Indelible Love Series + Entwined Bundle

by DW Cee

  “My initial intention was to pick up some dinner and come see you last night. But when I called to place my order, Tony told me that you had just placed the same order. I combined our orders and told him not to let you leave before I showed up. When I got there, Hannah was there eating by herself, so I stopped to chat with her till you came.”

  The explanation sounded feasible, but not enough to sooth my hurt. “How did you know I was there?”

  “I didn’t till I thought I spotted your car out front. When I went outside to greet you, you were going instead of coming. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together and figure that you probably thought I was having dinner with Hannah.”

  I guess I didn’t look convinced.

  “I swear, Babe. The last time I saw Hannah was when I dropped her off at my parents’ after our shitty Saturday. I’ve avoided her at the hospital, and I haven’t returned any of her calls. I needed to talk to you, first.”

  The fight in me was slowly reappearing because I contemplated asking him why he didn’t make me first the last time I saw him. But, for now, I liked being silent. It made Max more and more nervous.

  “As soon as I saw you leave, I picked up our food, came straight here and waited for you. I didn’t think you’d be out so late. Where were you all that time?”

  “Nowhere in particular.”

  “You didn’t go see Donovan?” Max treaded lightly.

  “Unlike you, I know who I’m dating.” Cheap shot, I know, considering I had wavered in the past with Donovan. “I sat in my car wondering how to put myself back together again after the damage you’d caused.” Yes...another cheap shot. The snarky me was coming back, but something in Max’s demeanor told me I should hold back a little. He looked kinda somber. Though he had NINE days to think about it, maybe he was trying to come up with plan Z on how to win me back. That was probably what his whole I feel sad look was about.

  “Saturday. Let’s talk about Saturday,” Max sighed loudly. “I was angry when you took us up to an apartment I couldn’t afford. I felt inadequate as a man, not being able to give you something you wanted, and I felt sorry for Hannah who could barely afford to live in the single we saw. Part of me was mad because I thought you were showing off to Hannah and trying to get back at her for the stupid games she was playing, and part of me was angry that I was such a moron for bringing Hannah with us. I was hoping to pull you aside at the club and apologize, but you went straight to Donovan and didn’t leave his side the whole night.”

  Something about Max was really off, but I decided I didn’t care. For NINE freakin’ days, he left me alone to stew and worry about where we stood as a couple. What boyfriend did that? “First of all, I didn’t go straight to Donovan. He was having a shitty day himself, and he sat next to me. We were just two friends commiserating! If you’d come to me, your girlfriend, rather than hanging with Hannah, your ex-girlfriend, I would have gladly done the shots with you instead. Second, I wasn’t showing off, I wasn’t asking you for anything, and I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel bad! I wanted to see what a penthouse loft looked like. I can’t afford one either, and I was...” I just stopped there. I didn’t want to tell him how devastated I was when he told me he wasn’t interested in buying anything with me.

  He reached out and put his hand over my two hands. He looked so torn and devastated himself, I felt like I should comfort him instead of the other way around. What the hell is the matter with you, Max? Why is my heart feeling your pain more than my own? “I know how much I hurt you when I told you that I didn’t want to buy anything right now. I saw your face and my heart broke when yours did. I’m sorry, Jane. After seeing how defeated you were, I felt stupid retracting my statement and telling you that the reason I couldn’t buy anything was because I didn’t know where I’d end up doing residency. I still have a long way to go before making any money as a doctor. I wasn’t implying that I didn’t want any future with you.”

  He wiped the tears that started falling down my face. This was the most fucked-up situation. He was apologizing, but my heart broke more for him, than for me. None of this was making sense to me. Maybe I needed to go back to sleep.

  “When I asked your dad if Hannah could join us at the club, I was hoping that she’d hang with my brothers, so I could have a chance to make everything right between us. I had no idea Hannah would put us in such an awkward situation, and I felt like an asshole for hurting you. I still have a lot of guilt where Hannah is concerned. Because of me, she never went to college, she hasn’t been in any other serious relationship...her life regressed while mine progressed. I see now how hard it is for her to see me so in love with you. It brings out all kinds of ugliness in her, but I try to be understanding. I was hoping you would, too, but I guess that was wrong of me to assume.”

  “What the hell was your problem at the club? You didn’t once come and talk to me until you offered me a ride. Why didn’t you make up with me then?” My voice got angrier than it should have, but Max deserved it. “And don’t give me the lame-ass excuse about me hanging out with Donovan. You hung out with Hannah, too. If you don’t want me to be upset about Hannah, then you can’t be upset about Donovan, either.” That’s right. I told him! Fair is fair.

