“I’d like to speak to you,” Niles clipped.
I pointed out the obvious, “Niles, honestly, I think we’ve said all there is to say.”
Niles’s face went hard and he informed me, “And I think the least you could do is allow me a moment to speak to you,” his eyes went to Max before he finished, “privately.”
Unfortunately at this point, seeing as Niles had interrupted a nice moment between Max and me, and he was being kind of a jerk, I was starting to see red.
“The least I could do?” I asked irately.
“Duchess,” Max muttered at my side.
“The least you could do,” Niles affirmed.
“You’ve had two years of me talking with you privately and you never listened,” I reminded him.
“But –” Niles started.
I was moving forward taking Max with me, heading to the two step opening at the railing by the Police Station just down from Niles. I wasn’t going to get into this with him, not now, not ever. It wasn’t worth it, he wasn’t worth it.
Therefore, as I headed that way, I told Niles, “I need to go press charges.”
“Against who?” Niles asked.
I stopped, glared at him and answered impatiently, “Who else? Against my mountain man gone bad stalker!”
“Nina! Max!” I heard shouted and looked to the left to see Linda bearing down on our party, she got a good look at me, came to a juddering halt and kept shouting, “Oh my God! What on earth happened to you?”
“Damon,” Max answered without hesitation and my head snapped back to look at him.
“Max!” I hissed.
“Everyone’s gonna know,” Max told me.
“They will now,” I mumbled.
“Damon!” Linda yelled very loudly, proving my mumbled point.
“I’m fine,” I told Linda.
“Nina, that word I’d like to have privately…” Niles butted in.
“Babe, seriously, get rid of him,” Max’s voice was getting a little scary.
“Niles, go home,” I said to Niles.
“You don’t look fine,” Linda said to me, ignoring Niles.
“I am,” I promised her. “Really, it just feels a little bit tight.”
“That Damon Matthews,” Linda spat. “You know, take one letter out of his name and it spells ‘damn’ as in ‘damn, that kid’s a worthless sonovabitch’.”
“Nina! Max! Hey!” I heard and looked to the right to see Becca approaching. Then she caught sight of me and skidded to a halt two feet from Niles. “Whoa! What happened to your face?”
“Fuck me,” Max muttered.
“Damon,” I told her, talking over Max cursing.
“That dick!” Becca screeched.
“Nina! For God’s sake!” Niles bellowed and I looked at him.
“Niles! Go! Away!” I shouted at him.
Becca’s torso reared back, her eyes got wide and they were on Niles.
“Dude,” she said low, “you’re Niles?”
Niles just scowled at her so she looked at me.
“Seriously, Neens, Max is way better,” Becca informed me. “Not only is he hotter, he’s taller, has great hair, that awesome rough voice and he dresses nearly as hot as he just plain is.”
Becca was not wrong about that. Any of it. Therefore I had no response.
“Who’s Niles?” Linda asked Becca, finally examining Niles.
“I’m Nina’s fiancé,” Niles answered Linda, now scowling more irately at Becca.
“Ex!” I shouted.
“Jesus, enough!” Max cut in on a sharp, impatient bark and looked at Niles. “Man, it’s over. Deal with it but deal with it somewhere else.” He looked at his mother. “Mom, we gotta go in so Nina can swear out a statement. I’ll call you later.” He looked at Becca. “Babe, Nina’ll call you, yeah?”
“Cool,” Becca said on a grin.
“Is it pasta bake tonight?” Linda asked.
“No,” Max answered instantly.
“When am I gonna get pasta bake?” Linda pushed.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Max replied and I could tell he was losing it.
“Saturday,” I told her quickly. “That’s my parent’s last day here. We’ll have a little party.”
“Duchess,” Max said to me, sounding exasperated, “when I’m in England, we gotta get your shit sorted so you can move here and people’ll get used to having you around so maybe they’ll back the fuck off so I can spend some fuckin’ time with you.”
“You’re moving here?” Niles asked on a loud, horrified whisper.
“Yes, Niles,” I answered him.
“But you said you’d never leave Charlie’s house.”
Now he was hearing what I said a million times over the last year.
“I’m not leaving Charlie’s house, Max and I are going to…” I stopped speaking as it hit me, I looked at Max and whispered, “We can’t do that anymore, can we?”
Max’s arm at my shoulders gave me a squeeze. “We’ll talk about it later.”
I ignored him, remembering what he’d told me the morning before about taking the job in town and how wonderful it was that he’d make that sacrifice for me, taking over Curt’s business, but how he couldn’t do it, seeing as it was Curt’s business and Curt was a jerk, so I announced, “And you can’t take that job.”