Champagne Problems (Ransom Drysdale)

Chapter 17 - Daddy Issues

"You gonna talk to me or are you just gonna glare at me for the rest of the evening?" Ransom demanded once they were back home. 

The journey had been spent in silence, both of them stewing at Linda's proclamation. They'd been home at least an hour and the mood was sour. Effie doing all she could to give the silent treatment.

She was shit at it though, Ransom knew her well enough to know that. She could never keep her mouth closed – not for long enough anyway. If she had something to say then she'd say it.

"Depends."

"On what?" he wasn't in the mood for this.

"On whether you want me to get a lawyer on the phone and start our divorce proceedings!"

Wait. She was mad at that? That hadn't even been the worse part of the conversation. 

He huffed impatiently. "You really thought I meant that?"

"You may as well have called one while you were at the table. You seemed all for it." Effie argued.

He stopped her. "Can we just focus on the fact that my mother is demanding we have a kid, and not something I said when I didn't mean it!"

"Oh and I supposed it just slipped out did it?" she looked at him, her eyes ablaze. "Do you even love me?"

"What?"

The words came out slowly. "Do you love me?"

He wasn't doing this. Not now. "Eff..."

"You've never even said it."

"Neither have you" he pointed out

"Because I was waiting for you!"

Was she? Ransom wasn't even sure how to feel about her. She was good in bed, yes, she hated his family as much as he did, he liked her to an extent. But love? Did he love her? He didn't even know. What they had now was fine with him.

"This isn't the 1940's, girls can say the L word before guys y'know!"

Effie looked at him. "I wanted to hear it from you first, at least then I'd know for sure."

Ransom sighed. "I'm not doing this, not tonight – we're both angry and..."

"For fuck sake Ransom do you love me or not!"

"Ok, fine yes I love you, happy?" Hopefully that would shut her up.

Nope. She saw right through him. He hated that this woman knew him inside out. "You're lying..."

"I'm not lying!"

"You are! I can see it on your face!"

He'd had enough. "Look, I don't know how to feel! One moment we're up and the next we're at each other's throats! We're just two people who were thrown together just so we could keep our damn inheritances - we never wanted any of this!"

Effie was silent for a few moments and then brushed past him. "Eff..." he went to stop her.

"It's fine Ransom. I guess I thought we could really have something to throw back in our families face that was actually real for once."

Yep. He'd be sleeping on the couch tonight. For the first time in his life he'd done something right though. He'd told her the truth.

Harlan was in his study the next afternoon when Ransom arrived at the Thrombey Estate. All being quiet and the chaos having left that morning. Things were strained between him and Effie. She'd not spoken to him all morning and had gone out somewhere around midday. He couldn't even get anything out of Paola as even she didn't know where she'd gone.