  That’s when the hovering clouds moved right above us and made everything seriously dark and gloomy. Max couldn’t look at me anymore. He stood up from the bed and faced the door for wayyyy longer than it was comfortable. I was too scared to ask him if he was all right, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to berate him any more—No siree, Bob! After thinking about it myself, maybe I was a bit hard on him. The whole NINE unanswered days are still a huge question mark in my head, but he did explain about Hannah. And of course, I do believe everything he told me. But...what was wrong with Max? Why was he so gloom-and-doom, today?

  “There are so many things I thought I’d say to you when I finally got the chance.” He speaks...! Now, if I could only figure out what the hell he was saying. “Whenever I think about you, about us, I know that you’re the root that holds my bearing, the trunk that makes me stand tall, and the branches that help me bear fruit.” Whaaa? When did this turn into a romantic botany lesson? I believe that was romantic..?

  This was getting weird! I needed to lighten up the mood. There were still so many things I wanted to say to this man, but right now was not it. Plus, my head still hurt, my stomach growled, and I needed a cup of coffee.

  “Can we go take a walk and grab a cup of coffee? I’ve a splitting headache.”

  “Sure.” He said and said no more. Thank God. I was weirded out enough. Talk for now was done.

  We walked hand in hand to the local coffee shop in total silence. I don’t know what it was like for Max, but for me, it was a comfortable silence. Mentally, I was making a list of all the things I wanted to say to him. All the angry retorts, sarcastic remarks, witty quips waited in a nice long queue for their chance. After all the mental yelling and finger pointing, all I eventually said was, “Do you like seeing me with Donovan?”

  “No, of course not,” he almost yelled. I jumped back and wanted to yell as well, but held off since this Max was not my Max, today.

  “Well, I don’t like seeing you with Hannah, either. And just remember, I’ve never had any sort of a relationship with Donovan. The only time he’s ever touched me was to give me an innocuous kiss on my head. You think about that, and let’s talk again later.”

  I ended on that note and soon after our coffee run, I convinced Max to lay in bed with me. I seriously needed a nap at 10am. It had been an exhausting many days.

  Max was half-sitting against the headboard, half-laying on the bed to accommodate my body that covered most of his. Sleep hovered and was oh so close when Max’s phone gave me a slight jolt.

  “Hello?” I heard my kind boyfriend whisper so I wouldn’t be disturbed. “Hey Garret.” Oh...it was Garret. It sounded like Garret was asking something similar to “did you do it?” Max kissed me on the head and whispered again, “No.
..I couldn’t do it. I love her too much.”

  I tried to stay awake to listen in on this unusual conversation, but sleep was overpowering me. I’d try and remember to ask him later. Last I heard before going off into my own world was, “I love you, my precious Gem.”

  May 6, 2013 Honestly!

  My honey was still walking on eggshells, trying to make up to me what he did a couple of weeks ago. Just between you and me, all was forgiven the night he came over and stayed with me, but he didn’t have to know that yet. Secretly, I got great pleasure out of watching Max grovel. And boy, he was workin’ the grovel.

  “What’s with the flower arrangement? Max?” Donovan popped by my cubicle to take me to lunch.

  “Yep.” I answered happily.

  “You still holding a grudge from our tequila night?”

  “Yep!” I answered happily, again.

  “Damn, Woman! That was like a month ago. Remind me not to get on your bad side.” He let out a hearty chuckle.

  “Yep.” I said a third time, still with a smile.

  Since our bonding over tequila, Donovan and I had become even better friends. There was still a tiny bit of tension between us, but we were more buddies than anything else lately.

  “Can we eat something other than egg salad?”

  “Yep.”

  He gave me a funny look, which was still hot on this man, and told me to “cut out the monosyllabic answers.”

  “I’ll stop saying ‘yep’ if you tell me what’s going on with you and Kate.”

  “Holds a grudge for a month, stubborn, and nosy...and yet I still find her attractive. Why is that?” He asked a rhetorical question.

  “Yep,” I said again, laughing.

  “Ok, stop with the yep. I’ve ended things for good with Kate.”

  Oohhhh! This was juicy info. “Why?”

  “She wants marriage, kids, the Jake and Emily life...”

  “And???”

  “And I want the same...but not with her. I’ve decided to listen to my wise friend and try intimacy with my heart rather than just the body or mind.” He said this while laughing to himself.

  “Who?”

  “Who what? And stop the damn one word Q&A.”

  I looked up from my tacos and gave him a questioning look.

  “Please, stop with the damn one word Q&A?” He asked nicely, which made me crack up. “And by the way, that look you just gave me—you should do the whole librarian get-up and try it on Max. That should revive the relationship in no time.”

  I died laughing. “Ok, I don’t need you visualizing me in a librarian get-up.”

