“You drugged somebody, Tylee! I tried to see your side of things and I did everything I could to protect you, but thematter of fact is I owed that money. To Magnum! The craziest motherfucker we both know.”
“I was settling things my way,” Tylee hisses. “I was proving a point in a way that didn’t involve gunfire or bloodshed.”
“Great fucking job.”
The EMTs indicate that they’re ready to take Tylee away. She still has a lot of blood coming out of her gunshot wound, even if Magnum only grazed her and they want to take her back to the hospital. I might have missed a few sentences here or there, or maybe they were quiet. The next I hear is Tylee’s voice pleading with her husband.
“Don’t let them take me, Isaac.”
“We’re getting a divorce,” he says. “If your brother wants my head over it, I’ll accept the consequences.”
But I can’t help thinking that if Wyatt Shaw wants his head, all that could really lead to is to an all out war… .
Chapter Thirty-Three
Magnum
Itake her across state lines once everybody leaves Deacon Hollingsworth’s premises. I apologize for getting him in the middle of things and he tells me to make sure I smooth things over with Wyatt and Hunter if I know what’s good for me, and not to worry about the bullets. I have nothing to fear from either of them.
Damara clearly has a bug up her ass when we get to New Mexico for the night. I don’t exactly knowwherewe’re staying tonight but I put us up at the Marriott, which meant driving an extra fifty miles so we wouldn’t have to sleep in a shitty motel. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She has problems, that’s for sure. Or maybe she doesn’t like the way things turned out.
When we settle down in the Marriott for the night, Damara immediately turns the television on and starts watching aMen In Blackon TBS with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Haven’t seen that one in a while, but I’d rather get us dinner before we head home.
“Can I trouble you to order some food?” I ask her during one of the commercials. Damara glares at me. What the fuck did I do?
“I’m not hungry.”
“Great. You still need to eat.”
Doesn’t she think I’m tired too? Damara puts the volume up. Alright, that’s it. She’s got a problem with me and we’re going to talk about it. I walk over to her comfy ass spot on the bed and grab the remote out of her hand. She reaches out to swat me and I hold the remote over my head so she can’t reach it without jumping out of bed and making her best uncomfortable effort.
“Give that back!”
“What? You were watching that?”
“Yes!” Damara hisses, standing on her tiptoes as she desperately tries her best to snatch the remote from me.
“Well too damn bad. We’re going to talk.”
“The movie isn’t over, Magnum,” she says between her sad little grunts as she totally fails to wrestle the remote from me.
“You haven’t seenMen In Blacka thousand fucking times? We’re going to talk like adults.”
“And say what, Magnum? It’s over. We solved the problem. If that was supposed to make me feel fucking amazing about this, it doesn’t.”
“How do you think I feel?”
Damara looks at me with utter confusion, as if she never considered even for a moment that I might have feelings. This woman drives me up the fucking wall, but there’s no way in hell she can believe that, right?
My heart pounds as I wait for Damara to give me some kind of response. The only change I see is the anger on her face softening. And only slightly.
“You have feelings?”
I act like her jab doesn’t hurt because it’s her typical deflection tactic. Try to hurt me more until I leave her the hell alone. It would work on me if it weren’t a game that I perfectedand more importantly, a game I want us both to let go of now that we have a baby on the way.
“Yes, you impossible brat. I have feelings. I love you. I love our baby. I love everything except the way we got together, which we can’t fucking change.”
“So I’m a brat now?”
