Max tried to convince herself that it was because she had a migraine still. But it has lessened as the day progressed—her migraines from too much wine only ever lasted about three days. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t want to go because her new client, the woman who wanted her wedding invitations done by Max, might call. But maybe she’d never call. Maybe she’d re-thought the idea of having hand-made wedding invitations and maybe she hadn’t really been all that impressed by them after all.
But, deep down, Max knew the real reason she didn’t want to go to dinner with Jo.
It was because guilt was eating her alive.
It wasn’t rational, this fact that guilt was eating her alive. It’s not as if she’d done anything with Fiona. She hadn’t, and she wouldn’t. Not ever. So what that she was attracted to Fiona? Desperately attracted to Fiona? It didn’t matter. Jo’s friendship was always what came first, an entire lifetime of that precious friendship. That was what really mattered. Not some infatuation with a woman that would surely run its course and be over with soon enough.
Even though Max clung to that hope, she knew the truth of it: Max never had infatuations. And she was much too old for a crush. She knew better. This wasn’t an infatuation.
How could she go to dinner with Jo when she was harboring this great, terrible secret from her? Amazing, wonderful Jo who only ever supported her, wanted what was best for her? And here was Max, wishing secretly that she’d been the one to meet Fiona first. Secretly wishing, in the darkest moments, that Fiona would realize that she’d fallen for Max, not Jo. Secretly wishing that she would just find the courage to step forward and kiss Fiona, hold her tight around the waist, press her to Max’s form with unyielding strength as Fiona curved against her with unyielding reciprocity.
It was terrible, all of this, and Jo deserved so much better.
By quitting time, Max had almost made herself sick with that guilt, her stomach churning around the quarts of black coffee she’d consumed that day. She hadn’t even been able to eat anything. Going to dinner with Jo was almost unthinkable.
But Max was going to do it anyway.
Because Jo deserved better.
Max was already trotting down her office building’s concrete steps, her jean jacket wrapped tightly around her to keep out the chill of the evening, that familiar weight from working at her dead-end, soulless job lifting away from her when her phone made its tinny ring tone in her purse. She dug it out from beneath her wallet and mini-umbrella and glanced down at the caller ID.
It was Jo.
“Hey, Jo, whadya know?” she joked as she answered the phone, pressing it to her ear as she made her way toward her car, its hood twinkling with frost in the parking lot. She kept her voice purposefully bright.
“I’m so sorry to do this to you, Max, but I’ve got a business meeting tonight, and I can’t do dinner—I am so sorry,” sighed Jo from the other end of the phone. Her voice was energetic and she talked a little too fast. Jo was always energetic. “Look, I know this is extremely last minute, but since we were going to do dinner anyway…Fiona got a bit of bad news today, and since I have my hands tied at work, and she could really use a friendly face right now, I was wondering if you’d take her out to dinner for me? To be perfectly honest, I was going to call to cancel on you to take her to dinner and try and cheer her up, but I really can’t all around.” Max heard papers being shuffled on the other end of the phone, and a beeping sound. “Is that okay? Would you do that for me? I’d owe you so big, Maxie.”
The entire world seemed to be spinning. Really? Jo wanted Max to take Fiona out to dinner instead of her. A sick feeling twisted in Max’s gut. She should just say no. She should. She should know better.
“What bit of bad news?” Max managed, shoving her other hand into her pocket and fishing around for her car keys.
“Well, she got a big order from some lady this morning for like three hundred cupcakes for an upcoming wedding. Which is great! But then her assistant quit today very unexpectedly, so she’s got no one but herself who can do the work, and she’s kind of bummed, because three hundred cupcakes for a wedding is just a ton of work, you know? She could really use some cheering up…” The beeping intensified, and Jo’s voice cut out. “I’m sorry, Max, I have to go—do you have Fiona’s number? Will you help me out?”
“Yes,” said Max woodenly, clinging to the phone like it was the tenuous tether that kept her from falling down a very steep gorge. “I’ll help you out. What’s her number?” she said then, rolling her eyes. She had Fiona’s number. But it felt strange to think Jo would know she’d had it.
