Tall, Dark & Obnoxious

Episode THREE

Pat

Why hadn't she gone with her gut? Why hadn't she just called him back the day he so arbitrarily invited himself to her house? Now here she was stuck with Tall, Dark, and Obnoxious until they were done with all these damn tamales.

"Stop putting words in my mouth, Max," she warned for the last time. "Just because I choose to keep my personal life private does not mean it's a sore subject for me. But let me ask you this because this quid pro quo of yours has gotten a bit one-sided."

"Have at it." He smiled big. "I'm an open book."

From day one, Pat admitted, were it not for his foul mouth and tactlessness, Max might be considered attractive, dare she say even sexy. But she'd never been around this man long enough to notice certain things. She'd never realized until today how much that smug smirk reminded her of his equally smartass nephew—and she hated it. As much as she'd disliked Romero in the beginning, the one thing she'd had to admit even then was that he had this very attractive bad-boy quality about him. Pat refused to start thinking of Max in that way. Despite the age difference between him and his nephew, the more Pat was assaulted with that infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk, the more she saw the resemblance. As much as she'd never dream of asking before and give his pompous ass more reason to rattle her, she was looking forward to turning this around.

"So, why are you single? Bell said you've never been married."

"You asked?"

That condescending grin would be the end of her. "No. It's just come up over the years. But you're a decent-looking guy," she added cautiously, and even that swelled his grin to twice the size. "Any reason why you never married?"

"Decent-looking guy, huh?" The playful yet sultry way he assessed her made Pat's breath catch, but she'd die before she'd let him notice. "Are you trying to seduce me, Patricia?"

The scoff was a bit overdone, but Pat got her point across. "Yes, if that's what you were doing when you said I'm not that bad."

Max laughed wholeheartedly now. "I'm telling you. You're really not. Well, not all the time."

Rolling her eyes again, Pat picked up her glass of wine. "You've been dancing around the question, Mr. Open Book. What's the matter? Did I hit a nerve?" She took a sip of her wine, eyeing him and hoping she looked as smug as his cocky ass always did. "Sore subject?"

"Nope. But I'll take that glass of wine now."

"Ooh," Pat mimicked his obnoxious amusement as she pulled out a wine glass for the cupboard. "Need a little alcohol before you talk about it?" She glanced back at him, lifting a brow. "Maybe a match?"

He laughed again, and as much as she hated it, because his laughter always seemed to be at her expense, she had to admit it was kind of sexy—kind of.

"I told you," he started as she poured his wine. "I was in and out of the can, back in my heyday."

He paused as she glanced up at him in that same way he had earlier when he'd mentioned this. Like he was waiting for her to judge.

"We all have skeletons in our past." She shrugged as she handed him his wine glass. "No worries."

"Who said I was worried?"

For the first time almost since he got there, that playful beam went flat, and there it was—another reminder of who he was related to.

"I didn't. I just meant—"

"When I wasn't in jail," he went on, minus any trace of a smile now. "I was either on probation or too busy getting into more trouble. By the time my ass finally grew up and went into a legit business, me and Manny were already in our thirties."

"The topless bar?"

Thankfully, and for some stupid reason, that had him grinning again. "That's titty bar to you."

Relieved to hear him laugh again, Pat took a sip of her wine and tried to lighten up. She hadn't realized just how tense she'd gotten from seeing how fast he could go from hot to cold.

"But yeah," Max said, after taking his first sip of wine. "People can think what they want, but it's a legit business, and we pay taxes just like everyone else does. Those girls are some of the hardest working people I know. They rely on their paychecks just like you and me."

Curious now, Pat had to ask. "You ever date any of them?"

"Nah." He shook his head. "Not in years anyway. Both me and Manny learned early on it's not a good idea to mix business with pleasure. They're more like family now."

He went on to explain how getting the hang of running a titty bar wasn't nearly as fun as most might think. It was tough and a lot of work.

"Trying to get everything to run smoothly was both physically and mentally exhausting." He shook his head. "Especially because women are so much fucking drama."

That had Pat straightening out again. "Talk about blanket statements. Not all women are drama, you know."

His expression was almost a comical one as his jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. "Are you kidding me?"

"You had a mother, right?" Pat shot back. "Would you say she was drama?"

"ADM!" He laughed. "She was one of the worst ones. Didn't put up with shit."

Pat peered at him, remembering his text. "ADM? You sent that in a text. I thought maybe it was a typo. What does that mean?"

"Ay Dios miyo," he said very matter-of-factly. "Me and Manny got sick of hearing all these little white chicks saying OMG, so we use our Spanish version when we text."

Little white chicks?

And this was why, despite admittedly having already had one or two moments of breathlessness since he'd arrived, her sister was out of her mind. Pat couldn't even entertain the idea of anything remotely romantic with this man.

"Anyway, at that point I was too used to doing shit my way. Not having to compromise or deal with any bullshit relationship drama." He shrugged as he started spreading masa on a husk. "It's not like I never gave it a shot. But as the years have gone by, my patience for the drama has gotten down to nil. So much easier to just hit it and quit it."

Pat glanced down at the tamale she was assembling, curious about something. "What do you mean by drama? Sounds like you've dated the wrong type of women."

"They're all the same."

Once again, Pat felt floored, and she put down the tamale. Shaking her head, she walked over to the bottle of wine and poured herself a little more.

"What?" Max asked, flashing that perpetual smirk when she turned back to look at him. "It's the truth. At least in my experience it has been. Look at you."

"What about me?" Pat glared at him. "You don't know anything about me."