Too Hot to Touch

by Louisa Edwards

  Taking comfort in the way his body cradled hers, Jules took in the biggest breath she could manage, and let it go.

  “When I was seventeen,” she started, “my mother got a new boyfriend.”

  By the sudden stillness of Max’s form, Jules knew he’d figured out where this was going.

  “That was nothing unusual, of course,” she continued, watching Max’s left ear again. Fascinating, that ear. There was a tiny brown birthmark dotting the lobe, right where an earring would sit if he had a piercing.

  “So what was different about this guy?” Max asked, his tone careful.

  “Nothing, at first.” Jules let herself remember him. Oliver. “He was nicer than some. More interested in me, asking me about school and softball and stuff. And he was around a lot. He moved in, which usually was the beginning of the end for my mom’s relationships, but Oliver lasted. My mom really thought he was going to ask her to marry him. She seemed happy, but kind of nervous all the time, like she was afraid to put a foot wrong.”

  “What was she afraid of?” Trust Max to cut to the heart of it. Jules darted a glance at his face, dreading to see pity, but his eyes were calm and gentle. He brushed the hair back from her temples, and that light touch was enough to help her go on.

  “Oliver was … a perfectionist. Everything had to be just so, from the table setting at dinner to Mom’s clothes. Me. I got pretty good grades, but anything lower than an A meant a lecture from Oliver, and my mom got extra jumpy for a few days, and it wasn’t worth the hassle. So I studied hard, and I kept out of his way as much as possible so he wouldn’t try to tell me how to dress, and things were mostly okay.” She swallowed. “Until this one time … I guess I’d gotten tired of it, all the comments about my ratty jeans and baggy shirts, and I went out and spent my allowance on a dress. It was yellow. There were flowers on it, little pink ones, and it had no sleeves, just those little skinny shoulder straps. It was a summer dress, on sale.”

  Jules swallowed hard, remembering how embarrassed she’d been, admitting to the Macy’s sales clerk that she didn’t know what size she wore.

  “What happened?”

  “I wore it home, just sort of trying it out. My plan was to wear it to school the next Monday. There was a guy I liked—God, I don’t even remember that boy’s name—and the winter formal was coming up, and whatever. I wanted to try being a girl, see how it felt. See what my mom said, maybe get her to help me with some makeup. But when I got back to the apartment, she wasn’t there. But Oliver was.”

  Tension strung wires through Max’s muscles. “Did he hit you?”

  His voice was deep and low enough, snarly enough, that it actually scared her for a second. “What? No. No, he liked it. The way I looked. He said…” Jules swallowed, not sure she could get this next part out without choking on the words.

  “It’s okay. Just tell me.”

  Jules shook her head, but opened her mouth. “I always knew you could be pretty. That’s what he said. And he … touched my shoulder, where it was bare. I tried to pull away, but he got a good grip on me, I couldn’t move, and he kept saying I wanted it, I must want it, or I wouldn’t have dressed up for him, wouldn’t have tried to be pretty for him.”

  “Jules,” Max said, voice breaking. “Oh my God. Tell me he didn’t—”

  “He didn’t have the chance,” she assured him, working to get her breathing under control. “Mom came in and saw us, and he let me go.”

  Max didn’t relax against her, though. Jules could feel the brittle stillness of his body along hers. “The night you left home … I heard you and my dad talking about it. I know about the black eye.”

  Shame filled Jules’s head like boiling water in a teakettle. “Okay, so you know about that. But it wasn’t Oliver. He was horrible, I hated him, God, how I hated him—but he didn’t hit me.”

  “Then who—”

  Jules forced herself to lift her chin and meet Max’s fierce gaze. “It was my mom,” she said.

  Chapter 31

  Max had never been incapacitated by pure, red-hot rage before. He didn’t exactly enjoy the sensation.

  Before he could unlock his tongue, Jules took up the story again.