Why was she acting like she was doing something wrong? She hadn’t done anything wrong. She wouldn’t do anything wrong.
Still, the guilt twisted in her stomach, sick and painful.
Jo gave the number, then sighed with relief. “You are just the best. I owe you drinks. Love you, kid!” And she hung up the phone.
Max stood for a long moment with the phone still pressed to her ear. It was like some kind of sick joke, really. If Jo only knew how Max felt about Fiona, she would never have asked Max to take her girlfriend out to dinner. It was, sadistically, almost like a real date.
But Jo never could know how Max felt about Fiona, because it would break her heart. And Max wasn’t going to do a single thing about how she felt for Fiona. So it didn’t matter.
If she kept repeating it to herself, maybe it would become true. It didn’t matter how Max felt about Fiona. None of this mattered. What mattered right now was that Max’s best friend had asked Max for a favor. And what mattered was that Fiona was having a very bad day and needed some good hours around good company.
And Max could do that. She could do both of these things.
And how she felt about Fiona really didn’t need to come into this at all.
She dialed Fiona’s number with a shaking hand, pressing the phone to her ear again as it began to ring. Max opened her car door and sat down in the driver’s seat as Fiona picked up the phone.
“Hello, Florabella Cupcakes,” she said. She sounded so subdued, that—for a moment—Max would have wondered if she’d dialed the wrong number if Fiona hadn’t announced the cupcake shop.
“Fiona? It’s Max.”
“Oh!” The warmth and brightness came back into her voice, but it couldn’t mask the tiredness. “Hey, Max…”
“Want to meet for dinner at the Malibu?” said Max, grimacing as she tried to keep her words light. “I’ve been given a confidential mission from Jo to make your day a little better. She would do it herself,” she added hastily, “but she has a meeting she has to do, important business, so…”
The silence dragged out between them. Did Fiona sense how strange this was, too? But no. Max could hear the smile in her voice as Fiona said: “that’d be great. I’ll see you there in ten?”
“Yeah,” said Max. They exchanged farewells, and then Max was driving toward the Malibu down the blessedly traffic-free streets, whistling to herself. She was going to see Fiona today. That alone made her headache all but disappear, made energy and happiness surge through her body. She was going to see Fiona who smiled with such warmth when she looked at Max. Fiona, who was more beautiful than…
Max stopped whistling, turned on the radio and turned up the classic rock station as loud as it would go. Max needed to stop thinking, stop feeling. She was going to dinner with a friend.
That was it.
But when she pulled up into her usual parking space on the street across from the Malibu, when she saw Fiona pull up behind her in a slightly battered green Jeep, stepping down and out of her vehicle with a smile that stretched from ear to ear, it was all Max could do to stop herself from stepping forward to embrace Fiona.
But she didn’t have to. Because Fiona trotted up to her in her squishy blue winter jacket, and threw her arms around Max, squeezing her tightly.
Her heady perfume was all Max could smell, that beautiful fragrance of vanilla and spicy flow
ers. It seemed to follow Fiona as the woman glanced up at Max with a smile. The smile faltered for just a beat, and then Fiona was stepping away, tugging down on her jacket and straightening it, running a mitten over her hat. “I’m sorry I’m a little late,” she said quickly.
“You’re not late,” said Max, swallowing, and then she gestured toward the diner. “Shall we?”
Fiona glanced up at her, eyes bright and sparking and her face completely unreadable. They were standing close. Much too close, Max realized, as she took a step back and away from Fiona, heading toward the Malibu, her hands deep in her pockets to keep her from reaching out in the space between them to brush her fingers over Fiona’s cheek, to brush away a stray red curl that had sneaked out from beneath the brim of her hat.
Inside, the diner was warm and smelled of steak and fried potatoes. Max led the way to the booth in the back, hanging her coat on the traditional peg on the wall, next to the framed and signed picture of Elvis. She took Fiona’s coat as she shrugged out of it, to hang it up next to the King, too.
