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“Olivia thinks I might hurt him.”
“Olivia doesn’t know Max like I do,” Devon said easily. “He’s very fucking tough. He’ll surprise you. I’m betting on it.”
“He already surprises me,” I admitted. “But you heard what I said downstairs. I’m not always a nice person, especially when it comes to him.”
“Max doesn’t need nice,” Devon said. “Maybe once, but not right now. He needs someone to grind his gears and piss him off. I’ve known it for a while. I tried to shake him up myself. That’s why I gave him five million dollars.”
I opened my mouth, but there was a familiar deep voice in the hall, and the door opened, and Max and Olivia came in. Olivia was laughing, and Max was shaking his head, and I knew he’d said something that gave my sister the giggles. In a burst of envy, I wanted to know what it was.
Max rounded the chairs and dropped into the one next to me. “Blood and death part two, bro,” he said to Devon. “You following, or do you want the picture book version?”
“This guy’s dead meat,” Devon said. “That part, I got. I can’t read the picture book version.”
“You’re an embarrassment,” Max said. “We can’t take you anywhere.”
“Blood and death,” Devon said, taking Olivia’s hand gently and settling in his chair. “I like it.”
“So do I,” Max said, and the lights went down again.
Chapter 14
Gwen
Macbeth ended in its symphony of tragedy, but I barely paid attention. I was too stunned from the bomb Devon had dropped on me.
Five million dollars.
After the curtain went down, there was some conversation about limos, about who was getting in which one, that I barely paid attention to. Which was why I didn’t know how I ended up sharing a limo home with Max, when we’d taken separate ones to the theater. All I knew was that I said my goodbyes, was handed in to the back seat of a limo, and Max got in from the other side and sat across from me.
The first thing he did was undo the button on his shirt, as if he was uncomfortable. “Okay,” he said to me. “What’s got you all pissed off?”
The limo moved slowly in to traffic, which was gridlocked with everyone leaving the theater, and stopped. The driver was ahead of us, behind glass. The windows were tinted. I figured now was as good a time to lay into him as any.
“Five million dollars?” I said.
He slumped back in his seat. “Ah, shit,” he complained. “Devon told you.”
I gaped at him. “You told me you’d quit your job. I believe you said, I can afford to take some time off. That’s it. You didn’t say anything about five million dollars.”
“I didn’t want to sound like an asshole,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “That’s what guys say to blondes who walk in to a bar, isn’t it? Look at me, sweetheart, I have five million bucks.”
“But you do,” I said. “We’ve had sex three times. We’ve slept together. You’ve never brought it up?”
His cheeks flushed a little, like I’d embarrassed him, and I remembered how much I liked flustered Max. “There wasn’t a good time to bring it up.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. We hadn’t done a ton of talking, unless you counted him saying Come on my cock as he rocked my world on his kitchen counter. Damn, now I was blushing too. “Fine. But you said your gym is a sweat sock, and you still go to that shitty bar.”
“I like that bar.”
“And you still live at Shady Oaks.”
“I like Shady Oaks,” he said, but then he frowned. “Okay, not really. I think I might move.”
“You might move?” I said. “That’s it? Five million in the bank, and you might move?”
“So I should go blow it, right?” he said, his eyes on me. “Get an expensive sports car, and a big empty mansion, and a twenty-year-old girlfriend with a boob job? Is that what I’m supposed to do?”
I crossed my arms and looked him up and down, a task I had to admit wasn’t unpleasant. Damn, the man could wear dress pants and a button-down just as well as a worn-in pair of jeans. And his biceps pressed against the shirt’s fabric. I couldn’t picture him doing any of those things, and if any twenty-year-old with a boob job came near him right now, I’d kick her ass. “Max,” I said. “You’re a millionaire.”
