Page 79 of Moonlighter

After the older men leave, I sit down across from Max, offering him a cracker.

“Play a game?” he asks.

“Nah. We already know how that would turn out.” My childhood was spent trying to get Max to shoot hoops or kick the soccer ball around, while he tried to get me to lose at Monopoly or poker. We never liked the same things. Never.

“Is it a long surgery?”

“No, it’s only a long recovery.”

Max grimaces. “Sounds like a blast.”

“Oh, it’s super fun.”

“You could ask Alex,” Max says.

“Ask her what?”

“To sign you out of the hospital,” he says. “Fair’s fair. You got her out of a jam once, right?”

I did, and I don’t regret it. But there’s no way I’m asking her. She still hasn’t returned my call, and I don’t make a habit of being pathetic.

Still, it doesn’t mean I’m not curious about her. “How’s she doing, anyway? Did she get her paperwork signed?” I do the math. If her baby is coming around New Years, that’s less than two months away. She must have a big round belly by now.

I shouldn’t be sitting here wondering how that looks on her. But I am.

“Not yet.” Max shakes his head. “Soon, though. It’s taken longer than we’d hoped.”

“Shit, why?”

“Tatum hasn’t been approached.” Max picks up the dice and drops them back in the velvet cup, where they make a satisfying click. “I had trouble getting dirt on him. None of his ex-girlfriends would admit to any abuse. One of them looked terrified when I first said his name, but she wouldn’t tell her story. She said they broke up because he left blobs of toothpaste in the sink.”

“Seriously?Do you think he paid them off?”

Max shrugs. “Not necessarily. Women learn fast not to speak up against a rich guy with a mean streak. And then the cycle is self-perpetuating, because the asshole gets away with it again.”

Jesus Christ. “What happens if he can’t be pressured into signing?”

“Oh, he will be. The reason we waited so long is that he’s launching a road show for his next round of funding. He’s desperate for cash, and he’s lying to potential investors in his disclosure materials. Now we’ll get ‘im. Either he signs, or we embarrass the hell out of him.”

“But…” That doesn’t sound like enough leverage to me. “Isn’t every business presentation full of half-truths?”

Max gives me another of his maddening shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. He’s bet everything on this startup. He can’t afford to lose it.”

I shift in my chair, unsatisfied with this scenario. Although nobody asked me.

My brother smirks. “You still have a thing for Alex, don’t you?”

“No,” I grunt. Of course I do. But every guy knows better than to give his big brother more ammunition. “I just know how worried she must be.”

“You shouldn’t have gone there with her.”

“She’s a big girl,” I grumble. “Didn’t need your permission.”

“No kidding. But it’s just so messy. Her dad is one of our dad’s oldest friends. She’s my client. I’m legally prohibited from saying a word about her to anyone. And my mopey brother is sitting here pestering me for details.”

“I’m not mopey,” I mope.

He grins.