Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Mackenzie’s eyes dart over my shoulder and find the tree outside. Then she looks at me. “Why was she out there?”
I fold my hands on the desk and look down at them as I answer. “She was there because we had been fighting. Not physically.” I look up at Mackenzie. “Just wanna make that clear, since it’s… not always clear. I stopped letting her come to the gym.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I sneer at the woman across the desk. “Why? Because she’s a little fucking girl, Mackenzie. I don’t want her fighting. She has a new life now. She needs to leave this one behind.”
“OK.” Mackenzie gets a smarmy look on her face. “But she wanted to fight, right?”
“It’s all she knew.”
“Right. I’ll take that as a yes. And you were… what, bossing her around? So she had a teenage moment?”
“Teenage moment? The next time I saw her it was three and a half years later and her face was on a fucking billboard. She had a black eye. They took a picture of her, all dressed up in luxury swimwear, sportin’ a black eye! She ran away to America, Mackenzie. She wasn’t having a teenage moment. She was…”
“Punishing you?”
I let out a long breath, but I nod. “Yeah. Punishing me.”
“Because she loves you?”
“How do you jump to that conclusion?”
“How do I not?” Mackenzie laughs. “I mean… come on. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”
“What?”
“You’re a handsome man, Maart. You had a very intimate relationship with a teenage girl, maybe the most intimate relationship you’ve ever had—and don’t bullshit me. Cort told me how much you love Irina. And he didn’t insinuate you were fucking her or anything—”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying. You trained that girl, from the time she was a small child, to kill people so she could live. And she did live. She’s probably been infatuated with you since she was”—Mackenzie shrugs, takes a guess—“ten or eleven, maybe. And then she finally grows up, doesn’t have to fight for her life anymore, and you’re the guy she wants. How close am I?”
I don’t answer her.
“And you never saw her that way. You maybe saw her as your saving grace.”
I scoff.
“I know.” Mackenzie smiles at me. “I’m a little poetic. But I am a writer, so you’ll just have to let me go with it. Anyway. It’s a start, I guess. I don’t think she’s going to be hard to find. She’s on a billboard advertising overpriced bathing suits. She must have an agent. I’ll probably have something for you by tomorrow.” Mackenzie stands up.
“Wait. You’re leaving?”
“I think I have all I need.” She pauses here. “Unless you’d like to tell me more?”
“You don’t want the story?”
“About you?” She laughs a little, that smile of hers back. So warm now. So easy. “Of course. But I’m not getting any more out of you today. You’re—and I’m not being disparaging here, OK? It’s just an observation—but you’re holding a lot of shit in, Maart. I’m not a therapist.”
“Fuck off.”
She puts both hands up, palms out. “Like I said, I’m not disparaging you. But your life…” She shakes her head. “It’s kind of a miracle that you’re not insane. I’ll get the story when you’re ready to tell it, and, in the meantime, I’ll find Irina for you.”
I just stare at her, unsure what to say.
“Do we have a deal?” She puts her hand out over the desk.
I look at it for a moment before shaking it and meeting her gaze. “OK. We have a deal.”
She turns away, walks to the door, then pauses to look over her shoulder at me. “It’s Macks, you know. Not Mackenzie.”
“Sorry. It’s really not.”
Which makes her laugh. It’s a nice laugh. And then she opens the door and leaves.
Cort calls me a couple hours later to see how it went. I’m still in my office, still sitting at my desk, only I’ve swiveled my chair so I’m looking out the window at that stupid tree.
“Well? How’d it go?”
I shrug. “She says she can find Irina.”
“That’s good. Right?”
“Yeah. It’s good, Cort.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He sighs. He knows me so well, which means he knows I’m being weird. “You’re gonna find her.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Oh.” He pauses, probably to let me fill in the blanks. But I’m not going to, and he knows this too, so he just asks, “Well? Are you gonna tell me what you are worried about?”
“Do you think Irina was… like… into me?”
“Into you how?”
“You know. A way she shouldn’t be into me.”
“Are you into her? Is that—”
“No, you sick fuck.”
He laughs.
Which, I admit, is nice. So it makes me smile. “Mackenzie said—”
“Who the fuck is Mackenzie?”
“Macks.” I hiss this out. “I can’t call her that. She’s just not a Macks.”
“OK. Are you into her?”
“What? No. She’s like… retirement age.”
Cort almost guffaws. “We’re retired, Maart.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m not retired. I’m just getting started.”