  “Yeah, me neither. I don’t need my body parts getting-up unnecessarily, and unfulfillingly.”

  “All righty! Let’s change the subject ‘cuz now you’re giving me visuals I don’t need. Back to Kate. Who told you to stop lusting and to start loving?”

  “A friend.”

  “A friend, who?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Why the secrecy? Why can’t you tell me?” Now I was more than curious.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me who Hannah really is. And don’t give me the same bullshit you’ve been telling your family. I know she’s more than a girl he dated in high school.”

  Did I want to do this trading of top secret info? Was it worth it to find out who’s been giving Donovan love advice?

  “Well...what’s it gonna be? You gonna put out?”

  “Damn it. Stop making everything sexual.”

  He laughed. “Do I need to tie you to the chair and force the info from you, come to my own conclusion, or will you put out willingly?” Now he was giving me the suggestive waggle of the eyebrow look.

  Part of me died laughing, and part of me was seriously hot and bothered. But I SWEAR, I was thinking of my boyfriend Max! It wasn’t Donovan who was on my mind sexually.

  “You first. You spill your beans, then I come forth with my info, if I deem your info is worthy enough.”

  “Forget it. I’ll spill only if you promise to come...forth.”

  This was a serious case of ROTFLMAO! “All right! Hannah and Max dated back in high school, he knocked her up, almost married her, then she lost the baby, he was relieved, she was depressed, her parents moved her to Michigan, and now she’s back,” I said all in one breath. “Beat that!” I challenged.

  After being bug-eyed briefly (ok, he was still hot even with the bug-eyes), he said, “I kissed your cousin Delaney in her hotel room the night she went missing. That’s where she told me that she had no designs on ‘joining my harem’, and that’s also when she told me that I was ‘with one woman physically, thinking about another woman mentally, but didn’t have the guts to truly love a woman, emotionally.’” He smirked and continued, “By the look on your face and the hole in your mouth, I think I ‘beat that!’”

  “You what??? What the fuck???”

  “Wow. My story was good enough for an f-bomb? I thought you never said fuck.”

  “Well...I do say it...it’s just not in your ears.”

  Now he was ROTFLHAO. “We need to stop—unless you’re willing to put out...with me.”

  “You are not turning this on me. I want to know about this kiss with Laney. What the hell happened? You kiss her? She kiss you? Is that what you were doing in there the whole time...kissing?”

  “Let’s talk about us first.”

  “There’s no us, Donovan. I love Max.”

  “Let’s be honest with one another.”

  “Shit, if we were any more honest with one another than we are now, we’d be Jake and Emily!”

  “You ever wonder what it would be like with us?” Hell yes! “You ever want to know if we’d have as good a chemistry as lovers as we do as friends?” OMG. I don’t think I can answer this one even to myself. “Well, I want to know. I want to know what it feels like to make out with you, to make love to you, to make you moan my name. I want to be with you in every physical way and see if that will lead to the emotions Delaney accuses me of not being capable of having. I know I’m being an asshole wondering this about another man’s woman, but honestly, I can’t stop wondering.”

  Honestly? I would’ve preferred a lie.

  May 9, 2013 Oh...A Hunting He Will Go...

  You’ll all be happy to know, Donovan got called away the moment he finished his confession, and flew to London to help Kate with a client. PHEW! I haven’t seen him, heard from him, nor really thought about him. Honestly! I haven’t thought too much about us, but this whole idea of Donovan and Laney kissing, was bugging the crap out of me. He never finished telling me what had happened in that room and I couldn’t possibly ask Laney. I asked Emily about it, and she immediately got on the phone with Donovan and chewed him out for “kissing and telling.” After that, there was no way he was going to tell me anything. Emily also told me to mind my own business and to be more of a girlfriend to Max, than a girl friend to Donovan. Well, excuse...me....! Emily was pissed at me and Donovan, and I was pissed with her for being so pissy. Lucky for her, I got a text from Max, so I excused myself and went home.

  You want to go out tonight?

  Isn’t it a school night?

  Yeah...can we not go out on a school night?

  No. We can. You gonna pick me up or shall I meet you somewhere?

  I’ll pick you up in 20. I have my bike. Wear pants...or not.

  See you in 20 and I’ll consider wearing (under) pants...or not.

  That would give him something to think about. He he he!

  “That was the quickest 20 minutes, ever. You on a different time zone?” I said to the man who hopped off his bike and ran up to me.

  “Well, when your girlfriend considers not wearing any underwear, it is worth a speeding ticket to find out whether or not she made the right decision.” He said with a luscious kiss. “Shall we find out?” I had to stop his roaming hands since we were on the sidewalk and any Reid could see our lusty ways.