Max’s favorite waitress, Tess, wandered over, her hands on her hips and chewing gum loudly. Her nametag, pinned to her lapel, was slanted crazily sideways, and the cap that read “The Malibu!” was on backwards. It must have been a rough Monday. Tess grinned and winked at Fiona. “Keep coming here and I’ll memorize your order, doll,” she promised her. “The usual for you, sweetheart?” she asked Max.
“Yes, please, Tess,” said Max with a grin. Fiona ordered her julienne salad again, and Tess nodded, scribbling it down and scurrying away as a group of men came through the door, stomping the ice off of their shoes on the rug loudly as they laughed at a muffled joke Max couldn’t quite make out, and made a beeline for the counter and the unoccupied stools.
“So tell me about what happened today,” said Max, spreading her hands on the tabletop and leaning forward, brows knit together in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay, just a little frazzled,” said Fiona, leaning back in the booth and sighing. She was wearing a green sweater today, with a bit of turtleneck peering out from underneath it, jeans, and long riding boots. Her green eyes flashed as she shook her head and tucked a stray red curl behind her ear. “Stella had just started with me. She was my assistant. I did interviews for weeks to find just the right assistant, because she was going to allow me to take on more wedding orders. Wedding orders are the only way I can run a cupcake shop and make a consistently high profit. And I need the cupcake shop,” she said, tapping the tabletop with a finger, “for consistent, steady income, because no wedding is a sure thing. You can’t predict when someone will come to you, asking for a gigantic wedding cake. And I can’t just do the cupcake shop, because that won’t be enough income by itself. And I took that massive order from that woman this morning…” Fiona sighed again and rested her head back against the top of her booth’s seat. “Basically, I’m screwed,” she moaned, closing her eyes.
“Fiona, I’m so sorry,” said Max, her chest tight. She wished so much that there was something she could do to ease things for Fiona. The few short times she’d seen Fiona, Fiona had seemed to be the type of person who always had everything together, competent to the nth degree. And she still definitely had things together, but this was all far too much for any one person. Even if that one person was amazing.
Max felt herself begin to blush, and stared fixedly down at the tabletop beneath her hands. She clasped her fingers together, breathed out as Tess brought over her coke and Fiona’s decaf coffee. After Tess bustled away again, Max dared a glance at Fiona across the table. Fiona had curled her long fingers around the steaming cup of coffee and was watching Max, her head to the side, considering her. She wasn’t looking at Max’s eyes, but at her body, her gaze raking over her chest, her arms, her waist and shoulders. Max cleared her throat and Fiona gazed back up into her eyes, coloring a little, herself.
There was no mistaking it that time. Right? Absolutely, positively, Fiona had been checking her out. She must have been. But maybe Max’s imagination was just running away with her again. Max sighed out, took a sip of coke, the icy liquid making her shiver a little as she swallowed.
“That was amazing of you this morning, showing my card to that client,” said Max, then. “I just wanted to thank you for that. I…not many people know that I make cards. It’s because it’s kind of a ridiculous hobby, really,” said Max, looking at the table when she said it. “It just meant a lot to me is all,” she finished feebly.
“Your work is amazing,” said Fiona, reaching across the table. She took Max’s hand tentatively, gently, squeezing it after a long moment where they stared at one another. Fiona’s eyes were bright and soft in the dim light of the diner. “You deserve to have people know about your work, Max,” she said then, and her warm fingers left Max’s hand.
Max felt an ache begin to grow within her. To distract herself from it, she cleared her throat. “You said you interviewed a lot of people for the position of your assistant. Were there others that made the cut, just a little less qualified or something than the girl who just left? Someone you could call back and offer the job to?”
