Page 31 of Back To Our Beginning

“If someone has a gun, it’s not going to do the two of us a whole hell of a lot of good, now is it?” she responded sarcastically.

“At least tell me you own a gun, considering the work you do.” I begged.

“It’s because of the work I do that I don’t.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “You’re driving me crazy here.”

“What in the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

“I was waiting for you.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I got that part, but why? I told you I needed some time. But the flowers were nice. Amy loves them.”

“Amy?”

“The girl I gave them to. She’s a new employee. She’s somebody that came out of the foster care system and is going to night school while she works for us. She’s a great girl. Hard worker.”

Of course. Of course, she gave away the flowers.

“Did you bother to read the card?”

“Thank you for not trying to write a poem.”

Now I was getting mad. We’d been over this shit. I’d spilled my guts.

“Jesus, Maddie, aren’t you going to cut me any slack?”

“I guess we’ll never know, because you didn’t give me the time I asked for.”

“Think about it, I’ve laid it all on the line for you ever since I saw you. I even went easy on you when we played pool.”

Her eyes sparkled and she took a step toward me. “You did not go easy on me. You’re not that great of a player.”

That got her motor revving. This was good.

I slowly smiled. “Yes, I am. I could have cleared the table at any time.”

She shoved a finger into my chest. “That is total bullshit. I let you win because I felt sorry for your pathetic ass.”

“I call bullshit. I handed that last shot to you on a golden platter. You screwed it up because you wanted to spend time with me.”

“That is not true. Take it back!”

I was clearly saying I had thrown the game and it was driving her nuts. Served her right; now that I saw how late she left the building every night, that was going to drive me nuts.

“I won fair and square.” I said. “You choked.”

Even in the dim light, I could see her face getting red. I hadn’t seen her like this in ages. I’d forgotten just how much fun it was to wind Maddie up.

“Come over to my place tonight. I have a guest room and an extra toothbrush,” I cajoled.

“You are not the better player,” she pouted. “Anyway, I really need to go home. I still have paperwork I need to get done.”

I eased her satchel off her shoulder. “I’m stealing this for the night. You’re going to be of no use to your kids tomorrow if you stay up all night going over cases.”

She frowned. “How do you know?”

I brushed back a lock of her dark curly hair that had slipped out of her ponytail, then cupped her cheek. “I know because you would always knock yourself out helping me all night on some test or with some paper at a cost to you. It wasn’t til our junior year that I stopped doing that shit to you.”