“I take a different view.” She watched Jay’s mouth pull to one side in an all too familiar smirk.
“Now, why does that not surprise me?” His eyes grazed her head to toe before they returned to her remote and chilly stare.
“Don’t,” she said as he began to remove his coat. “You’re not staying.”
“I am, so I may as well be comfortable.” He hung the coat on the tree to the right of the door. “You too. Why don’t we sit down?”
Ramsey realized that arguing every point with him was going to get her exactly nowhere. “The kitchen. Not the living room.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.” He pointed to the jacket she was hugging to herself. “I assume that belongs to your recent guest. Who is he?”
Ramsey ignored the question, turned, and headed for the back of the house. She placed Sullivan’s jacket over the back of the chair where she intended to sit, but first she took a casual detour to the kitchen counter. Her phone vibrated before she got there and drew Jay’s immediate attention. He elbowed her out of the way and got the phone as she was reaching for it.
She made a stab at trying to get it from him, but her better judgment kicked in and she pulled back before she made contact. “Give that to me, Jay.”
He didn’t, of course. He looked at the phone. “It’s a text,” he said. “From someone named Dudley. He says he left his jacket and he’ll get it tomorrow.” Jay turned off the phone and slipped it into a pants pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ll give it back to you. Eventually. Go on. Have a seat. Do you have anything to drink?”
Ramsey sat without answering his question. She knew him well enough to know he’d explore on his own until he found something to his liking. As the selection was limited to grocery store bottled water, orange and cranberry juice, and Yuengling, he chose the beer.
“You want one?” he asked, raising the bottle.
She shook her head.
He shrugged, removed the cap, and carried it to the table. After using the toe of his shoe to nudge out a chair, he finally sat and stretched his legs. “From what I’ve seen, you have a nice place. I know you could afford better. It’s curious that you haven’t chosen something bigger, one of the McMansions that I saw closer to the airport, for instance. This is what they call a Craftsman home, isn’t it?”
Ramsey nodded but didn’t speak.
Jay clicked his tongue, expressing disappointment. “Is this how we’re going to do it, Liz? You pretend I’m not here? That I’m not speaking to you?”
“I’ve asked you to leave, Jay, and you ignored me. I don’t want to carry on a conversation. I was trying to be clear in a way I thought you’d understand.”
“Oh, I understand. I don’t like it. In your place, I would have questions. Do you?”
Ramsey’s nostrils flared as she breathed in and then exhaled heavily. “How much?”
He chuckled low in the back of his throat, clearly enjoying himself. “There you go. Straight to the point. That’s a quality that came to you late in our marriage. I didn’t fully appreciate it then, but I see the plus side now.”
“How much?” she repeated.
“Rounding up a bit, half a mil.”
Ramsey wished she could have remained expressionless, but what she heard made her eyes widen and her lips part on a silent intake of air. She stared at him. “The exact figure,” she said, and felt a measure of pride in her calm.
“Four hundred seventy-three thousand.”
“How did this happen?”
“I don’t think that’s important. The debt is the point, not how I got there.”
“You’re right, but I’m curious.”
Jay took a swallow of his beer. “Private game with a big buy in.”
She nodded. “Playing beyond your means. Vegas?”
“Atlantic City.”
“I’m surprised you were allowed to leave the table owing that kind of money.”
