"I was still going to split the money with you."
She was standing in his open door, watching as he packed his dufflebag. At the sound of her voice his movements became a little more agitated, shoving his clothes in a little more messily and with a little more force. She could tell he was angry with her, really angry with her for the first time since she'd met him. She'd never put any stock into talk of auras or psychic energy or any goofy New Age gobbledygook like that, but the way she could practically feel the emotion pouring off of him was almost enough to change her mind.
"Could've fooled me, Princess," he ground out through his teeth, not even bothering to look at her as he shoved another shirt away.
"I needed to make a choice quickly, Duncan, and I still think it was the right one." She crossed her arms across her chest, and did her best not to feel guilty over what she'd done. She'd never doubted any of the choices she'd made in her life, and she couldn't afford to start now. There was no room for doubt in the heart of a winner. "If I'd had to support you all the way to the dock, not only would it have been a piece of cake for one of the others to snatch the briefcase away from us, but we never would have been able to catch up with them and steal it back again. At least on my own I came close."
"Yeah. I might buy that, if you'd taken two seconds to come back and pick me up in that balloon of yours. Or next are you gonna tell me that thing would be slowed up too much by carting me around too?"
"You left!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air, exasperated. "Do you really think I should have scoured the woods for you instead of looking for the case when I found out you'd walked off from the place I'd left you? Which, by the way, you couldn't have done if your ankle was really that badly hurt."
"Yeah, like I was just going to wait around there for the alligator to come back. I don't have a death wish, Darling."
"Well, that's good," she said lightly, trying to lift the mood since getting annoyed at him clearly wasn't helping anything. She stepped up behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders, tentatively starting to rub them with her thumbs in slow circles when she felt the tension in his muscles. "I wouldn't really want to need to put the skills I learned from volunteering for the suicide hotline to use with someone I like."
For a moment he seemed like he was going to tilt his head back to look at her, then he evidently decided against it. Still, from her position looking down on him she could see the movement of his eyebrows raising. "You, doing suicide prevention? How many people decided to off themselves just to get away from your nagging at them to toughen up and stick it out?"
She frowned sharply, her hands clenching around his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. "I'll have you know that I was awarded the 'Volunteer of the Week' position three times. My picture was on the wall and everything!"
"Bet they'd be thrilled to hear that the award's what you're proud of," he said, and she thought there was a hint of a laugh in his voice now.
"For God's sake, Duncan, if I said I did it purely out of the good of my heart and never once even thought about how good it would look on my college applications, would you find fault in that too?"
"If you said that, I'd just call you a giant liar," he said easily. "And you can't even pretend I wouldn't be right, Darling."
"Okay, so I'm not the most philanthropic person in the world," she grudgingly gave him. "But I never once even thought about taking all the money and running. You would have gotten your five-hundred-thousand dollars, I swear I'm not lying about that."
"Or, you could just be buttering me up because you hope I'll still be dumb enough to split the cash with you when I get it," he said flatly.
However angry he was, she didn't think it could even begin to compare to the flash of white-hot rage that flared through her at the accusation. Before she even realized what she was about to do, she twisted him around and punched him right in the face, so mad that her entire body shook from it. "How dare you," she said, not even yelling, her voice just gone hard and cold. Her eyes were stinging but she refused to let herself give into the feeling, thinking to herself over and over Don't you dare, Courtney. Anybody who'd think you're like that doesn't deserve your tears. "Do you really think that little of me? Ever since I started... since you... since this," she gestured between the two of them, giving up on trying to find the right description for whatever their relationship was, "began I have never once done anything but give you my support. I can't believe you'd really think I'm that sort of a horrible bitch of a girlfriend!"
It wasn't like she'd never been accused of worse in the past. It wasn't something you could avoid when you were as focused as she was at getting ahead in life no matter what it took. Usually it never bothered her at all; what did she care about the opinions of people that she didn't like and who weren't likely to end up going anywhere in life? But this time, coming from Duncan, it was different.
Duncan who, ridiculously, had started laughing, and was pulling her down into his lap. "All right, Princess. We're even now."
"Even?" she repeated.
"You'd rather I held a grudge? You pissed me off, I pissed you off, we're even. It helps that you're just about as hot when you're being a cutthroat harpy as you are when you're angry. By the way, Sweetheart; good arm." When she just stared blankly at him after he'd finished explaining his logic he leaned in close, smirking as he stared her in the eyes. "Heh, and did you know your eyelashes are wet there, Princess? Man, do you ever have it bad for me."
"God," she groaned, and dropped her head to his shoulder. "When you win the million dollars, we're taking some of it and getting couple's therapy or something. If this relationship's going to last, I don't want to get used to it being this dysfunctional."
"See, Princess, now you're just showing your impossible standards. As far as I'm concerned, letting it go this fast means we're doing fine." He shifted so his legs were in a more comfortable position under her weight. "You wanna see dysfunctional, you need to meet my Aunt Edith and Uncle Phil someday."
"I think that I'll pass," she said, but maybe he was right. After all, just that quickly her anger had melted away like it had never existed to begin with.