Page 178 of Puck Me Secretly

“You ruined everything, you know that?”

I forced my voice to stay strong. Insolent even. “What is your end game, Baxter? Are you going to kill me? Is that your big plan?”

“Shut up!’ His scream reverberated through the house.

He pressed the gun harder to my head and for one horrible moment, I thought I might piss myself.

People talk about being so scared they piss their pants, but this is the first time I understand that statement.

He uncocked the gun and returned to pacing.

“I tried to scare you off, you know? With my tweets, but you’re so fucking stubborn.”

“You’re hockey gurl?”

This time, when he looked at me, I dropped my gaze.

He laughed a scary, messed up laugh that made my blood run cold. “You learn fast, don’t you?”

I kept my eyes down.

“You know, you remind me of my wife. When I first met her, she was so feisty. God, she had a temper and a backbone.”

I couldn’t reconcile the sad sack woman in the baggy cardigans with anyone that had ever had a backbone. “What happened to her?”

He leaned down so close that his stinky breath blew in my face. “I broke her.”

Our eyes met. He smiled, and for a moment, he reminded me of the Baxter I knew. “I enjoyed it. Just like I would enjoy breaking you.”

Keep him talking.When he runs out of stuff to say, bad things will happen.

“How did you do that?”

“How did I do what?”

“How did you break your wife?”

He smiled again. “When I first dated her, she was a bossy bitch. I let her think that she was in charge. I bought her flowers and treated her like a queen. Until she agreed to marry me.”

Our eyes met. I could smell my fear. It was a mixture of sweat and something sour.

“So, she married you, what happened?”

He crossed his arms, indifferent to the fact that he held a 9 mm in one hand. “I waited until she made the slightest infraction against me. It was nothing. She tipped the doorman of our hotel room. And I slapped her so hard for that, for disrespecting me, she hit the floor. She spent the night in the bathroom crying. In the morning, I pretended nothing had happened.”

He leaned down so his face was in front of mine. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“So did she. She wanted to pretend that it hadn’t happened at all.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“She was wary at first. Watching me. Careful around me. But I made sure she got comfortable again before I hit her a second time.”

“What happened?”

“She cried and threatened to leave me. She went through all the motions, but I knew she wouldn’t leave.”

---