“Why would you think I’ve been a bitch to him? I’m perfectly nice,” I defend.
Leo and Nate both say nothing, and when I look at Vanessa, she’s still looking down at her iPad, but she’s smiling, so I might guess she’s just pretending to be reading. No damn help.
“I once told you that your form was messed up and you didn’t talk to me for a day,” Leo says.
“You were wrong,” I say. “You deserved it.”
“Even if I was, you shouldn’t punish me for not knowing,” Leo says, soundingwaytoo much like Nate. I should’ve seen the writing on the walls with these two. Leo ditches me for a new best friend and suddenly he’s a well-adjusted individual trying to diagnose my mental and emotional shortcomings. He was fine before.
“Can you all stop defaulting to believing that I’m in the wrong here? Maxim isn’t some perfect man.”
Leo and Nate share a look that tells me they really don’t believe this assessment.
I punch the bag hard one last time. “If you like him so much, you should’ve married him,” I mutter. Wrong thing to say because Nate and Leo peel into laughter, not to be stopped by the cool glare I set on them.
“Look, if Maxim laid a hand on you, you’d kill him. Hell, if he was really as much of a dick as you’re acting like he is, he’d already be dead,” Nate says.
“You’ve gotten too comfortable talking to me,” I tell him, and he laughs again.
“You’re my sister now. It’s my duty to be real with you.”
Vanessa sends a look so sweet and loving at Nate that my molars hurt from the impending cavity.
“I would treat Maxim right,” Leo says. “You’re right, maybe I should’ve married him.”
I am about to leave without further engaging in this asinine conversation when the basement door opens to reveal none other than the object of my ire. He steps tentatively down the stairs and I think I would recognize his figure and gait anywhere. It’s incredible how quickly you learn a person.
My mom trails behind him smiling, and when they reach the bottom, she addresses me. “Mary, sweetie, your husband is here.”
“I can see that,” I say, but she goes on undeterred.
“Maxim was just telling me about the hotel in Mexico. He said we can all go for a vacation.”
Maxim turns to look at me and his blue eyes roam over my body, which I know is covered in sweat. Not something I’m usually self-conscious about, but I idly wonder if he can smell me from where he stands.
“Marianna,” he says in greeting. He doesn’t come closer, and neither do I, but I nod in return.
When I look back at my mom she is communicating with her eyes that I need to get over my shit and be nice to my polite, handsome, and very tall husband.
I present the single peace offering I can muster. “Would you like to spar with me?”
He startles. “What? Now?”
“Yep. Since you think I’m so defenseless.” So, okay, not so much a peace offering as a throwing of a gauntlet, but as we all know, I have room to grow as a person.
“I don’t think that,” he defends.
I raise an eyebrow, but don’t recite from memory his intense assertions that I get a new job and never complete a hit again. Mom clicks her tongue and pats Maxim’s thick shoulder.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she says, and retreats up the stairs.
Once she has, I point to Leo’s abandoned boxing gloves on the mat behind me. Maxim shuffles under my challenge.
“We shouldn’t,” he says. He’s in his business clothes, after all. Slacks, button-up, leather shoes. I resent that he looks hot while I look like I’ve been working out for the last hour.
“You scared? We’ve never sparred before and I think we should,” I tell him.
“I think that too,” Nate says, and I shoot him a quick glare.
