I ran my eyes down him from head to toe, still trying to reconcile Silver Fox with the boy I’d written off as a mere friend. The man I’d dismissed as a brother had slowly seduced me without knowing he was doing it.
I drew even with Max as we crossed the street and followed him up the narrow stairs to the landing. He hadn’t even bothered to lock his door, but it appeared the only petty crime around these parts was perpetrated by neighboring business people. And Gentry had nothing to gain from looting Max’s man pad.
Once inside, I set the pizzas on his kitchen table. I hadn’t been to his place in almost a year, not since before everything went bananas. It looked pretty much exactly as I remembered.
There was a corner desk where he kept his laptop and now apparently a copy of my book on top of a stack of others. Was it weird to feel a stab of jealousy toward the woman he’d been writing to, even if that woman happened to be me?
I excused myself to use the bathroom. When I crossed the threshold into his bedroom, I stopped dead. On his bed lay a black-and-white checkered bedspread I’d never seen before. I immediately flashed back to the story Silver Fox had sent me, connecting the dots. The full impact of what Max had unwittingly revealed to me hadn’t hit me until that second.
He’d written fan fiction. About me.
I’d never known one could have a spontaneous orgasm standing completely alone, but the thoughts of what he’d imagined doing to me made my knees buckle. It took supreme willpower to rein in my immediate impulse to tell Dylan and Charlie to beat it.
When I came back to the table, the boys were eating messily, laughing, and telling stories.
Max said, “Hey, Maddie, we just had the best idea. Instead of our regular book club, we should get a liquor license and have an adults only night with food and beer. We could still talk books.”
He was saying we as if he was subconsciously moving forward with the plan he’d abandoned. I pulled out a chair and fixed a plate.
“And movies?” asked Dylan.
I tuned out of the conversation and simply watched Max, the way his eyes lit up when he talked, the way his neck muscles moved, the way his long fingers held on to the bottle of beer I wished was my hand. I pictured those fingers on my skin the way they’d been in the cellar. I imagined them running across my stomach, between my thighs, on a black-and-white checkered bedspread. I saw myself in his bed.
Charlie said, “On nights you have musicians, you’d be more competitive with the Jukebox if you also served beer.”
Max held up his bottle. “Plus Gentry would hate it.”
One mention of Gentry dampened my building lust and left me angry. “What am I going to do about him? You know he’s responsible for that mess. What if he doesn’t stop?”
“Two words,” said Max. “Security cameras.”
I sighed. “Can’t I sue him?”
“If you catch him.”
Dylan leaned in and pointed the end of his crust at me. “What you need to do is run against him for the town council. You could beat him easily. Everyone loves you, and you’ve been here longer than him.”
Max nodded. “You could promise to overturn his stupid Sunday rule. You could cater to the antiquing crowd. And the kids are always bored.”
Charlie added, “I’d love it if you were open on Sundays. I get so much more writing done when I’m in the shop.”
We all looked at him. “You write?”
He said, “Well, yeah. What do you think I’m doing all that time? Grading?”
This seemed like a good time to confess my own secret. I took a breath and opened my mouth.
“I write, too,” said Max. “Or at least I’m trying to.”
“So do I,” said Dylan. “Poetry, mostly. And lyrics, obviously.”
I laughed. “And me. Novels.”
“Well, damn.” Charlie shook his head. “We could’ve been an author club all this time.”
Max leaned on his elbows. “That’s another thing you could do to attract people to the shop, Maddie. Start a writing group. If all four of us are writing, I’d imagine there are others.”
Those eyes. I’d seen them my entire life, but had they always been so green? Had he always been so beautiful? The scruff on his smooth, freckle-dusted cheeks made me yearn to graze my face against his.
I’d learned more about him in the past few weeks than I’d known our whole lives. What else was he hiding? What else did I have to learn about him? He laughed at something Dylan said, and I tried to catch up on the conversation, but everything became white noise as I watched him. His eyes cut over and shot back to Dylan, but returned again to find me lingering on him, drinking him in, sucking him to me like an unquenchable void at the center of the universe.
He looked back a third time, and his gaze stuck.
Could he read my mind? Could he sense the seismic shift in our relationship through mental telepathy and the heat of my wanton desire now radiating off me like the shimmering distortions on a scorched summer highway? His black-and-white comforter lay only a few feet away. Want piled on want.
What would he do if I crawled across the table and bunched his shirt in my fists?
Chairs scraped.
Dylan said, “Uh. I guess we should be going.”
Charlie said, “See you later.”
A door clicked shut, and I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Max.
Max.
I inhaled like I’d just come up for air.
He set his beer bottle on the table, and that was enough of an invitation. I stood, but the table was too damn crowded with pizza trash for me to make my triumphant crossing, so I just leaned forward and grabbed him by the collar. I hadn’t planned this out very far, and as it turned out, I couldn’t reach my mouth to his. He didn’t seem to know what I was doing and had the panicked look of a murder victim. Frustrated, I swept my arm across the barrier, knocking bottles and cardboard to the floor. Only then did it occur to me to simply walk around the table.
