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“Because you haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m pretty sure I just did…?”
He shook his head slowly. “Don’t play around with me, Kels. Out with it. What are you really up to tonight? With this whole… production.”
She looked at him a moment, trying to decide if he was serious or not. “Fine. You wanted to know, so here it is.” She combed a lock of her hair off her forehead with her fingers. “I just have wondered what it would be like. To be”—she held up her fingers, making air quotes—“‘Max’s girl,’ I guess? And even if it’s just—God, I can’t believe I’m saying this—even if it’s just a fake thing… I thought it would be fun.”
Max lowered his chin as he peered at her for a long moment. “Did it meet your expectations?”
Her face bloomed with heat, and she had to look away, mortified. “Not exactly.”
“Better, or worse?”
She swallowed, trying to will some saliva back into her suddenly parched mouth. “Both, I guess.”
He laughed then, opening his door. “You better get going then.”
“Was that my, what’d you call it? Atonement?”
“Nope.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “You head out now, they might still be auctioning those other poor, dumb bastards who showed up tonight. Maybe one of them can give you the, uh, experience you were hoping for?”
She wanted to slap him for trying to send her away like some stupid girl, but part of her loved jousting with him even more. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Some sophomore meathead pawing Mitchell’s pride and joy?”
His expression went instantly as unreadable and cold as a mountainside. “You know, for someone so quick with a smartass comeback, you’re not very perceptive, are you?”
“Perceptive about what?”
“Exactly.” He stepped inside—but she laid a hand on the door before it could close behind him.
“Uncle Max? Wait…”
Grimacing, but not immediately calling her out on her use of the verboten moniker, he leaned a shoulder against the inside doorjamb, crossing his arms. “What is it?”
“Can I… can I come inside? Just come in, and chill for a while? The girls are all probably getting fucked up, or high. Or both. I just… kinda don’t want that, right now.”
He frowned at her. “Kels, I don’t think that’s such a good—”
“Please? Just for a while.” She glanced down, hating the heat flaring hot at her cheeks again. “If… if I’m gone for a bit, it’ll be easier…”
“To make up a believable story?”
She nodded, shoving a hand into her pocket. “I’ll behave.”
“Oh, I guarantee you’ll be doing that.” The little glint was back in his eye, but he wasn’t smiling this time. Not at all.
Which somehow made it even hotter.
“Does that mean I get to come in then?” She gave him her winningest smile, even fluttering her lashes at him. “Come on, you know you want to.”
He sighed, standing aside. “All right. Just for a little while—then you’re gone.”
“You won’t even know I was here,” she said, patting his barrel chest as she slipped by—and into Uncle Max’s house.
Chapter 9
His home was simpler than she expected, sparse, almost Spartan. Little to no art on the walls, save an oil painting by an artist she couldn’t recall, depicting a voluptuous nude woman from behind, standing in a forest pool before a waterfall. It was strikingly beautiful, and not at all something she’d have expected in a single man’s house.
“Nice painting,” she remarked, headed for the living room, all polished wood floors and utilitarian gray couches. She’d expected ‘man-cave’ La-Z-Boys and filth… but what she got was simplicity, even elegance… if of a rather understated sort.
