Aubrey smirked. “Popping two Eggo’s in the toaster doesn’t really count as cooking, Finn.”
Delilah shook her head. “No, believe it or not, Finn really did make them from scratch, waffle iron and all. Apparently he learned how to make them when he was a kid. They’re sort of his specialty. And they were delicious,” she told Finn soothingly, kissing him on the cheek. “Maybe not quite as fancy as Max’s trout almandine and risotto, but made with Finn’s secret ingredient.”
“Love?” asked Jordan sardonically.
Finn grinned. “Well, that, of course. But the real secret ingredient is using whipping cream instead of milk. Makes them all light and fluffy.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying the meal, Delilah. Especially since it was rather last minute and I didn’t have much time to prepare. And thanks to all of you for coming over on such short notice,” said Max, raising his wine glass in appreciation.
Aubrey’s blue eyes twinkled merrily. “Oh, like any of us would have missed this! All Jordan had to tell me was that you needed relationship advice - and concerning your mystery woman from Seattle to boot - and I was in. I would have passed up front row seats at an Ed Sheeran concert, plus dinner at my favorite restaurant, to listen in on this conversation. So, don’t keep us in suspense any longer, Max. What’s her name, when did you see her again, and, most importantly, what advice do you need from us?”
Jordan nudged his fiancée in the ribs. “Baby, give Max some space, hmm? He’ll tell us everything when he’s ready. Right, Max?”
“Let’s finish dinner first,” agreed Max. “And I’m going to need at least two more glasses of wine before I’ll work up the nerve to have this particular discussion.”
Jordan topped off his host’s glass with the very fine Merlot he’d brought over. “I brought two bottles, as you know, plus you have a pretty well stocked wine cellar yourself. In other words, I don’t think we’re in any danger of running out.”
Max’s gaze narrowed as he took a long sip of his wine. “I’m not sure all the wine in San Francisco is going to make this any easier for me,” he muttered. “But let’s enjoy our dinner first, shall we?”
As he forced himself to eat at least a few bites of the meal he’d hastily thrown together, Max observed the easy, relaxed way his two best friends interacted with their respective fianceé’s. Less than two years ago, a few months before Jordan had met Aubrey while vacationing in Maui, Max would have sworn up and down that the three longtime friends were all destined to remain bachelors for the rest of their lives. Jordan had been the first to prove his theory wrong, having asked Aubrey to marry him last spring, and their Hawaiian wedding was scheduled for approximately two months from now. And then Finn had shocked everyone who knew him, including his parents, by proposing to Delilah on Christmas Day. The two of them were planning a lavish wedding for July with the bride - a fashion designer who owned her own company - intent on designing her own bridal gown.
The two couples had chosen to sit next to each other on either side of Max’s antique Hepplewhite mahogany table, while he sat by himself at the head of the table. The place directly opposite him was noticeably empty, as it always was during these small get-togethers, but he couldn’t stop himself from picturing how Jill might look seated there. With her sunny, sweet-tempered nature, there was no question that his friends would adore her. She’d giggle at Finn’s attempts to flirt with her, compare notes about growing up in the South with Jordan, ask Delilah questions about her business, and want to know all about Aubrey’s wedding plans. His friends would very quickly become her friends, too, and then all three of the formerly confirmed bachelors would have turned over a new leaf and found themselves instead in a happy, committed relationship.
He wasn’t ready as yet to think about the long term. Marriage and children were two things he had never imagined being part of his life, and there were no guarantees that he ever would. That was what made this - this thing with Jill all the more complicated. While he couldn’t bear the thought of her being with another man, of losing her forever to someone like Tyler Sheehan who sure as hell didn’t deserve her, he also had no idea of exactly what he would be able to offer her - except for the promise to devote himself to making her happy.
Unlike, he reminded himself dourly, the arrogant Tyler, who had already suggested to Jill that they take their relationship to the next level. He wasn’t certain if that merely meant living together or getting engaged, but whatever Tyler’s next move was going to be Max was going to have to find a way to circumvent it - and quickly.
