Brand New Man

by Weston Parker

  At one point I noticed Laura looking at me as I leaned back against one of the desks. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she shrugged.

  “I know that look. It wasn’t nothing.”

  She shrugged again and looked away to watch the kids tuck into their new desks. “This is all just really cool, Max. That’s all. It’s a great thing you’re doing.”

  Milly, one of my debuggers, stood up from her desk and pushed her glasses up onto her head. “Yeah Max. This is super cool.”

  “Thanks Mil,” I said.

  “I like your Christmas spirit,” Milly said, nudging me in the ribs as she came out from behind her desk and wandered off, presumably to the break room or kitchen.

  “Christmas has nothing to do with it,” I muttered.

  “Scrooge,” Laura said.

  I looked over at her. She had her arms crossed as she smirked at me, her full pink lips curled upward in the corners like she had a secret.

  I slipped my hands into my pockets. “I’m just telling the truth.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  My team of mentors was busy chatting up the kids Laura had brought in, already beginning orientation. I nodded at Laura and we ducked away, heading between the center row of desks and making our way out into the hallway.

  I stopped when we were standing outside the break room. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I brought some work with me,” she said, lifting up her oversized purse. “I was planning on finding a comfortable spot to sit down and get some things done. Is that alright?”

  “Of course. Take a seat wherever you like. There are a few empty desks out there you could use if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “Actually, I was planning to sit in the waiting room if that’s okay.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Sure.”

  “It’s just that I like the vibe in there.”

  “The vibe?” I chuckled.

  Her cheeks turned pink. “Yes. It’s soothing. And calm. It reminds me a bit of my office and I work better in a spot like that.”

  “Well, whatever floats your boat is fine with me. Just try not to drink too many of those coffees. That stuff will give you the jitters.”

  “Consider me warned,” Laura said, before turning to head down to the waiting room.

  “Hey,” I called after her.

  Laura stopped and looked back at me over her shoulder. Her lips were parted as if she was going to say something, or ask me something, but she remained silent, just staring at me with those curious big brown eyes of hers.

  “Can I take you out for lunch?”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  I held up my hands, showing her my palms in a surrendering position. “No funny business. Just lunch.”

  She licked her lips. “I’m not going to some fancy place that only serves snails.”

  “Escargot.”

  “Whatever.”

  I chuckled. “Alright. We won’t go anywhere like that. How about a place with burgers and fries on the menu?”

  Laura pursed her lips and her cheeks puckered. Then she nodded decisively. “Alright. Come and get me when you want to go.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 16

  Laura

  Max popped his head into the waiting room at exactly twelve o’clock. With a big grin he said, “Let’s eat.”

  I folded up my laptop and slid it into my bag before standing up and slinging it over my shoulder. Following him out of the office, we got into the elevator, which from this high up was a significant ride to ground level.

  More than enough time trapped in a confined space with Max Miller.

  The man smelled like Christmas, which I didn’t dare tell him. The scent of pine and sandalwood—and something else, something muskier—hung around him like an aura. I had to mentally check myself before I inhaled a deep breath standing just a foot away from him as we descended.

  Not only did he smell good, but he radiated confidence. He held himself with pride, and when he glanced over at me as I was looking up at him, he gave me a crooked smile. “Hungry?” I couldn’t be sure if he was clueless to the fact that I’d just been ogling him like a fool, or if he’d caught me and decided to spare me the humiliation of pointing it out.

  Knowing Max it was probably the former. If he’d known I was giving him a good once over he would have reveled in it for sure.

  “I’m a bit peckish, yes.”

  “Peckish?” He asked, cocking his head to the side.

  “Yes. Peckish. It just means hungry.”

  “I know what it means.”

  I sighed. “Then why repeat it?”

  Max adjusted the collar of his jacket. “I just haven’t heard anyone under the age of sixty use that word in a long time.”

  “Oh. Ha-ha.”

  Max smirked and just then the elevator doors opened and he stepped out. I followed him across the massive lobby and out into the sunny, but not nearly warm enough LA weather. A glossy black BMW sedan was parked at the curb. Max put his hand out to guide me to it, and then opened the back door for me. I slid across the leather seat to the far side and he stepped up to sit beside me.

  As I buckled up, he told his driver the name of the restaurant we were going to, La Bouche.

  We pulled away from the sidewalk and out into the busy traffic. I clipped my seatbelt on and placed my purse between my feet on the floor. “I thought you agreed nowhere fancy? La Bouche sounds pretty fancy.”

  “It’s not. Trust me, you’ll like it.”

  I frowned but didn’t push. There was no sense in going back and forth with a man like Max. He’d made the decision and I wasn’t going to waste any time or energy trying to change his mind. Instead, I spent the fifteen minute drive peering out the window at all the boutiques and shops along the busy street. Christmas trees winked in store window displays and Salvation Army Santa’s shook their jingle bells beside their donation boxes. Pedestrians dropped loose change in the buckets while little kids stared up at them in awe, most likely asking their parents how many Santa’s there were out in the world.