  “It was an accident. I think it was an accident; she’d never hit me like that before. But when she came in, Oliver started saying all this shit, right away, telling her how I’d come on to him, flirted with him. And there I was in a dress, which I never wore, and I was all shaken up, so I didn’t defend myself right away. It’s kind of a blur, actually, but somewhere in the middle of it, Oliver took off, and Mom flipped.”

  So many puzzle pieces were flying at Max, it was as if someone had shaken up the Jules Cavanaugh puzzle box and dumped it out on his head.

  “Every time he took off, she’d get upset—I guess she was worried this time he wouldn’t come back. She was always worried about that with her boyfriends, probably because of my dad. Who, you know, didn’t come back.”

  “Jules,” he said, trying to make sense of the chaotic emotions pummeling him.

  “Sorry, I’m rambling,” she said with a little laugh. “Anyway, so Mom’s mad. And she’s telling me to stop crying, yelling about the dress, and the stuff Oliver said. I tried to tell her, no, it wasn’t me, it was him. That he touched me and said I was pretty, but I didn’t want him to, and Mom’s hand flew up out of nowhere, caught me right on the cheekbone, wham. We were both shocked, I think, her as much as me. And I said—”

  Jules stopped, her throat working, and Max slid to the side, turning her so that he could enfold her fully in his arms. She tucked her head against his neck, hiding there for a long moment during which Max imagined all the horrible ways this story might end. He was pretty sure it was going to break his heart, and he would’ve done anything to save Jules the pain of reliving it—but she needed to get this poison out of herself and let it go.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Just say it.”

  “I told her. I told her that I hated her, and I’d never forgive her, and … And that she deserved to be alone. And she told me to get out, and not come back until I learned some manners. So I left.”

  Max concentrated on breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. Winter formal, she’d said. It would’ve been bitterly cold, maybe snowing. She’d been seventeen. His mind shied away from images of exactly what could happen to a seventeen-year-old girl, alone on the streets of New York at night.

  “Jules. God. She should’ve believed you. She should’ve protected you. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. And I’m so incredibly glad you found your way to my parents’ house.”

  “All I could think to do was to get to Danny. I don’t know what I expected him to do—but I certainly never expected your family to take me in like that. And to let me stay. It was … I’m still awed by the generosity of it. I mean, that’s how your parents are, I know that. They would’ve done the same for any kid who needed help.”

  Max pulled back far enough to peer down into her flushed face. “Bullshit,” he said, as firmly as he could.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I said that’s a load of crap. Yeah, my parents are good people, but they’re not running a halfway house out of their apartment. Sure, they’d let people crash on their couch for a night or two, help out where they could—but none of those people ever became part of the family. My parents love you as much as they love Danny and me.” With a rueful smile, Max rested his forehead against hers. “Hell, maybe more than me, at this point. And I gotta be honest, that bothered me when I first came back. As if you’d taken my place in the family, or something stupid like that.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I could tell you felt that way. But that’s really not true—your parents are crazy about you. I could never get in the way of that, and I wouldn’t want to.”

  “I know,” he echoed her, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “You were just making the best of a bad, shitty turn of the wheel. You deserved better than you got fr
om your mother.”

  Tilting her head back, offering her throat to his searching mouth, Jules murmured, “Maybe I did. But it took two of us to get into that situation. I never talked to her, not really, not about what was going on in my head. And honestly … I’m just sick of being pissed about it. It happened. She is who she is, she’s never going to change. I need to accept that—especially since, at the core of everything, it’s what I always wished she’d do for me. Just accept me the way I am.”

  Max laid a line of kisses from her chin to her ear. “That’s incredibly forgiving. And very Zen.”

  “You must be rubbing off on me.”

  He gave a suggestive little shove of his hips that made her gasp. “Not yet,” he leered, “but give me a minute.”