A year ago he would have been shocked to find Jordan and Finn helping to clear away the dinner dishes, but falling in love had worked miracles with both of his friends. Aubrey, though, insisted on pouring the coffee while Delilah expertly sliced the tiramisu torte that Max had chosen for dessert.
Dessert was over much too quickly for Max’s liking, because once those dishes had been cleared away, he no longer had any reason to avoid the discussion that he’d been dreading all evening. But since it was also the main reason he had invited his friends over this evening, and why they had dropped everything to help him out, he realized that the time had finally arrived - the time when he would have to face his long-avoided demons and confess certain ugly truths to the people who knew - or had thought they knew - him best.
The group reconvened in the living room, a room that Max seldom used except on the infrequent occasions when he had his friends over. Jordan and Aubrey cuddled up on the plush sofa, while Finn and Delilah commandeered the matching loveseat, leaving Max to sit on one of the coordinating armchairs. The two couples gazed at him expectantly, and he suddenly wished to be anywhere but here.
He cleared his throat, wishing wildly for a glass of Scotch or brandy, though he’d had more than enough to drink already this evening without it lending him anywhere near the amount of courage he needed. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, he thought irritably, a novice at discussing his feelings and emotions, or in sharing personal stories from his past. But in order to find a way to keep Jill in his life, he was going to have to gut it out and find a way to open himself up.
“Her name is Jill,” he blurted out, breaking the silence that had started to become downright uncomfortable. “Jill Parrish, to be exact. And when I met her four years ago in Seattle, she was still a college student, a few months away from earning her degree. She worked part-time for the company I’d been hired to do one of my financial assessments for, and from the first time I met her I was intrigued. Maybe even obsessed. And even though I knew I had no intention of seeing her again once my job in Seattle was finished, I still pursued her. Asked her out to dinner, seduced her, allowed her to fall in love with me. And then, like the cold-hearted bastard Finn has called me more times than I can count, I broke Jill’s heart and walked out the door without a backwards glance. That’s the guilt and the regret I’ve had to live with these past four years. That’s why I’ve been more difficult than usual to be around all this time. Because I knew all along that I loved her, too, but was too stubborn to admit the truth.”
Four pairs of eyes were fixated on him intensely, seemingly hanging on his every word. Max looked at each of his friends, and realized that they weren’t going to make this easy for him. Sighing heavily, he continued with his story.
“For four years now, I’ve had to live with the guilt, knowing that I hurt Jill. A woman who is quite possibly the sweetest, kindest, and gentlest person I’ve ever met, who only ever wanted to love me and have me love her in return. But I think you’ll all agree when I tell you some very ugly truths about myself, in particular about my past in England, that leaving her was the only thing I could have done.”
Delilah, who was the only one of his friends who already knew even a small part of this story, shook her head. “I’m going to guess that you’re being far too hard on yourself, Max. But before you start sharing all your dark and terrible stories, can you tell us what provoked all of thi
s? Why you asked the four of us to meet you here tonight? And why you suddenly decided the time was right to bare your soul?”
Max nodded briefly in acknowledgment. “A fair question, Delilah. And the answer is really quite simple. I met Jill again by chance, just five days ago, actually. Turns out she moved to San Francisco almost two years ago to accept a job with an up and coming new firm, a job that was attractive enough for her to run the risk of possibly running into me.”
“Let me guess,” drawled Jordan. “This company she works for now - they hired you on for a consulting job.”
“Yes. A very quick, easy consult as it turned out. And since I knew from the start it would be simple I didn’t do all of my usual due diligence ahead of time. If I had, I would have known that Jill worked there, that she was the CFO and I’d have to work alongside her this week. It was just as big of a shock for her as it was for me when we saw each other on Monday,” added Max.
Finn grinned, visibly relishing Max’s discomfort with this type of discussion. “And I’ll just bet that when you looked into her eyes again it hit you like a ton of bricks, Maxwell - the fact that you were in love with this woman all along, and that you regretted being stupid enough to walk out on her four years ago.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself, Finley,” replied Max quietly.
