Page 17 of Married in Michigan

“Gettin’…bored…of your nonsense.” Mom hates emotional scenes like this, always has. Bad days like this, though…they’re hard on both of us.

We watch our show, and partway through, Mom squeezes my hand three times.

I don’t look at her, don’t dare. “I love you, too.”

* * *

I’mfresh out of the gym, dripping sweat, hair a loosely-braided frizz-bomb of kinky black curls, no makeup, wearing purple spandex booty shorts and a white tank top, the tightest one I’ve got to keep the girls in check while doing far too many barbell cleans than is sane. Sipping from my Hydroflask, Justin Timberlake bumping in my earbuds, I head home on foot to shower and get ready for my shift.

My carriage-house apartment is a good twenty-minute walk from the gym, which is usually just enough time to cool off and let my heart rate settle. I’m walking briskly, minding my own business, head bobbing to “Tunnel Vision”, not really thinking of anyone or anything in particular—a few precious minutes of Zen, which I only really get post-workout, when I’m sweaty and out of breath and sore and pleasantly shaky from the high-intensity exercise.

Thus, I’m not really paying attention to the world around me—in Petoskey in the summertime, you tend to get a lot of wealthy tourists driving fancy cars, and a lot of them aren’t exactly the most polite or thoughtful. So I’m not entirely surprised when a sleek, low-slung, absurdly expensive-looking sports car zips up the hill behind me, engine revving loudly enough to be obnoxious even over my music. I snort, watching the stupid thing with its stupid driver swerving around slower-moving traffic, darting and weaving as if the driver owns the entire road—nay, the world.

I mentally dismiss the car and its driver, trying desperately to regain my moments of Zen.

I’m about to cross a side street, on the other side of which I’ll turn left into the neighborhood behind downtown. A quick glance either way, and then I cross the street, head bobbing, singing under my breath.

“Tunnel vision…for you…”

Squeeeeeeal.

Tires howl, an engine revs, and I trip over myself to stop from being run over by the same red sports car as it darts around the corner and jams on the brakes, squealing to an abrupt halt directly in front of me.

I kick the tire. “Hey, watch it, asshole!”

“Get in, Makayla.” A familiar voice, one I’d hoped to never hear again; or rather, which I assumed I would never hear again, and one which a tiny, teeny, and very stupid part of me deep down did sort of hope to hear again.

I duck to peer in through the half-lowered passenger side window—the car is so low slung I have to bend and duck quite a lot to see in. And yes, my ears did not deceive me: the driver is, unsurprisingly, none other than Paxton deBraun.

“Figures it would be you in this ridiculous car, driving like an entitled dick.” I’m off duty, and I’m annoyed, so my filter is…not entirely engaged.

“Get in,” he repeats.

I frown. “Um, no thanks. I have work in less than two hours, and I have to shower still. And, besides, I don’t get in strange cars with strange men.”

Those damned eyes of his—they’re what get me. They’re…pleading, almost. Desperate, nearly. Along with that voice, which somehow manages to growl in annoyance while still being somehow soft, if not quite tender.

“Please.”

I blink, because it wasn’t just evidence of actual manners, but the tone in his voice. “I beg your pardon?”

He snarls, a sound somewhere between a sigh and groan. “Makayla, please. Get in the car.”

“Why?”

“Are you always this difficult to deal with?”

I laugh. “Yes.”

“I need to talk to you. Please, get in the car.”

“Paxton. I’m dripping sweat, I stink, I’m in workout gear, and I have to work soon. What could you possibly want to talk tomeabout, and so urgently?”

His strong, elegant hands release the death grip he has on the steering wheel and rake backward through his fine, artfully messy dark brown hair. “Goddammit, you’re so impossible.” He lifts a buttock and slides a phone out of from the back pocket of his dark-wash jeans. Unlocks it, taps a contact from his favorites list. It rings twice and I hear a tinny, distant answer. “Mom. I’m having a dinner for some friends from DC—no, notthosefriends, this is work. I need to borrow Makayla. She’s scheduled to work today and I need her to get my condo here ready. Okay, thanks.”

I’m speechless—for a moment. “I’m not cleaning your house for you.”

“No, you’re not. But now you have the day off. Get in, we need to talk.”