She stumbled out of the dressing room in a mermaid-cut dress—white satin, decorated with diamonds, and adorned with a bow in the back. Flashing me not one but two middle fingers, she stepped into the three-way mirror and scowled her own image to death.
“You look like a fairy princess,” I said.
“I want to die.”
I shoved two more in through the door. “And I want to see you try these two on, please.”
Then I collapsed on the bench right outside, hugging my arms around my knees. I yawned, still exhausted, and closed my eyes for a second.
“Last night was pretty fucking rad, huh?” she said.
I smiled sleepily. “The best. Let’s crowd surf every night.”
“Let’s. And Pop and Angela are the cutest.”
“He talked about her all the way to the office where we paid his rent,” I said. “He’s a smitten kitten, that one.”
Roxy cracked the door open. She was half in a dress, half in her underwear.
“A truly bold look.”
She ignored me. “Max seemed weird all night.”
I winced, dropped my cheek to the top of my knees again. “You noticed it too?”
“What’s going on?”
I went to answer but then paused, drawn to the rack right next to the bench. On the end hung a princess-style wedding dress with a giant, dramatic skirt and long, whimsical train. Tiny pearl flowers dotted the skirt. I fingered the material, smiling slightly. This dress was the embodiment of my secret, scandalous wedding magazines. The ones I worshiped and wanted desperately to be my life. Deep down, I still wanted that to be my life. But not because of some outcome or time limit.
But because when I pictured myself dazzling in one of these gowns, it was Max I pictured myself walking down the aisle with, buying a house with, creating a family with. It was all the years, the laughter, the late-night conversations. The love and passion, the tenderness and affection. Wearing this dress would be one extraordinary day.
A lifetime with Max would be thousands of extraordinary days.
The problem being—would Max ever genuinely want any of this?
“He’s nervous about leaving, nervous about us. I want to keep dating, regardless of where he is. But Max hasn’t ever dated anyone before or been in a long-term relationship. All of this is new for him, and maybe, maybe he just can’t—”
I bit my tongue. Didn’t say my fear, which was Maybe he’s just not cut out for this. He’d only told me he wasn’t a hundred different times.
I looked to my sister, hands still holding the dress. “He’s used to temporary, running when things get intense or hard. I’m worried he’s about to—”
“Run?”
My stomach twisted. “Yes.”
I dropped the gown and sank back down on the couch. Roxy smoothed my hair down in an extremely maternal gesture I appreciated. I pressed my cheek back to my knee, feeling sorry for myself. The adrenaline of last night was wearing off, and reality was setting in.
Max was leaving in a few hours and everything seemed unstable and terrifying and not in the good way. I suddenly longed for the safety of contracts and spreadsheets.
“Can you try on more dresses for me please? I need to think about bridal veils.”
“Of course.” She went back inside and then proceeded to do her own Roxy fashion show for the next hour, each dress more traditional and more ridiculous. We were giggling so loudly by the end we drew stares from the other shoppers.
But right before we were about to leave, I heard her gasp softly. I texted my mom.
I think Roxy might have found her wedding dress. Stay tuned for a video call.
I understood my sister better than anyone, and I had slipped an option in there I knew she wouldn’t notice at first. But if my instincts were correct, and they usually were, I knew what my sister needed.
A moment later, she opened the door. “Is this your doing?”
I stood up, then back, utterly in shock. “It sure is. And you are exquisite, Roc.”
She gulped, moved carefully over to the three-way mirror. I was smiling so big my cheeks hurt. My big sister was getting married to her soul mate, and no one deserved happiness more.
Roxy flushed, then smiled shyly as she brushed her hands down the material. She was wearing a white pantsuit with a daringly low-cut silk tank. She slid her hands in the pockets, looking jaunty as hell.
I pulled her silvery-blond hair over one shoulder and handed her a pair of white boots I’d found while in between outfit changes. She slipped them on.
“I did tell Edward I’d never wear a white dress.”
“Exactly. These are pants. And you’ll have pockets.”
“I do enjoy a dapper blazer on a woman.”
I crossed my arms. “It looks like you.”
“Can you… can you call Mom?”
I held up my phone. Mom was already on the video screen, sitting on our couch. She literally screamed when she saw Roxy.
“As I live and breathe. Roxy Ramone Quinn, you are a vision of new wave sensibility!”
I pointed at the screen. “She’s fucking right.”
Roxy let out a shaky breath. “You think I look okay?”
“How do you feel about it?” Mom asked.
My sister looked up at me. “I love it so fucking much.” She spun back around to the mirror, like she couldn’t believe it was real. “It’s not black and lacy.”
“Nope.”
“It’s not what I thought I wanted.”
I swallowed hard. “No. But it’s what you needed.”
She twirled around joyfully. She showed off in front of the mirrors, striking various poses, blowing kisses to her own reflection.
My sister was about to say yes to the dress. And it wasn’t even a dress but a nicely tailored suit.
And I was pretty damn sure Max Devlin was my soul mate. My cocky, commitment-phobic bad boy wasn’t at all what I thought I needed.