“So what exactly is the problem, Max?” asked Aubrey gently. “Have you spoken to Jill, told her how you feel?”
“No. For several reasons. The first of which is that I highly doubt she still has feelings for me, after what I put her through in Settle. She was downright hostile when we first saw each other again, though she’s been considerably more civil since. The second reason is her boyfriend, the one I met yesterday, and who went out of his way to make sure I knew Jill was already spoken for.”
Finn’s grin had evolved into laughter, and Max cursed his friend’s obvious enjoyment of the situation. “Oh, I would have paid good money to see that in action! Knowing you, Max, I’m guessing you had to restrain yourself from slugging the smug bastard.”
“It was more a case of wanting to snap his neck in two,” retorted Max.
“I’d be willing to bet,” remarked Delilah softly, “that your Jill still has feelings for you, Max. From the little you told me about your time together in Seattle, it certainly sounded like she really loved you. And that sort of love doesn’t just disappear over time, even if it’s been four years. Has she given you any indication at all, even a little bit, that she still cares for you? That she’s still attracted to you?”
“It’s possible,” acknowledged Max. “Today, in fact, before her boyfriend barged into her office and interrupted us, I could have sworn she was about to ask me something personal. About what I told her the other night.”
“And what did you tell her?” asked Jordan.
Max sat up a little straighter in his chair. “That leaving her was the only thing I’ve ever regretted doing in my entire life. And that I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since the last night I spent with her.”
Aubrey’s eyes widened in surprise. “And how did Jill react when you said those things?”
Max gave her a half-smile. “Rather like you did just now - surprise, shock, maybe a bit of alarm. But the subject didn’t come up again until today. At least I’m almost positive she was going to ask me about it. And now I’m afraid it’s much too late to continue our discussion, given that I’ll be finishing up the assignment at her office on Monday.”
“Of course it’s not too late, you stupid ass,” declared Finn. “Jesus, Max, just tell the girl how you feel. I mean, you’re telling all of us right now. Is it going to be that much tougher to find the nerve to say the words to Jill?”
“That’s only part of it. Because even if I do get the opportunity to admit my feelings for her, it’s all going to be for naught when she starts probing into my past. Once she learns about certain things I’ve done, the way I grew up, my family - well, Jill’s a gentle soul. Raised by her very strict, very religious grandmother in the deep South. She was - innocent when I first met her. A virgin. And someone who’s as pure and lovely and just plain good as she is deserves far, far better than someone like me,” stated Max sadly.
“What a bunch of bullshit,” retorted Delilah angrily, her dark eyes practically throwing sparks. “What do you mean - someone like you, Max? You mean someone who’s handsome and smart as hell and successful? Someone who women practically throw themselves at and yet you look past them like they don’t even exist? Someone who’s loyal to his friends, a real gentleman to their girlfriends, and one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. You know,” she added with a wink, “when I first met you, I thought long and hard about asking you out on a date. After all, you were much more my type than Finn was.”
“Hey!” objected Finn, tossing a throw pillow at her. “I’m right here you know, Delilah. And I have feelings, too.”
Delilah laughed wickedly. “Aw, did I hurt your tender little feelings, baby? I’m sorry.” She reached over and kissed Finn on the cheek. “Besides, you know I’m just teasing. As far as Max is concerned, though, I meant every word.” She waggled a scarlet tipped finger at him. “Why are you being so hard on yourself? Or think that you’re so unlovable? We all love you, Max, even if Finn and Jordan might think they’re too macho to admit it. And I have no idea what these so-called horrible things in your past that you keep mentioning are, but they must have happened before you met these two in college. So you were what - younger than eighteen? Geez, what did you do - cheat on a test or something? Talk back to one of your teachers?”
