by Len Webster
She nodded. “Yeah, Ally invited me this morning. I hope that’s okay?”
It was Max’s turn to nod, ignoring the two who sat at the table with him. “It’s okay.”
But his heart and its needy beats.
That was not okay.
I don’t know.
Josie smiled at Rob and Ally who were staring at her. She had missed much of their conversation except for the part where Robert Moors had asked Maxwell Sheridan if he liked her. And Max’s answer had her heart dropping. It shouldn’t have, it made no sense to, but she felt horrible that he didn’t know.
She didn’t know the context.
If he liked her as more than a friend?
If he liked her as just a friend?
If he liked her just as his tutee?
If he liked her at all?
He doesn’t know.
“Hey, Rob,” Josie said, “Congratulations, World Champion.”
Rob was one of the first of Max’s group of friends she had met. He had been a fan of Clara’s peanut brittle cupcakes. It was one of the first cupcakes she had ever created. It was also the first time she had met Clara’s brother, Alex.
“Thanks, Josie,” Rob said.
Ally got out of her chair, walked over to her, and wrapped her arms around Josie. Then she whispered, “Did you hear everything?” in her ear.
When Ally had ended the hug, Josie shot her a tight smile and shook her head.
“I’ll give you the proper context later,” Ally said in a hushed tone.
“Okay,” Josie said, a little unsure if she even wanted to hear what Max really meant.
She had talked herself in and out of attending tonight. But Ally had asked her as a friend, and she couldn’t disappoint her. Josie had had enough of disappointing the people she cared about. It wasn’t just her desire to see Max again. He was only half the problem.
She felt like she imposed.
Like she wasn’t meant to infiltrate this group of tightknit friends.
She was the outsider.
Just as she was in her father’s life.
Ally stepped back and spun around. “Robbie, can you bring my drink inside? I let it go flat.”
Rob’s brows furrowed as he looked at his wife. Then his mouth made an ‘O’ shape, and he got out of his seat.
“You did, too,” Rob said in a very mechanical and fake voice. Robert Moors was certainly a better rower than he was an actor. In a matter of moments, Mr and Mrs Moors had hurried into the pub, leaving behind the bubbling lemonade drink on the table.
“What was that?” she wondered out loud.
Max chuckled. She took her eyes off the pub doors and to the man standing to her left. Maxwell Sheridan was a sight that she was sure took many women’s breaths away. The way he’d styled his brown hair back and the way his brown eyes softened was beautiful.
Yeah, if she wasn’t so sure she was attracted to him before, she was now.
The way he looked at her gave her hope that maybe he could be sure of his feelings towards her someday.
No one had ever been sure of her before.
And she was kidding herself if she thought Max would be that someone who would.
He was her friend.
Her tutor.
And she would not take advantage of him by letting her heart hope.
“That was marriage.”
His joke had her letting out a laugh.
“But they look happy,” she added.
Max nodded. “I think now they can be.”
“That sounds very ominous, Max.”
“I guess it did. You wanna sit for a bit? It’s loud in there.”
Just as she was about to agree, she felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her black skinny jeans. As she made her way towards Max’s table, she pulled her phone out to find a message from her absent father. Once she sat down in front of Max, she unlocked her phone and pulled up the message.
Ambassador for abandonment: Josephine, I’m sorry about dinner. I couldn’t leave the Chancellor in Canberra. I’ll be back in Australia in a few months. We can have dinner then. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
The phone almost slipped out of her hand and onto the table.
“If I need anything,” she mumbled.
She was insulted.
Completely and utterly insulted by her father’s message.
She shouldn’t have expected anything new.
Or anything that resembled a meaningful apology.
Her father had no idea how close she was to crumbling.
For now, until she could tell him what a useless father he was in person, a text message would have to do.
Josie: You’re not sorry. And I won’t have dinner with you the next time you decide to come back to Australia. To be honest, Jeff, I have a better relationship with your assistant than my supposed father. Don’t worry about me. I won’t be contacting you for anything. I’ve done all right without you for all these years. I can keep going.
“Everything okay?” Max asked.
Josie glanced up from her phone to see the concern on his face. Then she turned the screen over to show him. “It’s just my dad.”
Max had glared at the screen before a smirk plastered his face. “Ambassador for abandonment. Creative.”
Josie brought her phone back to her so she could see if her father would reply to her rather blunt message. “I would much rather a more explicit contact name for him, but from what I remember, the eight years we did have together were amazing.” She peeked up from her phone to offer him her apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I have father issues.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “I knew that from the moment I talked to you. And it’s okay to feel hurt, but you shouldn’t hold onto it forever, Josephine. Trust me, I know this person who did, and they became a horrible, vindictive person.”
Her lips parted, and all that came out of her was air.
She wanted to say more.
But she wasn’t sure what to say.
She was curious to know who this person was.
What they meant to Max.
Her father’s reply quickly squashed her need to ask questions.