But he was everything I wanted in this world.
43
Max
Pop walked with me to Fiona’s place. I had only one bag and had shipped my bike out to my new apartment in L.A. My plane ticket was in my pocket.
“You’ll call when you get there, right?” he said.
“Sure will.”
I felt a little sick. Just another symptom of being home, I guess. I could add it to the sweaty palms and dorky finger-guns.
“You okay?”
I stubbed my boot against the sidewalk. Shrugged. “When I saw Mom this afternoon, she basically told me I was never going to be happy in a relationship like the one I want with Fiona. That I’m too much like her and she only ever felt…” I stumbled. “Trapped.”
Pop crossed his arms across his chest. “Your mother said that?”
“Yeah.”
He looked over his shoulder, grimaced. “She was unhappy with us. She threw up warning signs left and right that I ignored, even when my family begged me to do otherwise. What you and Fiona have, I don’t think me and your mom ever had. What you two have is special. You’re not gonna run from that.”
I wasn’t so sure. Wasn’t it better to cut ties before you actually hurt someone? Because launching into a future with Fiona that was this fragile felt so scary it made it hard to breathe.
I took that as a sign. A pretty big one.
“Did Mom break your heart?” I asked.
Pop was quiet. Fidgety. “Yeah. There were some dark days.”
Dark days was a fib. I remembered dark years.
“I don’t think that’s your future though,” Pop said. “Besides, you were the one who helped me meet Angela. Who told me not to be afraid. That’s your own advice. Think you should listen to it.”
I nodded but didn’t say a word.
Pop looked down at the ground. “You could stay, Maxy. We could go back to being a team.”
I really was like Mom, blowing into town and disappointing her loved ones.
“We’ll alway
s be a team, Pop,” I said. “And I’m going to call you more, I promise. Mateo will set up the video chat so I can take you with me to the beach and stuff.”
“Had to ask,” he said. “Come here and give your old man a hug.”
I did, my throat working and eyes stinging.
“I love ya, Max.”
“I love you too, Pop.”
I was halfway through the door before he called back to me. “Your mother, she had a whole other life once she left. One that suited her better, or so she says. But she missed most of your childhood when I got to see all of it. You were like… magic. Changing every day. Learning new things. The guys at The Red Room used to call you my shadow because we were never apart. I’m not jealous of the way she lives. Leaving you was never an option for me.”
44
Fiona
The words of my contract stared up at me from my coffee table.
I, Fiona Lennox Quinn, hereby commit to finding my soul mate and being married to him within eighteen months of the signing date. I will not engage in any physical affection, including but not limited to kissing, hand-holding, and, of course, sex until I can guarantee his commitment.
Max would be here any second. I had no music playing—because I was distracted and jumpy and still experiencing that dread.
But I was prepared to fight, not only for Max to trust but to fight my own inner fears clamoring to be heard. Clouded by lust and hormones and happiness, it had been easy to silence that voice of reason. The voice of reason that shamelessly compared Max to every other guy who had just fucked me then dumped me.
There was—literally—not a comparison between Max and the string of useless men who’d come before him.
The thing about voices of reason, however, was it wasn’t always about reason. It was about protecting my heart. Being afraid to leap.
When Max knocked on the door a few seconds later, the dread intensified as soon as I saw his face. His bag was packed at his feet, and he looked pale and withdrawn.
The kiss he gave me was chaste.
Oh, no, my brain yelled.
I didn’t give in. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him hard. There was a pause, and then he was hugging me back. The voice of reason didn’t know what to do with the fact that this feeling. It defied restrictions and limits.
The second Max let go—and he let go first—I lost the feeling.
“My flight leaves soon, so I have to head to the airport,” he said softly. I wandered over by the couch, caught him staring at the contract.
“I really don’t want you to go,” I blurted out. My fingers twisted in my lap. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to be supportive. I mean, I am supportive. I’m just…” I trailed off.
His shoulders slumped. “Pop said the same thing outside.”
“He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. I mean it too, Max.” I cleared my throat. “Even though I know you want this job and it’s a great opportunity for you. I’m old enough now to understand you can want two separate yet contradictory things. I want you to be happy. And I want you to stay.”
There. I leapt.
I saw Max reach for me, face filled with pure yearning, but then pulled his hand back.
Oh no oh no oh no.
Instead, he picked up the contract, examined it. “I went to go see my mom this afternoon. She had, of course, totally forgotten about the show. But really, she blew us off because she didn’t feel like making an effort. Kind of a pattern with her, I guess.”
I listened, skin buzzing with anxiety, heart pounding.
“She’s had dozens of boyfriends since she divorced my dad. She leaves them every time. Basically, every time things get a little serious and not as fun, she bounces.”
I leaned forward on my knees. No.
“And even though her divorcing my dad fucked up a lot of shit for us, she doesn’t care. She misses her freedom too much.”
“You do care though,” I said, voice shaking. “You would never leave your wife and child. Ever.”
Max looked at me—gaze hard. It shocked me. “I literally just spent the past seven years doing that, Fiona. Didn’t feel guilty one bit. Sure, I’m more ethical about it than Mom. But I still leave the second things get complicated.”