  Jules thwapped him on the arm, but he noticed she also threw one leg over his thigh, aligning them even more closely. “I meant, you inspired me. Well, you and Gus. Watching the two of you finally get over yourselves and listen to each other, and how much lighter you both looked, after. It made me realize how heavy all this Mom stuff I’ve been lugging around is. And how tired I am of it.”

  Max stilled. She was serious. “You know,” he said carefully, wanting to get this right. “Forgiveness is a funny thing. We act like it has to be earned, as if there are a certain number of hoops someone can jump through to make us forget that they hurt us. But forgiveness can’t be earned. It can only be given freely, as a gift.”

  Her beautiful, deep amber eyes took on a faraway look. “Yeah,” she said, “but who’s the gift for, really? Because when it comes down to it, my mother might never understand the ways she’s hurt me—and that’s okay. Do I really need to make sure she has the itemized list before I forgive her? That sounds more like punishment, to me. For both of us.”

  “It took me years of soul-searching to figure that out,” Max said, his heart swelling. “And it’s a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over. But you’re right. Forgiveness isn’t about evening the score or granting pardon. It’s a gift you give yourself—the gift of letting go and moving forward.”

  “I want that,” Jules said, eyes shining. “We’re going to be chosen as the East Coast team. I know it. And with the competition and the restaurant and everything, God, I haven’t been this excited about the future in my whole life. I want to walk into it completely free and unencumbered by the past.”

  It took everything Max had not to betray the pang that gave him with sudden stillness or tension. She wanted to be free? Did that mean free of everything, including Max?

  A knock on door startled them out of their embrace.

  “Yeah?” Max called.

  “Win’s little friend, that assistant dude came back.” It was Danny. “He gave us a heads-up that the judges are calling everyone to the stage in about fifteen minutes. So put your pants back on.”

  “Shut up,” Jules and Max yelled in unison, then looked at each other and laughed.

  “So,” Max said, reluctantly hauling his tired body up from the haven of the bed. “Are you going to forgive your mom?”

  She raked her fingers through her hair, disordering it worse than usual. “I … guess I am. I mean, I have. What, is there some special ceremony or ritual I’m supposed to perform?”

  “Rituals can be helpful,” Max said, holding the bedroom door open for her. “But no. I think as long as you feel it in your heart, you’ve done the hard work already.”

  * * *

  Max was right about one thing, Jules thought. Well, a lot of things, as it turned out, but he was really right when he said that feeling something and accepting it was the hardest part.

  The whole team, including Gus and Nina, trooped down the hotel hallway together, jittering and excited as they walked toward their fate.

  Jules found herself caught, balanced on the edge of her own emotions as precariously as on the edge of her favorite knife. On the one side, there was the anticipation and thrill of the Rising Star Chef competition, and everything that competing in it would mean to her adopted family.

  On the other side, there was Max, and the unassailable fact that once they found out whether or not they’d be representing the East Coast, he’d leave. And there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  At least—there was nothing she was willing to do, to take away his chance of studying with Vincenzo Cotto.

  Beside her, Max bumped her shoulder with his, their hands sliding together as warmly and naturally as if they were magnetized to find each other.

  Max glanced over at her. “You nervous?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I know there’s no such thing as a lock—we made some mistakes. I made some mistakes, that maple syrup. Shit.” It made her mad all over again, thinking about that. She’d known, as she reached for the bottle, that it was a strong, love-it-or-hate-it flavor, and there was a danger of it overpowering the delicate balance of the salty duck confit and the sweet-tart pickled plums.

  But Jules happened to love maple syrup, so she’d used it anyway. And of course, it was the one thing Claire Durand had picked on to critique.

  Max squeezed her fingers tight and said, “Hey. I tasted your dish, and I thought it was perfect. Did you like it?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “That’s what matters. That’s all you can do. Cook to your own tastes, dress how you want, live the life you choose—it’s the only way to be happy.”

  She stopped walking so abruptly that her hand tore away from his, and he looked back over his shoulder at her, surprised.

