continued laying out my case. “And I’m totally neurotic. I know why, seeing as my Dad left me and then I chose all of those stupid guys so I have issues with that, as you know. I just don’t know how to stop it. You told me all the guys at the bar were looking at me and even Harry said he’d do me but does that register with me? No. I can’t let people be nice to me, say nice things to me, I just can’t accept it as fact and that makes me just plain weird.”
This time, his brows knit and his face grew hard when he repeated in a low, dangerous voice, “Harry said he’d do you?”
“Yes,” I told him, too caught up in relaying my urgent message to catch his change in mood. “Harry was drunk and acting like an idiot but I don’t know why you want me. It’s mad.”
“Nina –”
“I mean, I go on a vacation to try to figure out my life and here I am, my leg’s scraped up, my ribs are bruised, I’ve been backhanded and punched, I’ve been to a hospital once and a Police Station three times and I’ve been into it with practically everyone in town and, if you take out the time I’ve been sick, I’ve only been here a week!”
“Duchess, let me –”
“What is it with me?” I asked over him then again didn’t wait for an answer, just kept blathering. “I need a timeout to deal with my timeout! That’s how messed up I am. And you’re a good guy, the best, you take care of people, everyone respects you, you’re nice and you’re handsome and you’re generous and smart and you don’t need all that is messed up me messing up you.”
“Babe, will you shut up?”
At his tone, which managed to be both commanding and gentle, my head jerked on the pillow and belatedly I focused on him.
“What?” I asked.
“Shut up,” he said softly.
“Okay,” I replied instantly because his face was also gentle, gentle to the point of being tender, though his eyes were dancing like he was laughing inside. The combination of the two was so amazing, it was beyond amazing, indescribably amazing and I could do nothing but what he told me to do.
“You threw a beer at someone?” he asked, still speaking softly.
“Not at him, it was a warning shot. But he smacked a girl’s bottom in front of his girlfriend,” I repeated on a near whisper. “But I neglected to add that the girl’s bottom he smacked wasn’t happy either, seeing as she was my friend’s friend too.”
“Babe,” he whispered, his eyes still dancing and his mouth was now twitching.
I went back to my point. “Obviously from my behavior the last week and a half, you’ll have noted there’s a good possibility I might do something like that in the future.”
His mouth stopped twitching mainly because it had started grinning.
“Yeah, Duchess, that’s been noted.”
I swallowed and tilted my head on the pillow as I summed up quietly, my words heavy and utterly true, “I’m not harmony, Max.”
His grin didn’t die even hearing my leaden words. “No, honey, that you aren’t.”
“You deserve that,” I whispered.
His hand shifted so his fingers could trail at the wetness my earlier tears left at my temple as he said, “That’s sweet you think that, baby, but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s not what I want.”
I blinked slowly then I asked, “Sorry?”
“To get that means not to get you so that’s not what I want ‘cause, like I said earlier, what I want is you.”
“My dead brother talks in my head,” I reminded him.