Kristen Ashley - The Gamble

Thank God. He was gone.

Then knowing I should get a move on, I just stood there, all I needed to do crashing in and pressing down on me. I didn’t know what to do first.

I’d always had the terrible habit of looking at any problem, no matter how big, as a whole problem. Charlie was always telling me to break it down, make the big problem into smaller problems, take it one step at a time.

I looked at the bed and my suitcase.

Shower. Shower first, get dressed, get some food in me, a quick snack, energy. Water, I needed to rehydrate. And coffee. I needed caffeine. Then write a note of thanks to Max, pack up my car and get out of there, drive down the mountain and spend two weeks in Denver.

I’d never really been to Denver just the airport and a grocery store but it seemed like a lovely place. And people lived in Denver, there had to be things to do. Cinemas. Shopping. Museums. I could find stuff to do in Denver. Maybe I could find me in Denver. Maybe I could figure out my life in Denver.

Denver it was.

I went to my bag and pulled out things I needed, went to the bathroom, dumped them there then back to the suitcase for clothes.

Then I caught sight of the bed and got side-tracked when I decided that I should probably change the sheets on the bed. No one wanted to sleep in a bed after a sick person had been there. Max might have been a jerk when I first met him but he’d been not a jerk when I’d been sick. He deserved clean sheets.

So I pulled off the big, fluffy, chocolate brown covered down duvet and yanked the sheets off the bed, throwing them into a pile at the foot. The internet advertisement of the A-Frame said it had a washer and drier. I’d put the sheets in the wash after my shower and tell Max in the note where to find his sheets so he wouldn’t think I made off with them. Not that he’d think I’d steal his sheets but who knew. People did all sorts of weird stuff at a rental.

I went to the bathroom and halted in front of the mirror when I caught a look at myself.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

My face was pale, there were purple-blue shadows under my eyes but it was my hair that caught my attention. My hair was a disaster.

I hadn’t lucked out much in life but one thing I had lucked out with was my hair. I had a lot of it, it was thick and it looked good practically anytime day or night, even just waking up or when I hadn’t washed it a couple of days. I’d had a few unfortunate perms when I was younger but usually it looked great no matter what length or what cut or, being honest, what color. Currently it was highlighted a light blonde, the streaks of blonde liberal through my naturally somewhat mousy brown hair and I’d let it grow kind of long.

Now, it was dank, partially matted and frightening.

I pushed aside the frightening vision of me, brushed my teeth, washed my face and jumped into the shower. This was taking a lot out of me. I’d just battled a serious fever and I hadn’t had food in who knew how long. I should probably rest, definitely take a second out to eat a banana or something but I had no idea where Max was. I was hoping he was at work. That would give me plenty of time to do what I had to do and escape.

I got out of the shower, lotioned my body, perfumed, pulled a comb through my hair glorying in the feeling of being clean. I decided that showers worked wonders. They were mini-miracles. Especially Max’s shower which was separate from the bath, tiled in beautiful taupe and brown veined marble and big enough for two.

I pulled on my underwear and the pair of jeans I bought that Niles shook his head at when I showed them to him. Niles didn’t understand the jeans or the other stuff I bought for my rustic, timeout adventure to Colorado, thinking my purchases would help me fit in with the natives. Niles wore suits to work and large whale corduroys and cashmere sweaters when he was relaxed and at home. I’d never seen him in jeans and definitely not faded, secondhand jeans.

I’d bought them specifically for my Colorado adventure in a secondhand clothing store on Park Street in Bristol that specialized in vintage American clothes. They were faded and there was a tear in the back pocket, the threads bleached white, and I thought they looked hip. They also fit like they were made for me and they made my somewhat generous behind look good. Therefore, I loved them.

I paired them with a wide, tan belt and my lilac, long-sleeved t-shirt that had fitted sleeves so long they came over my wrists and had a boat neck that was so wide sometimes it fell off my shoulder.

Then I gathered all my stuff and walked out of the bathroom and smelled bacon cooking and saw that the dirty sheets had been taken away.

I closed my eyes slowly.

I should probably not have taken time to strip the bed though that would have been rude.

And maybe I should have left out lotioning and, probably, standing under the strong, hot spray of the shower for a full five minutes, just letting the water wash over me and bring me back to life.

Well Max was home and I had no choice, I’d have to thank him in person. No, I’d have to face him, tall, amazing-looking, gravelly-voiced Max Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was who had seen me mostly naked and took care of me while I was sick then I’d have to thank him in person.

Get it over with, Charlie would say to me. Always good to do the shit stuff fast, get it out of the way.

Charlie, as ever (if he’d been there but, unfortunately, he was not), was right.

I sighed, threw Max’s t-shirt on the armchair and dumped my toiletries in my bag. Then in bare feet I walked to the spiral staircase and descended.

When I hit the living room I saw him standing at the stove, his back to me. He was wearing another thermal, no flannel this time. It was wine colored and it fit him perfectly. Maybe a bit too perfectly. You could even see some of his muscles defined through the shirt and there appeared to be a lot of them. He was again wearing faded jeans. The waves of his thick hair at the back were just as perfect as they were from the front. Maybe even more perfect. Maybe even his hair was the definition of perfection .

I was five feet from the bar when he turned, fork in hand.

His gray eyes hit me, they did a sweep from head to toe and back again, he smiled and I stopped moving.

“She lives,” he said in his strangely attractive, gravelly voice.

His eyes and his voice both felt physical, like a touch, a nice one. I felt blood rush to my cheeks as I lifted my hand to my hair and found it wet and slicked back, so I dropped my hand and my head and, looking at my feet, I mumbled, “Sorry.”

“For what?” he asked and I looked at him again.

“For –”

“You inject yourself with a flu bug?”

“No.”

“Shit happens,” he muttered and turned back to the stove.

Well, I had to admit, shit definitely happened. Though not much shit happened to me anymore. I did my best to avoid that for a good long while but it used to happen to me and I knew it still happened because I heard from my friends when shit happened to them.

“Anyway, I’ll just –”

“Sit down,” he ordered, dropping the fork on the counter and moving to the fridge.

“I’m sorry?”

He had the fridge open but he looked at me. “Sit down.”

“I thought I’d –”

“You need juice,” he declared and pulled out what appeared to be the cranberry juice I bought in Denver.

“Really, I should just –”

He closed the fridge and pinned me with his eyes. “Duchess, sit your ass down.”

Well. What did I say to that?

I didn’t know but I started, “Max –”

“Ass on a stool or I’ll put it on a stool.”

Was he serious?