Ambassador for abandonment: Josephine, that’s not fair. You know how important my job is. Someday you might understand.
Tears of anger filled her eyes.
She didn’t want to feel such powerful emotions.
But they had surprised her.
What her father didn’t understand was that her mother’s cancer was not only killing the woman who had loved her unconditionally, but it was also killing Josie inside. No matter how much love her mother gave her, Josie had never felt more alone in her life.
Josie: Every day for the past fourteen years, I have tried. You have no idea how much I have tried. But I don’t. I don’t understand. The minute you left for Berlin gave you no right to take your love and affections away from me. And you had no right to make me your third daughter when I was your first. I had a right to know them. To know my half-sisters. But you never gave me the chance.
Josie stared at the message.
It was too raw.
Too honest.
Her father wasn’t deserving of it.
So instead, Josie deleted the message and went for a shorter version.
Josie: For fourteen years, I have tried to. I will never understand you.
Once she had sent the message, she set her phone down and took a deep breath, satisfied that her reply would mean her father wouldn’t go seek out her mother. Her last message would have. And her father would go to extreme lengths to make sure her mother knew how frustrating Josie was. And she had to avoid it. From now on, she would think through her interactions with her father.
To spare her mother.
To protect her from her father knowing that his ex-wife had cancer.
“Josie,” Max said in a low voice.
For a moment, she had forgotten he was sitting across from her. Sh
e didn’t force a smile to assure him she was fine. She wasn’t. A lot of factors in her life were against her. And tonight, she thought she’d be able to forget her problems and celebrate with her friends. She had promised herself that she would try to be a better friend to Stevie and Ally. And she was already failing.
“I feel compelled to ask this, but are you okay?” He asked it so sincerely that her chest tightened.
No man had asked about her well-being quite like Maxwell Sheridan.
And it was a shame he was completely out of her league.
She wouldn’t even know how to make someone like him happy.
She couldn’t even make herself happy, let alone him.
But she could be his friend.
Josie would respect him and be someone he could depend on when and if he ever needed someone to listen to him.
Her smile was honest and grateful.
She appreciated whoever had her path cross Max’s.
She knew it was a mistake.
But she would never undervalue it or him.
So she would be honest with him.
“My best friend used to tell me that I was self-destructive,” she confessed. “She wasn’t wrong. I punish my father because it’s easier than admitting I’m not the perfect daughter he needs. He has two. And I guess I’ve just held this resentment because he’s this public figure who shares his perfect life with his perfect family, and I’m … I’m not important enough.”
Max reached out, wrapped his fingers around her phone, and set it next to him and away from her. That small distance was all she needed to feel. It was as if she could breathe a little easier. She had no idea how Max did it. He knew what she needed before she did.
Right now, it was just them.
She and Max.
No one else.
Friends.
Just two friends sitting across from each other.
“Why do you think you’re not important enough?” he asked.
The question stung her.
Sliced across her chest for salt to find.
A simple question that made it hard for her to breathe.
A question that exposed her black and blue.
“Because if I was, he would have been there,” she said in a small voice. “All those milestones in my life since I was eight—he should have been there for at least one of them. I thought when I graduated from high school, he’d be there. I thought when I got accepted into Deakin Law, he’d somehow congratulate me and be proud. I give him an inch, and he takes my heart every time. I’ve already saved all this disappointment for when—if—I graduate with my law degree and not find him there. There’s no point in inviting him when he’s only going to let me down.”
Josie watched as Max corrected his posture, back straight and shoulders squared. He took a deep breath and exhaled it seconds later. “Then invite me.”
She flinched. “What?”
“Invite me, Josie.”
“Why?”
“If I’m gonna tutor you, then you gotta let me watch you walk across that stage to get that bachelor,” he explained. His facial expression was all serious and taut.
“Max,” she began.
“No, Josie. You gotta trust that not every man will let you down. Some will, and some won’t. I’ve done a lot of that. I was that guy. I might still be that guy,” he confessed. Then he reached over and grasped her left hand in his. “I just don’t want to disappoint anyone anymore. And if you’d let me be honest for a single moment, you’d know you’re the person I’m scared to let down the most.”
She swallowed hard at his confession.
Is Max drunk?
He had to be. No sober guy had ever expressed his feelings towards her before. To admit he was scared to disappoint her. And she certainly didn’t think Maxwell Sheridan would. Truth be told, she didn’t think she deserved to be thought so highly of.
“Why me?” she asked, completely confused. “What have I done?”
Max squeezed her hand. Then he glanced down at where they joined, and a small smile spread across his lips. “You were the first person to ask me if I was okay in a long time,” he revealed. His focus remained on their hands. “You have no idea what really meeting you has done to my life. You bettered it. You made me look at myself and realise I made poor choices.”
“How did I do that?”
Finally, he lifted his chin so his brown eyes gazed into hers. “You gave me the chance to be your friend.”
Friend.
The ‘F’ word.