“Of course not,” replied Max. “I’ve never cheated on a test in my life, have never needed to. And I always, always respected my teachers. However, I did kill a man when I was thirteen years old. Or at least I was responsible for his death. And that’s just one of the terrible things I’m afraid to admit to Jill - just one of the terrible things I’ve never dared to tell Jordan and Finn all these years for fear they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. Something, by the way, that I’m still terrified of even as we speak.”
The sudden silence in the room was not unexpected after a bombshell like the one Max had just let drop. But while he would have certainly expected shock, disbelief, and confusion on the faces of his friends, he had also dreaded seeing revolt, fear, and anger there as well. So it was with a profound sense of relief that he noted the complete absence of any of those less desirable reactions from his friends.
“Not to repeat something Delilah just said a few minutes ago,” commented Jordan, the first to break the uncomfortable silence, “but what a bunch of utter bullshit, Max. I’ve known you for more than twenty years, and there is no way you would have ever been capable of something as extreme as murder - whether it was accidental or not. So why don’t you tell us what really happened, all the facts, and let your best friends be the judge?”
Max looked around the room, sighing in resignation when he saw all four of his friends gazing at him expectantly. If it was, in fact, to be a night of baring his soul, he decided they might as well hear the whole ugly, sordid tale.
“I’ve never tried to hide the fact that my childhood in England was very far from a happy one,” he began haltingly. “Or tried to pretend that I came from a wealthy family. But I’m not sure any of you can begin to imagine just how unhappy things were for me. Or that rather than being wealthy, we mostly lived on government assistance.”
He told them all of it then - how he’d barely known his father, a man prone to violence and who had lived a life of crime - armed robberies, drug dealing, physical altercations. How his father had beaten and stabbed another man to death, had been convicted to a life term in prison, and then murdered another inmate before suffering the same fate. The tales about his alcoholic, drug-addicted mother were just as dreadful in their own ways - how she’d slept with a steady parade of men for money or to get a fix, how she had drifted from one menial, low-paying
job to the next, barely making ends meet. He recalled the increasingly rundown, undesirable places they had lived, the moldy, drafty flats and tiny apartments located in grim factory towns and in the most crime-ridden, downtrodden neighborhoods. He talked about how difficult it had been as he’d grown into adolescence to resist the pressure to join a local gang, and how on occasion he’d succumbed to peer pressure and shoplifted or participated in some other sort of mischief or mayhem. And he recalled how much he’d hated living in northern England, how hard he’d devoted himself to his studies, determined to escape that dreary lifestyle, go to university, and make something of his life.
When his voice began to crack a little, whether from overuse or pent-up emotion, Delilah quietly left the room for a few moments only to return with a bottle of water for him which he accepted gratefully. After taking a few sips, Max continued on with his tale.
“I arrived home earlier than expected from school one day - the forecast was calling for blizzard conditions and they cancelled classes - to hear my mother screaming from our apartment,” he recounted stoically. “When I got inside it was to find her revolting scum of a boyfriend beating the crap out of her. Robby, his name was, and he was a nasty little bastard, a low level thug and drug dealer - her drug dealer. Mum had helped herself to some of his stash, and when he found out he went ballistic. She was higher than a kite, too out of it to defend herself, even though he was a skinny little shit. I didn’t think twice, just grabbed my cricket bat, and started wailing on the bastard. I don’t know how long I would have kept hitting him, maybe even after he’d fallen to the ground and stopped moving. I was furious, so enraged I couldn’t think or see or hear. And after the first few hits, it stopped being about defending my mother. I forgot all about her, you see, forgot that she was even in the room. Instead, I kept smacking the little prick because I enjoyed it, because it gave me such immense satisfaction to be inflicting pain on someone like him who deserved it. I remember seeing the blood start to pour from his nose, then his mouth, and the smell of it only made me want to hit him harder. When I felt one of his ribs crack, I wanted to yell with triumph. And I would have kept on hitting him, would have beaten him to death, if my mother hadn’t tried to pull me off the little shit. Even after he’d nearly beaten her unconscious, he was the one she tried to defend instead of her own son.”
The One Real Regret Page 35