Page 49 of Break for Me

I shrugged. “I figured you still owed me a date in a place like this. Your money is paying for everything. It felt right.”

I did feel better knowing that this dress, these shoes, and that bottle of wine could’ve been a down payment on a fucking car. It was the least he could do after I felt like such a dumbass for spending my own money preparing for a date that never happened that night when he first picked me up. I watched him shift like he was getting comfortable to stay and then I laughed when he leaned down to look under the table at what he’d kicked in between our feet.

“They let you bring a backpack in here?” He asked.

“They didn’t even think twice about it once I handed them a few of your hundreds.”

He breathed in so deeply through his nose that I couldn’t help but smile at how much I was bothering him.

“Are you going to kill me this time?” I asked quietly.

“Nope.”

“Really? Not even after the handcuffs? Your other suit?”

“No.”

“The car?”

His jaw locked into place and his hands curled into fists on the table. I wanted to smile. I wanted to keep messing with him. Fucking with him was the only genuine joy I’d had in what felt like years, but watching that adorable couple in the corner had devastated me with what I assumed was jealousy.

“It’d probably be easier on both of us at this point if you just did it. We both know I’ll still fight you the rest of the way. We both know you’ll hate me a little more with every run I make. You’ll go from wanting to fuck me to just wanting to hurt me anyway,” I said. “I know you’ve had to do it before. What’s one more? I’m not going back to them alive. You can let me disappear, or you can kill me. I think I’m okay with either one at this point.”

“Are you drunk?” He asked, looking at me a little harder.

“If I’m not yet, I plan to be by the time we leave here.”

“Who is it? Who’s paying to have you back?” He asked. He looked away from me as soon as he’d asked and started chewing on his lip.

“You really don’t know?” I asked. “How does this business of yours even work if you don’t know who the money comes from?”

The waiter came back to interrupt our conversation and apologized for not realizing I was waiting on my husband. He retrieved another menu and said he’d make sure they started over on my meal to insure they were done at the same time. It was ridiculous. Everything about it. This place was ridiculous. The atmosphere was outrageous. People like me couldn’t afford to breathe the air in a place like this, while the pompous people who filled these seats went about their lives without a care in the world because they were able to do things like pay off an asshole to let a weird girl carry a backpack in and stuff it under her table without having to steal the money to make it happen. Right down to the confusing monster across from me who was just as ridiculous for ordering food like he intended to sit here through dinner with me as if this was genuinely the date he owed me.

“Who is it, Triss?” He asked again once the waiter was gone.

“And when did you start calling me that? I don’t even remember becoming close enough for nicknames.”

“You screamed my name loud enough for an entire hotel to hear it. I think that probably makes us close enough.”

“I screamed the name of a state. I don’t even know your name,” I said quickly. “Wow. Everything about that statement somehow makes it all so much worse.”

“I mean, you gasped it. Whimpered it. Cried it. Any of those words make you feel better about it? You did all those too.”

I sat my glass back on the table to put my face in my hands and hide from the asshole for just a minute. I considered using the bread knife on the table to stab him when I heard him chuckle.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “I won’t be sane anymore by the end of this evening if I have to field this shit from both of you at the same time for much longer.”

“What?” I asked.

I watched him pull his lapel out just a little and pinch something between his fingers for a second.

“Good night, Memphis. Just find us a place near here for tonight, please. Text it to me,” he said before he pulled the tiniest radio from his ear and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. I laughed out-fucking-loud.

“Was she there when we—?” I couldn’t even say the words. “Oh, God.”

He laughed. “No, she wasn’t. She would’ve found a way to stop me if she’d known that was happening. This isn’t that kind of partnership. I don’t think our working relationship would survive her hearing or seeing that. Are you done dodging my question yet?”

“No.”

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