by Cari Z
His laugh sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to hear it again. All of a sudden, I was grateful to Dinah for offering up her diner. It would give me a little more time to spend with Max, and I wanted as much time as I could get. Hal would understand.
I put reflective neon tape on the edges of Max’s car and made sure the doors were locked. Odds were nobody would break into it out here, but I didn’t want him coming back to find a raccoon had made a nest out of his leather interior. Once that was done, I hustled back to the car and got into the driver’s seat. Max had his seat belt on, his hands still folded under his armpits. I turned the heater up to high then drove until I found a spot to turn around.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Max said once we got headed the right way.
“It’s my job.” I wanted to smack myself as soon as I said it—I mean, it was my job, but right now it was also completely my pleasure.
“Still, I appreciate it, Officer…” He glanced at my jacket, but my ID was on the shirt underneath it. Once he saw it, though, once he realized I had the same last name as his best friend…
“Dominic,” I blurted. “My name is Dominic.” Would that be enough to clue him in? I held my breath.
Max chuckled. “No standing on formality, huh? Nice to meet you, Dominic. I’m Max.”
Oh, didn’t I know it. He was the focus of every embarrassing dream I had freshman year.
We drove in silence for a while, before Max made a noise and suddenly pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Shit, I should call Hal—my friend. I was supposed to be at his house over an hour ago.” He shut his eyes and groaned. “One night, one freaking night I’m coming to visit, and I crash my car right before I get to town. His kids are probably going to bed soon. I might not even see them.”
“Not on a weekend,” I said without thinking about it then winced. Had I given myself away? Did it matter if I had? It wasn’t like I could remain incognito forever, not with Max actually staying in Hal’s house. I went over almost every day to visit and make something edible to stick in the fridge. I was definitely going to be seen.
To my relief, Max nodded. “Right, of course. Still, I should call him, let him know what happened and that I’m okay. I’m sure he can come and pick me up if you need to leave me somewhere in town and get back to work.”
Nothing else had come in over the radio, which meant that nothing else was pressing, but since there was a place to go, and Dinah was waiting for us anyway… “How about Dinah’s Diner? It’s a local place near downtown.”
Max’s smile brightened his face somehow, despite both of us being completely surrounded by darkness. “Dinah’s is still around? I used to love that place! She had the best pie, and—oh wow,” he said, leaning forward a little as we hit the outskirts of town. “Christmas lights on every lamppost?”
“It gets better. You just can’t see the tinsel shapes with all the snow. There are Santa faces and candy canes and menorahs up there, too.”
“Holy shit, that’s merry.” He sat back and looked out at the passing lamps like they were signs in a language he didn’t understand. “How did the city council ever vote to spend the money on this?”
“Mayor Clawson is very convincing when it comes to holiday aesthetics.”
“Clawson…Mary Clawson, the lady who owns the fabric store?”
I nodded. “She’s branched out to include all kinds of crafts, and she does scrapbooking classes on weekends and after-school projects for kids. You can’t go into her store without slipping on glitter and glue some days.”
“Huh.” He was silent after that, and as much as I wanted to, I didn’t know how to break it. It had to be strange, coming back to the place you’d grown up and finding out how much it had changed. I’d been gone for years myself, but it was different for me. I’d always known I was coming back.
I parked in front of Dinah’s Diner. “You want to make your call before we go in?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.” He glanced down at his phone. “Yeah, do you mind if I—I’ll be right behind you.”
“No problem.” I got out of the Jeep and left him in the car as I headed into the diner. The steps leading up to it had a fresh layer of salt on them, and the smell of an apple pie baking hit me as soon as I opened the door.
“I see how it is,” I said to Dinah as I stamped the snow off my boots onto her mat then hung up my jacket on the rack. “Us regulars have to suffer through cold pie, while fancy newcomers get the special stuff.”
“You don’t have to suffer through any of my pie if you don’t want to,” Dinah huffed. “Where’s the guy?”
“He’s in my car calling Hal.”
