All In (The Blackstone Affair 2)

What? I didn’t like the sound of her message and immediately tried to figure out what she meant by it. A flicker of unease ran through me. Was she telling me not to come over, or just that she wasn’t hungry? I couldn’t tell from that text and I read it over about ten times.

I was tired myself, crabby, rumpled, and nicotine deprived, and not at all sure my brain was up for a conversation with a possibly irrational female mind. All I wanted was to eat something, have a shower and crawl into bed with her. I could skip the sex even, but sleeping with her was non-negotiable.

We’d made an agreement of sorts about where we stayed, because her place or mine, I wanted her next to me. I’d made that perfectly clear to Brynne when we started out. I rang her from the car and drove.

“Hi. I’m not hungry, Ethan.” She sounded odd.

“Well what’s wrong, baby? You’re not feeling well?” This was a first. She’d never been sick before, except for the headache that first night we met.

“My stomach hurts. I was lying down.”

“Like you’re going to be sick? You want me to stop at the chemist and get you something for it?” I offered.

She paused before answering cryptically. “No…like I have cramps.”

Ahhhh. The Curse. I knew about that from having a sister, just never had to deal with it in a relationship before. Matter of fact, I’d never had a relationship like the one I was in with Brynne, before either. When you have sex with short-timers, inconveniences like ‘she’s having her dead week’ don’t come up. But I’d heard the complaints from friends for years, and I’d been around my sister. And I’d learned enough to know that giving a woman her space when she’s hormonal is the way to go. You think?! I supposed the nice wall-shag I had in mind was out of the picture now too. Damn.

“Okay…I can give you a massage when I get there. Is everything else all right? How did the shoot go?” I felt myself tense up just waiting for her to answer me.

“Ummm, the shoot was fine. Good.” She paused and made a sniffling sound. “I talked to my mom on the phone.” She sounded sad and I wondered if the reason she sounded snuffly was because she’d been crying. Made sense. That woman almost made me feel like crying from the one time we’d spoken.

“Our conversation didn’t go so great.”

“I’m sorry, baby. I’ll be there and we can talk when I get up to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about her,” she snapped back. She had that lovely pissed-off tone to her voice that actually got me a bit hard, but also got my warning flaps going too.

I paused a beat. “That’s fine too. I’ll be there very soon.”

“Why are you sighing into the phone at me?”

Christ. I’m sure I opened my mouth and just gaped like a goldfish because I had nothing to offer after that question. “I’m not.”

“You just did it again!” she scolded. “If you’re going to interrogate me about the photo shoot, and my mother, then maybe you shouldn’t come over. I’m just not up for that tonight, Ethan.”

Can you say wicked hormones changing my girl into Medusa and scaring the hell out of me?

“Not up for talking to me or not up for me at all? Because I do want to talk to you.” I tried to keep my tone level but wasn’t too confident I was succeeding. I was pretty fucking sure I couldn’t do any better at keeping my cool though. I did not like this fucked up dialogue at all. It sucked.

Silence.

“Hello, Brynne? Am I coming over right now or not?”

“I don’t know.”

I counted to ten. “‘I don’t know,’ is your answer to me?” What in the holy hell happened to our nice romantic lunch at Gladstone’s? I want my sweet girl back!

“You sighed at me again.”

“Have me arrested. Look, I’m driving with a car full of Indian take-out and don’t know where I’m going. Can you help me out, baby?”

I absolutely fucking refused to get in a row over this. She was having a shit day and hormonal—that I could deal with. It sucked if she wouldn’t be in my arms tonight, but at least we weren’t breaking up. Medusa might be messing with my night, but she would be out of the picture in a few days. I prayed.

“Okay…come get me then,” she said firmly.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Come and get you? I thought you had to stay at your place tonight. You said earlier—”

She cut me right off, her tongue like a sharp edged blade. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to stay here. I’ll pack a bag and be ready for you in five minutes. Call me when you’re at the curb and I’ll be down.”