“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “And try not to make you mad.”
“Oh, it’s too late,” she said. “You already made me mad. Very mad.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
“Did you?”In the mood to belabor the point, he said, “Because I’m not sure that you fully understand.”
“You’re here with me now. Why make a thing out of it?”
She took a deep breath, her chest feeling tight. “Well, what else do we have to do except make a thing out of it?”
“I went to school in a one-room schoolhouse,” he said.
“Well, that’s an interesting piece of Wolf Garrett trivia.” She gritted her teeth, and she tried not to wonder about it. About what that had done to shape the man that he was now. About...anything. Because it was just annoying.
What’s the point of staying angry? You agreed to go back with him.
She swallowed hard, her throat feeling scratchy.
“That’s all I am,” he said. “Interesting bits of trivia. For your enjoyment.”
“Except when you’re not,” she said, popping another cracker into her mouth. “Except when you decide to leave.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Well, now I want you to stay.”
“Tell me how you thinkthat’sfair,” she said, staring at him full-on now, and he kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Do you hear yourself? I’m supposed to stay, but it was okay if you left. How is that fair?”
“None of this is fair. It’s not about fair. It’s about doing what’s right.”
“And right now, in your eyes, what’s right means I have to do what you say. Because I have to now get on the Wolf Garrett Experience. At least, that’s my understanding.”
“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but a lot of women want on the Wolf Garrett Experience.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “I think what they actually want is the idea of you. You’re a handsome son of a bitch, Wolf Garrett. And when you’re focusing all your attention on a woman it feels pretty amazing. But your follow-up game is shit.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
He wasn’t fazed. Not by her anger. Not by what she said to him. He wasn’t fazed by any of it. And she hated that. Because she was...
Her thoughts went back to the moment he had seen the pregnancy test. It wasn’t that he wasn’t affected by this. He was. He was absolutely as affected by this as she was. It was just that whatever all this was... This kind of bland small talk, this implacable brick wall. It was his defense against it. But she honestly couldn’t feel bad for him, or even curious. Because she was just too...
And you’re going with him. So it doesn’t really matter what you feel, does it?
“Tell me about your family,” she said, blinking.
“That’s a change.”
“No, you’re right. I might disagree with you. I might think it’s ridiculous that I’m the one making all of the compromises. But I did choose to come with you. So there’s no point. There’s no point rehashing what happened. All that stuff...” A deep sadness welled up in her chest. “We have to pretend that it didn’t happen. We have to pretend that this is...a fresh start. Because we need to be able to think. We need to be able to deal with each other. And I need to not be angry. And I’m angry, Wolf. Make no mistake. But I can’t afford to be. Because I have to think about something bigger than myself. More than you. I know that’s difficult for you to grasp.”
“Fine,” he said. “I can play this game if you want. Strangers. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. But if we are going to play this game, then you need to understand something. You don’t know me. You never did. So don’t go making proclamations about how you think I see the world and everyone in it. Because you don’t know.”
For the first time he sounded bothered. For the first time he sounded angry with her.
“I already told you about my brother and his mail-order bride. So you’ll meet Sawyer and Evelyn, and their daughter, June. Then there’s my sister, Elsie. She’s around your age.”
Violet blinked. She didn’t really know what to make of that. That she was the same age as his... His younger sister. “Actually,” he said. “She’s older than you.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was a bitter, strange sound, and she didn’t recognize her own voice.