Her eyes lit up. “It’s Maxfield, then?”
I shook my head. “Don’t call him that, Dinah. You know he always hated it.”
“Don’t teach your grandma to suck eggs.” She looked outside again. “Ah, here he is!” The door jingled, and before it had a chance to stop, Dinah was on Max like white on snow. “Well, look who the storm’s blown in!” she crowed, opening her arms.
Max, to his credit, went from startled to smiles in the blink of an eye. “Dinah!”
They embraced, and she pounded his back hard enough that my own ribs hurt from watching it. “Whoa, easy,” Max said, breaking away with an apologetic wince. “I’m still a little tender from the seat belt.”
“Oh, you—of course! Damn it.” She looked at me. “Why didn’t you stop me from hugging him if you knew he was hurt?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself—because honestly, what—but Max was already all over it. “No, don’t blame Dominic. I only just realized that I’m a little sore there.”
She looked at him, holding him at arms’ length and staring him up and down. “Good lord, you’re skinny. Is food so expensive in the city that you can’t afford to eat more than one meal a day?”
“It’s more that everything tastes like disappointment compared to your cooking.”
Dinah chortled and smacked his arm. “Still charming, I see. Just like your—” She paused, caught herself, but Max clearly knew what she’d been about to say, if the way his smile dropped off his face was any indication. “Just like you used to be,” she finished gamely. “Go on, you two, go sit down. I’ll get you some food. Do you still like meat burgers, Max?”
“Who doesn’t like burgers?” Max asked as he hung his coat up next to mine.
She shook her head sadly. “Vegans, that’s who. Always asking for veggie burgers and tofu patties. I’ve got a whole vegan section on the menu now, just in case.”
I bit back a chuckle at Dinah’s tirade. I heard it at least once a day.
“Well, I’m not a vegan, and I’d love a good old-fashioned burger, thanks.”
“I’m still full from the meatloaf earlier,” I said when she looked at me.
“Nonsense, you didn’t even finish it. How do you take yours these days, Max?” she asked as he settled into one of the diner’s gold-vinyl booths.
Max tilted his head slightly, and—yeah, shit. That plus the smile was pretty charming. “Cooked medium, with lettuce and tomato, please.”
“Cheese? Cheddar, pepper jack, American, swiss, Monterey Jack, feta, goat cheese?”
“Pepper jack, please.”
“Good choice. Fries? Salad?” Her tone of voice said you better pick the fries, buddy.
“Fries are good.”
“Great!” She turned toward the kitchen. “Troy! Walk a couple of cows through a garden and put one in a pepper patch! Frog sticks for both!”
“What?” Troy yelled from the back.
“I said—lord.” She shook her head. “He’s taken his damn hearing aids out already. I’ll be back with some coffee and water in a minute, boys.” She headed back for the kitchen.
Max caught my eye and grinned. “I don’t remember her being so…colorful with her orders.”
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br /> “It’s totally a schtick,” I confided. “One of the mayor’s marketing schemes involves really playing up the ‘small town charm’ of Edgewood, or so she says. Dinah has interpreted that in her own special way.”
“I like it.” He unrolled his set of silverware from the napkin and smoothed it out in front of him, like his hands couldn’t quite stand being still. “And how has the police department pumped up their ‘small town charm?’”
“We make sure to rescue a cat stuck up a tree at least once a day in the summer,” I replied, doing my best to keep a straight face. “We really make a big deal out of it. Why should the fire department get all the good press, after all?”
“Solid effort. What else?”
“Officers and other city workers take turns dressing up in the town mascot’s uniform for holidays and parades.”
A crinkle of puzzlement developed between Max’s eyebrows, and he stopped fiddling with the napkin. “Town mascot?” he asked as Dinah showed up with the drinks.
“Oh yeah. Mayor Clawson got the idea when she visited her son and daughter-in-law in Japan. Apparently, a lot of Japanese towns and cities have mascots, and she thought it would be fun if we did, too. Edgewood is now the happy home of Edwina the Blissful Beaver.”