I steadied my breath. I was a lawyer for fuck’s sake, I could poke holes in this argument. “You haven’t left me, Max. You wanted to try, for me. Are trying. I’d say that makes you different in the end.”
Pain flashed in his dark eyes. “You weren’t living with Pop when all this went down, Fiona. You didn’t see how sad he was, how lost. She’d made promises to him, she’d married him and everything. She still broke those vows. She broke him too.”
I wanted to deflate at his words. But I steeled my spine and held his stare. His throat worked. “You won’t break me,” I said.
“Fiona, just the thought—” He stopped, voice strained. He swallowed again. “The thought of you going through what my dad went through makes me sick.”
“You don’t have to protect me from the future.” I reached for him again, my fingers brushing his. “This is what the trust is for.”
That stupid fucking rational voice inside my head was clamoring for attention, celebrating the words he was speaking. Because they sneakily affirmed my worst fears about trying for Max, that even with his best efforts this life wasn’t for him.
He held up my contract. “Do you still want all of this?”
I lifted my chin, accepting the challenge. “I do. And I’m willing to fight for that person.”
“Is eighteen months still your deadline?”
I searched my body for a stress response but found none. What a relief. “I don’t have a deadline anymore.” I let myself leap again. “I only want you. In whatever way I can have you.”
Now it was his turn to look shocked. He dropped the contract, stepped back from the couch. “Fiona, that’s… you think that I’m…”
“My soul mate?” I said. I remembered crowd surfing, the exhilarating free fall. Time to be brave. “I absolutely do believe that you, Max Devlin, are my soul mate. My entire life, I thought something was broken inside of me. I never felt romantic toward anyone. I never went on amazing dates or had mind-blowing sex. I never experienced this much joy. The second I stepped onto that fire escape and saw you, I knew it. Sparks, chemistry, a connection. Fate, the universe, destiny. It stunned me that night.” I lowered my voice. “Did you feel it too?”
My heart hung in the balance as he stayed silent. And then, like he was forcing the words out, said, “I did.”
I could work with that.
“I denied our connection because of a bullshit idea of who I thought my soul mate had to be. And now you’re pulling away from me because of some bullshit idea that your future is already decided.”
His jaw worked. He pointed at the contract. “I’m not the guy you marry, Fiona. I’m the guy that leaves, every time. Leading you on is worse. Trying when I know I’m only gonna leave, even if I’m happy, makes me a monster. You don’t deserve that. You really want to wait for me to make up my mind while I’m out in L.A. and you’re back here alone?”
“You don’t get to make this call, Devlin,” I said, irritated now. “You don’t get to say what I’m open to or not. I’m willing to try, like we agreed on. I’m willing to be honest.”
“I’m being honest.” His voice was hoarse. “I’m baring everything here, Fiona. It’s ugly, and I hate it, but convincing you I’m something I’m not when there’s only heartbreak in our future makes me the worst kind of liar. Makes me the kind of man I don’t want to be.”
I sat back, crossed my arms. I wasn’t done fighting yet. “Stay then. Don’t take the job. Be this man. The one who runs off into the sunset with me, not on your own.”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. It was an unfair thing to ask from someone I’d been dating for a week, soul mate or not.
“Quit your job and come to L.A.,” he argued.
>
I balked—immediately. “The job I love is here. And the family I love is here. This is my life, my community. And this is your family and community too.”
Hurt flickered through his eyes. I was disappointed in my reaction too. Apparently, I did have some hard and fast ideas I wasn’t willing to let go of yet.
“Can we…” I paused, took a breath. “Can you just get to L.A., and then we can keep talking from there? I know it’s not ideal. I know it’s going to be hard. But please, Max.”
He looked like he was about to cry. “That’s only going to make it worse,” he said. “I don’t want to draw this out. I don’t want to be the reason you have hope when none exists. I…” His voice cracked. “I care about you too much. You have to know that this is killing me, Fiona. I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. I didn’t even know it was possible.”
“Me neither,” I said—too brightly. “That’s why we have to fight for what’s possible. I’m with you, I’m ready.”
“I’m not.”
Those two words slammed into my gut like a gale-force wind.
Talk about a hurricane.
“Thank you for helping Pop,” he said. “Thank you for saving The Red Room with me. Thank you for… for being open and honest with me. I’ll never forget you, princess. You have been the best, the most beautiful thing, about coming home.”
“Please. Max, please don’t do this.” I wiped my eyes. I was crying, big tears falling down my cheeks, and I hadn’t even realized it. “I think we’re making a mistake. The biggest mistake.”
He shook his head. “I have to get to the airport. I’m so sorry… I… I’m sorry, I can’t.”
I watched him walk to the front door in slow motion. Say something! Convince him! I was grasping for anything to get him to stay, to miss his flight, to take a risk with me.
He stopped, one hand on the doorknob. He didn’t turn around to face me, but I heard his words just the same. “You will find your soul mate, Fiona. And believe me. He’ll be the lucky one.”
Not the Marrying Kind Page 29