Page 28 of Blame it on the Bet
“Ugh,” he groans, dropping his head onto his forearms on the tabletop and shaking it. “I hate it when people call it that,” comes his muffled voice.
Seriously? That’s the only part of my little speech that he caught? La-La Land?
“What should I call it then?” I huff. “‘The left coast?’” He sits up and faces me again.
“How about ‘The City of Angels?’ or ‘The Big Orange?’ La-La Land is just so…so cheesy,” he says with disgust.
“How about you just call it ‘home.’ Because that’s what it is for you, and that’s where you’ll be headed. Soon.”
I see something mischievous flash in his eyes. And I don’t like it one. Bit. No mischievous. No playful. He’d better just start acting like the dark menace that he is, or I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Bryan Truitt takes his shot glass and tips it back to his lips, swallowing its contents in one gulp.
“You seem to be in quite the rush to get me out of here, Hennessy,” he says once he’s swallowed the vodka. He catches my sister’s eye and holds up the empty shot glass.
She nods.
“Maybe I should just hang around a little longer— get to know the good folks of Mayhem, Minnesota.”
I shake my head violently.
“Nope. Not necessary. Trust me, the good folks of Mayhem have no interest in getting to know you.”
“Is that so?”
“Please, Bryan. You wouldn’t make it here a week. Look at you,” I say, gesturing to his loafers and trench coat.“You’re dressed for a foggy day in London, not a sub-zero night on the Iron Range. We’ll likely see another two feet of snow before the end of the week, and your little Rent-a-Rolls—or whatever the hell that is you’re driving—won’t even make it out of the parking lot.”
Bryan Truitt’s smile is way too confident. And I realize, too late, what I’ve done. I’ve proffered a challenge.
Chapter Twelve
BRYAN
Truittism No. 6: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
And THEN beat ’em.
I see it in her eyes the second she realizes.
Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly…
“Hennessy,” I ask slowly, “would you care to make a little wager?”
“I don’t bet,” she informs me flatly.
I smack the tabletop a little too hard. I shouldn’t have knocked back that shot so fast on an empty stomach.
“Oh-ho! So maybe you’re not so convinced I wouldn’t make it here. I think you’re just trying to get me out of your very long, very lovely hair, Hennessy O’Halloran.”
What? Where did that come from? Note to self: do not compliment the enemy’s hair. I mean, that’s what she is,
right? The enemy? She’s standing between me and what I want…so, I guess she is.
She confirms her enemy status with a derisive snort. “Please, don’t flatter yourself, Bryan. Or me, for that matter. You and I both know what a disaster you’d be here. There’s a reason you don’t set foot in any of these Midwest towns that you destroy. You’re much too…” She pauses to consider the word she’s looking for. “Delicate.”
I don’t like that word at all. Enemy. Yes, she’s definitely the enemy.
I think.