For a selfish moment, she was miserable at the word.
At the idea.
At the notion.
But it fled her quickly.
Because she was honoured to be his friend.
She would rather him as a friend and a tutor than as nothing at all.
Stella had been right.
Josie was self-destructive.
And she wouldn’t be if it meant she could be Max’s friend.
No more talk of her father.
Of all her worries.
Not when it hurt her and could hurt her mother.
“I have to go,” she whispered and pulled her hand free from Max’s. Suddenly, she felt hurt all over. She wasn’t sure why, but she did. But she knew she was the reason for this pain. For letting herself believe for one single moment that she could have been Max’s. She had read it so wrong. She let her fickle mind believe in insatiable fantasies. “I have work in the morning, and it’s getting late.”
Max pressed his lips into a fine line and picked up her phone. He held it out to her, and Josie took it from him. “You still want me to stop by tomorrow afternoon?”
To save herself, she should say no.
She didn’t want to let him down.
And she definitely didn’t want him to feel as if he had let her down.
But she knew all she could do to keep him in her life was to agree.
To pretend.
To make someone other than herself happy.
To make Maxwell Sheridan happy because she knew that no woman had treated him fairly. And she would be the first, but she knew the truth her heart hated to acknowledge.
She certainly wasn’t the last.
“Yeah, I still need you and the knowledge you have on contracts if I wanna pass this prerequisite class and finish this degree. I need contracts to be able to get into civil procedure and dispute resolution next semester.”
“Message me after you’ve finished work?” he asked, and the hope and excitement that twinkled in his eyes could have killed her.
So Josie nodded. “I’ll message you. Could you tell the others goodbye for me? I don’t want to disrupt the celebrations inside.”
“Sure thing, Josephine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I was Josephine.
Just not his Josephine.
He’s not my Napoléon.
And Max won’t be gifting me forever in his lifetime.
Opening the bakery on a Saturday morning wasn’t the same as it used to be. Clara Parker made Saturday tolerable. Josie would even come to work hungover and still managed to get through the shift, but now that Clara had moved to Boston, Josie was in charge of prepping the bakery and putting in the first batches of cupcakes.
She used to whine about how early she’d have to get up and be at the bakery. Making sure cupcakes were in the ovens by six a.m. used to be so dismal. But now, Josie had found herself in a routine. It kept her mind off all the other issues and hardships she faced. It meant three hours of being alone and busy before the rest of the Saturday crew began work. Josie was glad to walk into the store to find that she didn’t have to make a single batch for the morning’s service. Nadia and Taylor had spent last night making each mix for Josie to put into the ovens.
Just as the morning radio presenter told her that Melbourne would have a sunny day, the bell rang, and she glanced over at the door to find her new boss walking in with her sister-in-law or soon-to-be sister-in-law.
&nbs
p; “Morning, Josie,” Ally greeted as she began to pull off her orange woollen coat. Though it was now spring, it was still chilly in the morning.
“Morning,” she said, confused as to why they were both at the store so early. Josie picked up the next chair, flipped it, and then set it on the ground. “You both realise that it’s not even six in the morning, and you both have really hot significant others you could be with rather than here”—she raised her brow at them—“with me?”
Stevie Appleton covered her mouth with her hand and yawned. “Trust me, I know,” she mumbled. “The six o’clock thing, not the hot significant other thing. I love Julian, but after our trip to France and him meeting my mother, I need a day away from him.”
Josie laughed as she made her way to the next table and began to flip the chairs over. “So you decided to come here?”
“Ally, the new owner is … will be … who cares about technicalities at almost six in the morning? Anyway, my sister-in-law asked if I could help out. And since I haven’t seen you in forever, I thought why not?”
“Seriously?” Josie asked, relieved because Taylor had messaged her last night saying she wouldn’t be in.
Ally nodded. “Of course. My dad isn’t letting me do a whole lot of O’Connor Investments stuff since he wants me to sort out this new wedding. So my focus is on making sure this bakery is well looked after.”
“And …” Stevie added.
“OH! That’s right,” Ally said as she pulled an iPad from her bag. Then she held it up so Josie could see the device. “Clara wants to FaceTime if that’s okay with you.”
Josie smiled. “You’re my boss now. I do what you say.”
Ally grinned. “I say Stevie can make us some hot beverages. We’ll FaceTime with Clara while the cupcakes are in the oven. And when we’re done, we can all ice them together.”
There was a groan from Stevie. “I hate that coffee machine.”
“Fine,” Ally said as she handed her best friend the iPad. “You clear these chairs from the tables and get Clara on. I’ll get Josie to show me how to use it.”
“I agree to this plan.” Stevie then pulled her straight blonde hair into a ponytail and fastened it with the hair tie she had around her wrist. Then she frowned and pulled her phone from her jeans pocket. She sighed as she answered it. “Julian, go back to bed. No, I don’t care what I said about getting your jet lag under control. You’re undoubtedly and extremely hungover from last night.”