Page 104 of Challenge Me

“And publishing an article about my dead parents isn’t?”

Her lips thinned for a moment, then she smoothed her expression. “I see we aren’t going to find common ground here today.”

“Common ground is for people who aren’t trying to bury me in it. I may not be a doctor like my parents before me, but I have learned a thing or two in my lifetime. I’ll give you one for free: Only miserable people want to make others miserable.” Looking into the camera, I lifted my brows enticingly to facilitate my own Jim Halpert moment. “Write that down.”

“I assure you, that’s not my intention.”

“Of course it is. And that’s fine, but it’s not for me. See, I have reasons to be a bad person, but I choose not to be. That’s the difference between us. Dig all you want, but might I suggest a shovel? The Earth is a deep, cavernous thing. I imagine that hole will be as gaping as your husband’s when his boyfriend is finished with him.”

She made a gesture, and the cameraman panned to the game where the players were setting up again. The sugary-sweet expression faded and gave way to the ugly thing underneath.

“This was fun,” I said. Leaning closer, I brushed my lips over her cheek and lowered my voice. “You want a war, bitch?” Moving to the other cheek, I did the same. “Haven’t you heard? ‘All warfare is based on deception.’”

I felt her gaze on me the entire time I walked, until I made it out of the stadium. Continuing to the car, I remained aware of everyone around me. For all I knew, they were her spies.

Once I was in the driver’s seat, I met my own eyes in the rearview mirror. My teeth squeezed together painfully as I stared at the stranger there.

“ . . . tragically murdered just a week before Thanksgiving twenty years ago this November.”

My mom’s face in that picture came back to me. Her eyes. Her smile. If I had tried to recall it earlier today, it would’ve been a hazy blob, completely separate from the real image.

What had she smelled like? What did her voice sound like? I couldn’t make a good guess.

“One has to wonder: What drew Remi to a career tending a bar when he had such intelligent and successful parents?”

I had a better question: What had their success done for them? I wondered if they’d tried to save each other while they bled out. In the end, it was all futile. They couldn’t do anything to save themselves, and they sure as hell couldn’t save me once they were dead.

Again, those eyes looked back at me, darker than they were meant to be. My eyes, but reflected in someone else’s.

With a growl, I ripped the mirror off of its pedestal and flung it into the back. Gripping the steering wheel hard, I leaned my forehead against it.

Maybe Clara would back off. Or maybe I’d made it a hundred times worse. After all, Sun Tzu also said, ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’

I probably should’ve leaned into that one a little more, but wisdom had never been my primary weapon despite the god who had chosen me to walk his path.

*****

“I thought it was funny,” Amir said as he toweled off his hair.

“It was funny. But also stupid.”

“See? It was everything you are.”

I mocked a laugh in his direction. Looking down at my phone, it shifted into a real laugh. “People are talking about it, though. You’d better get yourself a gun before she decides vengeance is medicinal.”

His nose scrunched at the idea. From his place at the side of the bed, the moonlight behind him cast just the right shadows, accentuating the dips and curves of his body.

I moved onto my knees so I could flatten my palms against his abdomen. “They don’t bite.”

“No, they shoot.”

“Exactly.” With a grin, I pressed two fingers into the space between his ribs and mimicked the sound of a gun firing.

“Crazy,” he said, drawing out the word while he ran his fingers through my hair.

“You find it irresistible.”

“I find it disturbing, and it’s more disturbing that I’m somehow into it.”