  The driver pulled over sooner than I expected, and Max slid out and held the door open for me. We walked up onto the sidewalk and I found myself looking up at a restaurant that was, without a shadow of a doubt, fancier than I wanted it to be.

  I looked down at my jeans and floral printed scarf. Then I looked up at Max. “Seriously? I said not fancy, you ass.”

  “This isn’t fancy.”

  “How can our definitions of fancy be so drastically different?”

  “I guess it’s a rich versus poor thing. It’s all about perspective,” Max said, before walking up to the front door, which had a giant gold ‘B’ as the handle.

  Had I not known him so well, I wouldn’t have known what he said was meant as a joke. As I stepped into the restaurant, I groaned inwardly, wishing I’d worn a dress to work this morning. Or a skirt. Anything besides jeans would have been better.

  The person at the door, a young man in a sleek black suit, smiled at me, and then his blue eyes shifted to Max. “Mr. Miller,” he said, his grin broadening. “How nice to see you. For two? At your usual table?”

  “Yes please,” Max nodded.

  The young man led us through rows of obsidian tables, upon which a single rose sat in a gold narrow vase wrapped in etched vines. From the high ceiling above, a single lamp hung over each table, casting a soft glow down on the people seated beneath it.

  Our table was a private booth at the back of the restaurant. We each slid into a side and were served water instantly. Then a waiter appeared to take our orders.

  “Oh, I’ll need just a couple minutes to look over the menu,” I said.

  Our waiter smiled. He had a kind smile, but his eyes calculated what he saw—a girl who did not belong. “We do not have menus at La Bouche, my dear.”

  I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  His smile became even sweeter. “We do not ha
ve menus.”

  “Uh,” I began to stammer, feeling way out of my element and too flustered to string coherent words together.

  Max saved me. “We’ll start with a glass of white wine, please. Then two Chef’s Burgers.”

  The waiter gave Max a little bow before vanishing behind the partition that separated our private booth from the rest of the restaurant.

  I glared at Max. “Are you so far removed from the reality of the normal person that you truly don’t know what ‘nothing fancy’ means. This is way too fancy—ridiculous even. Did you see the way he looked at me? Like I was a fish out of water.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Me, Max. I care. And then you go and order for me. How humiliating. I’m perfectly capable of ordering my own food, thank you very much. You don’t need to treat me like a child.”

  “I wasn’t. I thought I was helping out. They don’t have menus and you said earlier you were good with a burger—”

  Leaning forward, I dropped my voice to a thin, agitated whisper. “This is obviously not the sort of place where you casually order a freaking cheeseburger, Max. The Chef’s Burger is probably from another restaurant three blocks from here and they just run out and get it for you because you’re Max Miller, billionaire extraordinaire.”

  “Hey, use my name and ‘extraordinaire; in the same sentence again. It sounds good.”

  “Shut up, Max,” I grumbled.

  Max shifted in his seat and was unable to stop the smile from playing across his lips. “I’m sorry that you’re uncomfortable, Laura. But you don’t need to be. I come to this place all the time and they don’t judge their customers. Besides. You’re with me. That means you’re automatically in their good books.”

  “Do you have any idea how egotistical that sounds?”

  “Sure. But it’s true. So it cancels out.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” I said. I could feel my foundation cracking. He was getting to me, and my cheeks were straining to stop my lips from stretching into a grin. He was amusing me. Damn him. He’d always been good at making me laugh, and this sort of banter was the same shit that got me in over my head when I met him back in college.

  Back in that damn library.

  I’d been studying for so long that I had to squint my eyes into slits just to stop the letters from blurring together on the page. My head was aching, especially right behind my eyes, and the nerves I thought would have calmed if I got in a good studying session had not abated. I was still just as nervous about my exam tomorrow as I’d been earlier this morning.

  I slumped back in my chair and lifted my gaze from the history textbook. I’d only taken the course for extra credit and now I regretted it. It was pulling my GPA down and I really didn’t need the extra stress.

  Peering around the library, I saw that the place was empty except for me, another student about five desks down from mine, and the librarian, Mrs. Hatchard. She had a wild white perm and red framed glasses. Her lips were as red as the frames and her eyeliner as dark as her soul.

  She was quite possibly the meanest woman I’d ever met.

  I was about to pour over my textbook again when someone else came into the library.

  The moment I saw him I knew I wouldn’t be able to read another word from that damn book.

  He walked with the effortless ease of an athlete—no, a dancer. His posture was proud and strong, and he held his chin up as he walked up to Mrs. Hatchard’s desk, leaned over it, and asked, “Do you have any extra Criminology 1101 textbooks left?”

  Mrs. Hatchard didn’t look up at him right away. She let him stand there, arms draped over her desk, until she finally lifted her eyes and sighed. “That class started three weeks ago, young man. Are you telling me you’ve gone three weeks without bringing your textbook to class?”