I stalked over to where he sat, and he leaned away from me, like he expected me to strike him. “What are you—”
“I’m attempting to kiss you.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me onto his lap, our faces inches apart. For a moment, I just wanted to stare at him. His features were so familiar, but somehow altogether new.
I traced the scar high on his cheekbone from when he’d attempted to do a back flip off the diving board and clipped the board on the way down. I found it so sexy; he could have gotten it from racing motorcycles. I laid my lips there. His eyes closed, and he sighed.
I shifted so I could swing my leg over him and face him straight on, straddling him in a way that left no question about my intention.
Then I did what I’d set out to do. I wrapped my fingers in his locks and drew him near. When I kissed him, his hand slid up my back to my neck and twisted in my hair. I rocked forward and ground against him, thrilled at the moan that escaped him.
His chair tilted against the refrigerator, and I nearly let out a giggle as I recalled words he’d written in his review: “I’ve felt more chemistry between my kitchen appliances.”
Me, too. I was feeling serious chemistry between his appliances.
I reached for the top button of his shirt.
He groaned. “Maddie, stop.”
“Stop?”
“Or slow down. Let me catch up. What is happening here?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Didn’t your parents teach you about what happens when two people like each other very much?”
“No, the school did.” He smiled, and I pressed my thumb against that lower lip, dragging it across, savoring his breaking resistance. He wrapped his hand around mine. “What are you doing, Maddie?”
“Seducing you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.” Why was he fighting me? “I thought you wanted me, too.”
He grasped my forearms tight. “I want you so bad it h
urts.”
I could feel that through my jeans. His pain was my torture. “Then what’s the problem?”
“Just not like this.”
“Like what? I don’t understand.”
His hands relaxed and wrapped around my back, ignoring what his mouth was saying. He tilted his head. “Do you remember the first time you kissed me?”
“Of course.” In retrospect, that kiss had felt like home.
“You said it never happened. Do you remember that, too?”
My face flushed at the memory. “Yes.”
“Well, it did happen, and I told myself to forget it, but my body wouldn’t forget. I lied to myself to force myself to tolerate seeing you with Dylan, then with Peter.”
“I was wrong about Peter. I know that now.”
“Maddie, you’ve known that for a while. If you’d really loved him, do you think a dilapidated bookstore in an isolated town would’ve been enough to keep you from him? Why did you stay?”
Had I stayed for the bookstore?
I answered the unasked question. “I don’t want you to leave Orion. I don’t want you to leave me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “How did we get here?”
“I was wrong, Max.” How could I make him understand it when I’d only figured it out for myself. I opened my mouth to tell him I’d fallen in love with him, but he spoke first.
“I’m trying to make sense of your capricious interest in me. As much as I want you, I need to understand. You can kiss me and walk away without a scratch. But you have the power to devastate me. If we take this any further, I would be sealed to you for life.”
I scoffed. He’d started everything with that kiss. “You didn’t seem to have those concerns a week ago.”
He lifted his hands, fingers splayed. “Do you understand that every second of every day, it takes an effort to not be kissing you? I let my guard down last week, and you can’t deny you reciprocated. I thought maybe, just maybe, things might change. Then I laid everything out, put it all out there, and you shot me down. That was a week ago, Maddie. Can you understand why I’m hesitant?”
I knew I could make him break. I knew I could kiss him, drag my teeth across his neck, grind against him, and he’d cave. He’d as much as admitted that he was holding out by a force of supreme willpower.
Maybe if I told him I loved him, he’d relent, but I respected everything he’d said, and as disappointed as that left me, I was ready to show him I was serious. We could build from here. If he was still here.
“So you’ll stay, right?”
His shoulders sagged. “Is that what this is all about? Is this some kind of con?”
“Seriously?” I climbed off him, entitled words spilling out. “I thought you loved me. I thought you’d be happy I wanted you, too. I thought—” On the fridge, I saw a magnet quoting The Little Prince and lost it. “I thought you’d want to stay here with me.”
He came up behind me and rubbed my shoulder. “You were right. I do love you. Of course, I want you to want me. But Maddie, I’m at a crossroads, and I need to be thinking of my future. What I told you the other day about wanting a career wasn’t a sudden decision. Yes, I want to stay here with you, but if that’s the only reason I stay . . . I don’t mean this to sound as awful as I know it will, but it’s too much of a risk.”
I turned to face him. He meant I was too much of a risk. Could I blame him? I’d been an absolute idiot. His eyes were soft, sad, but without blame. Maybe he needed me to fight harder, make him reconsider.
“There’s more here than just me. You’ve got friends, family. Home. You could have the bookstore. I would give you the bookstore. You could work there with me. Together.”
“I’m not saying no, Maddie. How could I say no to you?” He wiped a tear off my cheek. “I was so sure of everything this morning. You’re making it hard to keep my resolve. I can’t believe after all this time, I’m having to ask you to wait for me. But I need to invest in myself. Can you understand?”
“Gah, Max. You’ve thrown a plot twist at me.” I laid a hand on his cheek, gently, no dirty tricks up my sleeve. I just wanted to comfort him despite how terrible I felt. “I used to think you were my Laurie, but you’ve always been my Gilbert Blythe, haven’t you? Gilbert was always going to end up with Anne Shirley.”