Max almost dropped his water glass. “Hold on, what? Edwina the Beaver?”
“Yep.” I was really enjoying the look on his face. Maybe a little too much. “The mayor made the costume herself. It’s basically a big brown beaver with manga eyes wearing an apron.”
“Creepy as hell,” Dinah grumbled, adding her two cents as she poured the coffee. “She tried to get me into it for the Fourth of July parade last year. I’ve never been so glad to be a size twenty in all my life.”
“Nobody really likes wearing the costume, but it has been really popular,” I said. “Like, there was actually a Buzzfeed article about it. Now the mayor and Lauren—she’s my work partner—and the DMV’s office manager take turns being Edwina.”
Max’s eyes were comically wide. “And your partner doesn’t mind?”
I shrugged. “She gets overtime pay to do it, so no.” Lauren actually hated dressing up in the thing—“Does Mary not get what beaver is slang for?” she’d demanded more than once—but with four kids at home and a husband who had disabilities and couldn’t work, she jumped at any chance to make a little extra money.
“Edwina the Beaver. Wow.” Max sat back against the booth, holding his coffee mug but not drinking yet. “Does Edgewood still do the big tree downtown? And the nativity scene at the church?”
“Yes to the tree, no to a permanent nativity. Baby Jesus was stolen three years ago, and we still don’t know who took him.” I held up my hands when he looked at me incredulously. “Hey, I wasn’t even here three years ago. Don’t look at me! The past two years there’s been a nativity play on Christmas Eve. They get live animals brought in and everything.”
“Mary tried to get a real camel for it the first time around.” Dinah shook her head. “I told her you can’t just rent a camel, they’re a specialty item, but she tried until she was blue in the face. She finally settled on dressing her Labrador up in a camel costume.”
Max was laughing now. He was gorgeous when he laughed, his eyes brighter than ever, lines appearing in the corners as his grin stretched wide. I bit my lip as my stomach swooped in reaction. “What did she use for camels last year?”
“Blow-up dolls, same as she wants to use this year. They’re easier—way less mess than real animals.”
“Blow-up…wait, what?” I couldn’t help it—the thought of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus surrounded by a bunch of open-mouthed porno blow-up dolls was enough to make me lose it. I put my coffee down and laughed, covering my face with one hand. Me cracking up made Max laugh harder.
“Why are you—oh my god!” Dinah slapped her dishtowel across the edge of our table. “You filthy things, get your minds out of the gutter! They’re in the shapes of animals, not people! They’re cartoon-like!”
“That—that doesn’t make it better,” Max gasped. “That kind of makes it wo-worse…”
I had to put my head down on the table, I was laughing so hard. With any luck, our little church would have the filthiest nativity display on the East Coast this year. Maybe Buzzfeed would do another article on it.
The bell on the kitchen counter rang. “Order up!” Troy shouted like it was the middle of the lunch rush. I glanced his way—he’d gone all out for the holidays, which meant he was using a red Santa hat instead of a net to hold back his long, gray hair.
Thirty seconds later, my second dinner of the night thunked down onto the table, followed by bottles of ketchup, mustard, and whatever hot sauce had been on sale at Costco that week. “You boys eat up and enjoy,” Dinah said with a smile. Lipstick had seeped into the wrinkles in the corners of her mouth, stretching it out into more of a rictus than a grin. She looked tired, and I felt guilty for keeping her here.
“We’ll be out of your hair soon,” I promised her.
“Aw, honey, are you kidding me? What’ve I got to rush home for, huh?” She patted my shoulder. “I’ll box up the pie for you to take home.” She vanished into the back.
“She hasn’t changed much.”
I glanced at Max, who was staring after Dinah with a strange, sort of wistful expression on his face. “I kind of worried,” he said slowly, “that everyone I used to know would be completely different. I could pick Dinah out of a lineup any day, though. She’ll probably die with that fire engine red hair.”
