Page 20 of The Devil's Ice

“Can we talk?”

“Why?” She tossed her makeup into her purse, tossed her hair off her flushed face. “You want to call me a cheap whore again?”

Ice sucked in his breath; there was that fucking word again. It surprised him that of all the horrible things he’d said to her that day two weeks ago, they’d both become fixated on the same singular word.

“No,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

Thatstartled her, and now she turned to face him fully.

“I took something out on you that I shouldn’t have,” he said bluntly. “You know a bit of what’s going on around here, and when I ran into you in the hallway, the news had just dropped. I was – I didn’t – I wasn’t handling it very well.”

She pursed her lips, then cocked her head at him in a ‘no shit?’ kind of way.

“Anyway,” Ice said. “I just wanted you to know thatIknow that I was way out of fucking line. I’m sorry.”

Vixen blinked at him, totally surprised at every single part of this surreal conversation. Ice had never apologized toanyoneforanything, she didn’t think, and she hadn't even known that it was something that he was physically capable of doing.

“Well, thank you,” she said slowly. “I appreciate that.”

“So does this mean – can we –”

“No,” Vixen said. “We can’t.”

“We can’t right now, or we can’t ever?”

“Both.”

Ice paused, a bit taken aback at her tone of finality. He’d thought that for sure he had a chance, but it seemed that this was just one more thing that he was wrong about lately. It was turning into quite the long list. He hated what she was saying, but he wasn’t a man who forced a woman to do anything that she didn’t want to – despite his history of violence, that wasn’t his style, and it never had been.

“OK,” he said. “I get it. I took it too far, huh?”

“Yes. You did.”

“Can we – I mean, you don’t have to work days just because I’m not usually around then. If you want me to leave you alone, of course I’ll do that.”

“Oh, Ice.” Vixen sighed. “Itisbetter for me to work nights, for sure. Better money, I like the regulars, I prefer the sleep schedule.”

“But?”

“But… but I find this hard.”

“What?”

“This.” She gestured at him, then back at herself. “I liked what we had, you know. It was – well. It was fun, but it was safe, too. I liked that. A lot. I’m sorry that it’s over, and it’ll take me a minute to get used to being around you without – well.”

“Without a visit to the back rooms?” Ice teased her a bit.

“Yeah.” She gave him a tiny smile. “Exactly.”

“I get it. I promise to keep out of your way, if that’s what you want.”

“I appreciate that,” she repeated. “But don’t organize your entire life around me and my work schedule. I know that things are… strange around here. Wolf gone, the twins gone, Rebel –”

She stopped talking, remembering what Ice had said and done the last time that she’d mentioned Rebel Armstrong’s name to him. But today he was cool and collected, standing in front of her, just calmly waiting for her to finish what she had to say.

“Rebel… ummm.” Vixen cleared her throat. “Rebel dead.”

“Yes.”

---