“No. No one with experience. Everyone but Stella needed training, and I just don’t have time to do training right now and pay someone—I’m a little low on cash as it is,” said Fiona, leaning back in her booth with a sigh, her hands clasped over her stomach. She shrugged. “I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ll just have to work my tail feathers off. And eventually find an assistant, and in the mean time it’ll be a little more difficult than usual, but I’ll survive.” Her smile at Max was bright and warm, but it also belied the exhaustion Fiona must have felt. She looked so tired, a bone-weary kind of tired that Max knew only too well.
Max’s stomach tightened. She swallowed and took another sip of coke. She didn’t think, because if she thought, she knew she would realize that it was a foolish idea. A bad idea. An idea that no good could come of. But she was already saying it:
“Well…what if I helped you a little?”
Fiona glanced at her with wide eyes across the diner table, but Max just kept going. “I know you said that you needed someone with experience,” said Max quickly, holding up her hands as Fiona began to protest, “but I actually minored in college in culinary sciences. I wasn’t at the top of my class by any means,” she said, grinning wanly, “but I still minored in it, and I wasn’t terrible at it. And I’ve done a lot of baking, just not that much with cupcakes, and I’m a fast learner. And,” she said, taking a deep breath, “you wouldn’t have to pay me. You know, since it’s one friend helping another. I could help you out after work…” Max stopped talking, twisting her hands in her lap.
Fiona’s gaze across the table was intense, but almost impossible to read, her eyes hooded and dark. It’s as if she was thinking a million things at once, and for all Max knew, maybe she was. She seemed conflicted, and Max didn’t quite know why.
“Max, I can’t take your help,” said Fiona quietly, leaning across the table then, and taking up Max’s hand again in her own. She gave her a tight squeeze with her warm fingers before letting Max go just as quickly. Max’s heart felt so empty in that moment that she breathed out with a sigh. “It wouldn’t be right,” said Fiona hastily, shaking her head, curling her fingers again around her cup of coffee. “You have your own job, and I know they must ask a lot of you. I know call center work can be very exhausting. It’d be terrible for you to get out of work, and then work even harder by coming and helping me for free. That’s just…that’s just not something I’m willing to ask of you.”
“You wouldn’t be asking it,” said Max softly, her heart beating a little too fast. She licked her lips, kept her gaze locked with Fiona’s. “I’m offering it.”
Max, what are you doing? Max thought to herself as she took the straw in her coke and began to swirl it around in the glass. This was a terrible idea, and she knew that. She was already having so many conflicted feelings about Fiona when she rar
ely saw her. Seeing her every day? It was going to be a living hell of torture and needless heartache.
But Max kept coming back, stumbling back, really, to her firm, stubborn resolve that she loved Jo with all of her heart, and she would never betray that friendship. She meant it. She knew it’d be a terrible idea, completely rife with that heartache and self torture to be around Fiona all the time and be utterly unable to articulate to her Max’s feelings or wants or wishes. But at the same time, Fiona needed help. And Max cared for her, cared for her fiercely.
She would put up with that heartache for Fiona.
Fiona leaned back in her booth, arms crossed as she regarded Max with hooded eyes again as if she was measuring her, carefully studying her. Max was currently trying not to think about anything, but it wasn’t working. In her thoughts, she was doing her best to linger very much only on the fact that Fiona needed help, and Max was the perfect candidate to help her. She was not lingering on the fact that this was still, no matter how much help Fiona needed, a terrible idea with terrible consequences. Max closed her eyes, breathed out. How could it have terrible consequences if she simply did her job and helped Fiona as friends help one another?
But it was obvious that this was a bigger help than most friends who’ve been friends for years would ask of one another, let alone an acquaintance of a few days. Maybe Fiona was refusing the help because, like Max, she knew how inherently inappropriate this was. Fiona was Max’s best friend’s girlfriend. That was a fact that Max repeated over and over again in her head until she was sick of thinking it. But it couldn’t be repeated too many times, because when Max stopped repeating it to herself was when the other thoughts and feelings crept back to full attention from where she’d been trying, without any sort of success, to stifle them.
It wasn’t for completely altruistic reasons that Max wanted to help Fiona, no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that or tried to convince herself of that.
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