“She will if she has anything to say about it,” I agreed. “Uh…are you…” I wanted to ask if he was okay, if he really didn’t recognize me or if he just didn’t care, and half a dozen other questions flashing through my mind, but I worried that anything I said would break the spell.
Max sighed. “Sorry, I know I’m being weird. Don’t listen to me. It’s just…I haven’t been here in a really long time.” He resolutely bit into his burger, and his expression of forced calm melted into pure happiness. “Ohmmgdd,” he muttered around his bite.
“Right?” What the hell, it wasn’t like I’d gotten to finish the meatloaf. I poured a pool of ketchup out onto the edge of my plate and began to eat. Silence reigned for another few minutes as we worked on our plates.
“So,” Max said once his burger and half of his fries had been annihilated. He sat back and pulled down the zipper on his jacket, and—damn. It was all I could do to keep my food in my mouth. “Tell me about yourself.”
Oh god, open-ended inquiries. I swallowed then took a sip of my water. “What do you want to know?”
Max didn’t quite smile, but there was a hint of interest in his face that even someone as blind to subtlety as I usually was could see. “Whatever you want to tell me. Seriously, it’s not a trap, but I’ve got some time to kill before my ride gets here, and you’re not rushing off. We might as well get to know each other better.”
He’s flirting with you, my brain screamed unhelpfully at me. It was all of my teenage fantasies come to life, and I had no idea what to do with it. He’s flirting with you! Do something, do something, do something!
The pressure was on, and I’d never been good at handling interpersonal pressure. So I said the first thing that came to mind, which was, “I think my house has rats.”
Max’s flirty face became a slight frown. “What?”
Oh god, end me. “Uh, I just bought a house, and it’s really in need of remodeling, and every night I hear noises in the walls,” and now I was babbling but I couldn’t stop, “and I’m actually hoping it’s rats because if the place is haunted, I’m burning it to the ground.”
“That wouldn’t be a very good return on your investment.”
“That’s why my fingers are crossed for rats.”
“I get that.” He looked thoughtful. “Are you doing the remodel yourself?”
>
I shrugged. “All the parts of it I can. Not the plumbing or the electrical work, but the walls and floors, yeah.”
“What do you think you’ll tackle first?”
“Ugh, it has to be the insulation. I’m dying to work on the kitchen, but it’s a moot point if I freeze to death one of these nights. And I can’t afford to heat the whole place the way it is now.”
To my complete amazement, the rats and home renovation didn’t kill the mood. Max actually knew quite a bit about construction—which wasn’t too surprising, since his dad had owned the largest construction outfit in the county before the “trouble” went down. We talked about appliances, about flooring, about the devil that was wallpaper and how to deal with it—we even talked about where I might look for a farmhouse sink. Our conversation was so engrossing, I totally forgot my brother was due to pick Max up until the door jingled and he walked inside the diner.
“Hey, Max!” he called out, and Max was on his feet, grinning and walking into Hal’s embrace before I even finished my wince.
“Where are the girls?” Max demanded as the two hugged hard.
“They were already in their pjs, so I asked our neighbor to watch them until we get back. Jesus, are you all right? Is the car totaled?”
“I hope not. Either way, I’m sure I can find a rental tomorrow.” Max sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than that he was really sure.
Hal patted him on the back once more, finally let him go, then looked over at me. “Shit, you didn’t tell me it was Nicky who picked you up!”
Max frowned. “Nicky? It’s not. This is Dominic.”
Hal looked between the two of us like we were crazy. “Max, Nicky is Dominic. You can remember every article and amendment of the Constitution but you can’t remember my little brother’s name?”
“No, of course I remember Nicky’s name, I just—” He turned to me, and this was it. Playtime was over. I was about to go from Dominic the competent cop he’d just low-key flirted with to Nicky, Hal’s little brother.
“I didn’t recognize you at all,” he marveled, looking me over with a fresh perspective. “At all. Jesus, you’re taller by a foot. And you’re so…different.”