  Jules was surprised, too. She’d been through some emotional ups and downs in the past few weeks, but nothing had walloped her in the head quite like that.

  “You’re right,” she heard herself say. “That dish was good the way it was.”

  “Maybe not perfect by everyone’s standards.” He smiled, one of those warm, wonderful ones that turned him from simply handsome to something out of a fairy tale or a myth, a piece of sacred art come to life. “But perfectly you.”

  Jules smiled back, her heart swelling with emotion, pounding her blood through her veins.

  With a swift check of the rest of their troop’s progress up the hall, Max came back to Jules and stood in front of her, reaching out to take her hands in his. Time seemed to slow down, everything around her crystallizing into a still, silent moment, as if someone had paused the movie of her life to capture this scene.

  Max’s smile faded, a serious, intense look she’d never seen before entering his blue eyes.

  “Jules. I’ve been thinking. With Dad’s health and the competition, and everything—the state of the restaurant … and you. God, you most of all.”

  All the breath left her body. She barely managed to croak out, “What are you saying?”

  He gave a hoarse chuckle. “I’m not making any sense. Sorry. This is hard.” Visibly centering himself, pulling his shoulders straight and lifting his chin, Max said, “Jules. No matter what the judges say—I’m not going to Italy. I’m going to stay here. With you.”

  For one heartbreaking instant, pure euphoria rushed through Jules’s body, nearly lifting her off her feet. Max wanted to stay! With her!

  He wanted to … give up his dream. The dream of Italy, the dream he’d worked toward for years. The way he’d talked about it, the longing in his voice—she couldn’t forget that.

  The temptation was pure torture.

  But Jules had watched her mother traipse down the road of self-delusion a hundred times, and there was nothing at the end of it but resentment, loneliness, and an empty feeling of failure.

  She wouldn’t wish that on Max, or on herself.

  Max lived life with such free-spirited joy. The people he’d met all over the world, the things they’d taught him—his boundless curiosity and adventurous nature were such integral parts of him.

  If he lost that thirst for adventure, would he even be the person she loved anymore?

  And if she let him stay, knowing that deep down he regretted the loss of his dreams, it wou
ld kill her.

  Jules closed her eyes, unable to bear the tentative hope lighting Max’s handsome face. “Thank you, Max. But it’s not necessary.”

  He dropped her hands, leaving a cold chill behind. “What?”

  “You don’t need to stay here for me. I love that you offered—it means a lot to me.”

  Max made a sound, as if someone had elbowed him hard right in the gut. Worried, Jules forced her eyes open. He was staring at her, blank and expectant, clearly waiting for something more.

  She plastered on a smile, and searched for the right words, the words that would set Max free. “Whatever happens out there, I’m glad I got the chance to know you. It sounds so lame and corny, but I’ve learned a lot from you. About myself, and the kind of life I want to have. And if we get the chance to continue on in the competition, I’ll take what you said with me, and I know it’ll help me get the team all the way to the finals. And if we get cut today, I want you to know, I’ll take care of them. Your parents, and Danny, and the boys. You won’t have to worry about us, because we’ll be okay.”

  Max’s face was still, his eyes dark and unreadable in the soft lighting of the hotel hallway. “So I can leave town with a clear conscience, is what you’re saying. There’s nothing holding me here.”

  The word “nothing” slid between Jules’s ribs with the lethal precision of a long, thin metal skewer, puncturing her swollen heart and making it bleed. “That’s what I’m saying. You’re good to go,” she managed, finally allowing herself to drop her gaze.

  She looked down at her chest and was vaguely surprised to see the unblemished white expanse of her chef ’s jacket. It seemed like it should’ve been soaked in red.

  “Come on, you two!” Nina called down the hall. The others had made it all the way to the elevator banks, and were holding the doors open, waiting for Max and Jules, to the accompaniment of a loud, buzzing sound.