“Maddie, I’ve never been Gilbert Blythe. I’ve always been Max Beckett.” His nostrils flared, but his voice remained calm. “I’m not a hero in a book. I’m just me. I’ve been waiting for you to get your head out of the clouds long enough to see me, right here, just me. I just wanted you.”
I traced his cheekbone with my thumb, a little bit sneaky perhaps. “All you have to do is ask, Max.”
“It would be the easiest thing in the world.”
“So stay.” It came out more question than statement. My voice wavered on the brink of a wail.
“As much as I want to, I can’t. I have to think about what happens tomorrow.”
Dammit. I’d missed my chance to gain his trust. I’d have to go the long way now. Fine. I’d prove my love with time and stoic determination. After all, Max had waited this long.
“Then go. I’ll still be here tomorrow.” My hand slid around to the back of his neck, and I let my fingers tighten, relishing the pink dots advertising how much it was costing him to resist. “I’m not playing around. I’ll be ready when you are.” I straightened and laid a kiss on him I hoped would curl his toes. Cheating, maybe, but as they say, “All’s fair in love and war.”
I released him and backed away. “Please don’t accept that job right away. Please see how you feel at the end of the week.”
He shrugged. “I can do that. They haven’t offered me the position yet.”
“So you’re saying there’s a chance they won’t?” I waggled my eyebrows, shamelessly rooting for a deus ex machina to come to my rescue.
“If they don’t, I’ll still have to look for another job.”
“You have a job.” If he stayed.
“I don’t have a career, Maddie.”
I had no answer to that. I’d had a career once. Maybe I had one still. I loved what I did so much, it didn’t feel like work. “Just take the week.” I opened my arms to give him a hug, and he stepped into it. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ll come help you pick out flooring.”
It was a relief. I regretted all those times I’d rejected his proposals for the past year. All that time, we could have been working toward a common goal. For that matter, I could go back years and think of how much time I’d lost for my own blindness. I had to stop myself. That way lay madness. I needed to focus on fixing what was broken now before we lost even more time.
When I got out to the street, I stood blinking back tears. No surprise he’d been the reviewer who passed judgment on my novel. In some way, he’d always been a reader of my life, reviewing my decisions and weighing in with his honest critiques. Now that he’d found himself a character in the story at long last, he went and flipped the script. Ironic since he’d been the one to call me out on a lack in my romantic arc.
That made me laugh hard enough to dry away my tears. After all, tomorrow was another day.
Maybe he’d believe my intentions were real if I told him we’d been corresponding for weeks. I thought about going right back to his apartment and confessing everything, but maybe I’d waited too long. Would he feel betrayed I hadn’t told him right away? Or would he find it as funny as I did? I wished I’d walked into the bookstore that night and explained it all like an adult.
What would a clever heroine do?
I took my phone out and typed in a quick direct message to Silver Fox. To Max.
Would you be willing to try to meet again? Name the time and place and I’ll be there.
When he agreed to meet, I’d act surprised by the revelation. If he thought I was finding out at the same time as him, he couldn’t get mad. And then he’d understand that my feelings were genuine. He’d know I
wasn’t using him to save my store. He’d have to believe he meant so much more.
* * *
The next morning, I was awoken with a familiar greeting: You’ve got mail!
I stretched and reached for my phone, hoping for the response from Max as Silver Fox. Silver Fox had gone dark since Saturday night. Maybe because he was helping me clean out my bookstore.
Instead, I had an email from my editor congratulating me on the release of my first novel. Somehow I’d forgotten my book went public today. Why didn’t it feel like a much bigger deal than this? Actual readers would be buying my book, leaving reviews, judging my work. And yet, I felt oddly Zen about it. Somehow working through my worst fears with Silver Fox—with Max—had prepared me to deal with whatever came my way.
I moved into the kitchen as Layla came out of her room. “Hey.” Rubbing her eyes, she shuffled to the coffeepot and started going through the motions of waking up to head to work. “Oh, I ran into Dylan last night. He said to tell you he’s leaving for New York this afternoon.”
“Last night? He could’ve told me himself.”
“Mm-hmm.” Layla shot me a sly glance. “He might’ve mentioned something about that, too.”
“What did he say?” I blushed, thinking of how obvious I’d been and exactly how much damage Dylan and Charlie might have sustained had they remained in my heat-seeking lust path.
She reached into the pantry and retrieved a bag of bagels. After she sliced one and dropped it into the toaster, she fell into a chair. “So . . . what’s going on with my brother?”
Why had I insisted on living in this town? Could nothing stay private?
“Nothing. We were just talking. We need time to figure things out.”
She squealed. “So, not nothing.”
I wanted to be the voice of reason and tell her there was no Max and me, but I loved the idea of it, and I loved that her exuberance matched my own spinning internal giddiness ever since I’d allowed myself to entertain the possibility I could truly be in love with Max Beckett.
Squeamish nerves threatened to engulf my lovesick butterflies. What if I lost the boy right after he won me?
Dating by the Book Page 25