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  “So you haven’t been going to class, then?”

  He gave her a sheepish smile. A smile that instantly turned my knees to jelly. It was as if my legs had spontaneously fallen asleep the second I saw it.

  Then he raked his fingers through his thick, messy black hair. “I’m not winning any awards for best student of the semester, but it would really help me out if you could point me in the right direction—Ma’am,” he added like an afterthought.

  “Afraid I can’t. Ask your professor for a spare.”

  “But then he’ll know I haven’t had one for three weeks.”

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Hatchard said. For the first time in my whole first semester, she smiled. Tricky woman.

  The student, unflustered by the exchange, straightened up, tapped the bottom of his fist on her desk, and thanked her for her help anyway.

  Then he turned to leave and we locked eyes. He showered me with that smile of his and my legs went from jelly to liquid. I swallowed.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” he said, on his way past me.

  I turned around in my chair. “Excuse me?”

  He stopped and turned back to me, pushing his unruly hair off his forehead. “Yes?”

  “I can point you in the direction of a spare textbook. No guarantee, but it might still be lying around.”

  The student chuckled. It was a deep, wonderful sound, and I could have sworn I felt it vibrate straight through me. Like how it feels when you’re standing beside a passing train. “What’s in it for you?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Show me, then.”

  I closed my textbook and tucked it into my book bag. Shouldering the bag as I stood, I pushed in my chair, and motioned for him to follow me past the historical section and along the back wall of the library, which at this time of night was dimly lit and quiet. I ran my fingers along the spines, working my way past the psychology textbooks and fictional works until we found ourselves standing beneath a gold plaque on one of the shelves that read ‘Criminology’.

  I tapped the plaque with my knuckle. “Here. If you have any luck at all there might still be one left.”

  The student was watching me rather than watching the shelves to try to find his own damn book. I didn’t say anything, but continued scanning the shelves and had to bend down, where, on the bottom shelf, I found a beat up old copy of the book he needed. I stood, flipped it open, and nodded. “It’s in rough shape, but it looks like you’re only missing the first chapter, which I guess you won’t need anyway since you’re three weeks into the course.”

  “Someone was eavesdropping.”

  My cheeks burned.

  He took the book from my hands. “I’m just playing with you. Thanks for your help. Really.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What’s your name, pretty girl?”

  “Laura.”

  “Laura,” he said. It sounded like he was rolling my name over his tongue. Like he was tasting it.

  I trembled and reached up to grip the strap of my book bag. I needed something to do with my hands. “And yours?”

  “Max,” he said, lifting his chin and giving me a cocky grin. “Max Miller.”

  Chapter 17

  Max

  Our waiter appeared at the table with two glasses of chilled white wine. He set them down, asked if we needed anything else, and bustled off when I told him we were alright.

  Laura pulled her glass toward herself and ran her finger along the base.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

  “Something you would care to share?”

  She looked up at me, and held my gaze with those big brown eyes that dared a man to get lost within their depths. “No.”

  I took a sip of wine. “We haven’t gotten a call from any of my staff. I guess that means the kids are fitting in well. Nobody has started a fire or anything like that.”

  She smiled. I liked it when she smiled. “None of those kids are the fire starting type. They are more the sit down and listen, then bust their asses for some recogni
tion type.”

  “They sound like winners.”

  “They are.”

  “Well, cheers to them,” I said, and we lifted our glasses in a toast to my new interns.

  As soon as I pressed my lips to the rim of the glass, my phone started ringing. I took my sip in a hurry, and pulled the phone out of my pocket, chuckling. “Uh-oh, maybe we spoke too soon.” But when I looked, the number wasn’t my office. It was Catherine. I glanced up at Laura. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

  “It’s alright,” she said.

  I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, Catherine. Sorry, but I can’t really talk right now. Can I call—”

  I fell silent when she sniffled on the other end. “Max.”

  “Catherine? What’s wrong?” I asked, inching to the edge of the bench seat. I could feel Laura’s eyes on me, but I didn’t dare look at her.

  “I feel so—so—” she couldn’t finish her sentence before she broke down in sobs.

  I knew what this was about without her having to say it. “Cat. It’s alright. Where are you?”

  “At home. I couldn’t get out of bed to go to work. I had to call the cafe and ask for time off. I’m going to be stuck here in this God damn apartment again for months, I know it. I’m not ready to do that again, Max. I want my life back. I’m so sick of this shit!”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “I know.”

  “Why do I have to be the sick one?”

  I sighed. “Have you eaten anything?”

  “No. Not since last night.”

  “I’m coming over. I’ll be there in half an hour and I’m bringing food. What do you want? And don’t say nothing, because I’m showing up with something and whatever that something is, you can bet your ass you’re going to eat it.”

  Catherine sniffled, but said, “Soup. From that deli on Spruce Street.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Okay. Hurry. Please.”

  “Promise.”

  I hung up the phone and could no longer avoid meeting Laura’s gaze. When I did she was frowning.