“Lucky for you, the shower works really well,” I assured him, “and I’ve got spare clothes you can use. I have a washer and dryer, too, so we can at least get your stuff clean by tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks.”
We headed back to my room together, and I got out a loose pair of sweats and a gray army hoodie and put them on the end of the bed. “You can just throw your dirty stuff out into the hall and I’ll get it in the washer.”
“So that’s a no on the strip tease, then.”
I knew my mouth had just dropped open like a cartoon character, but I couldn’t help it. Had a strip tease been on offer?
Max started chuckling. “No, I’m sorry, I’m kidding. I mean, I’d be willing if I wasn’t completely covered in fiberglass dust right now, but as it is…”
I wasn’t used to people I was attracted to being casually cute yet fully direct with their flirting game. Generally, my interactions with them hadn’t lasted long enough for them to joke with me, but for all that Max was clearly concerned about his meeting tomorrow, he still managed to rev me up and make me laugh at the same time. “Sound logic,” I said at last.
“I’m a practitioner of civil law. Deductive reasoning is my forte.” He winked and then shut the bathroom door.
I took a second just to breathe before heading back out front, alone.
Max would probably work on his presentation for hours, so once I got his clothes started in the washer, I buckled down on the insulation. I was going to get all of this up in my future living room today, and neither snow nor rain nor gorgeous high school crush distraction currently naked in my bathroom was going to stop me.
I worked steadily, resisting the urge to go back and check on Max, to ask if he was comfortable, if he needed anything. He was an adult. He’d let me know if he wasn’t.
I guessed he wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.
So I was surprised when Max was the first one to seek me out a few hours later. “Hey.”
I turned around to look at him, grimacing a little at the stiffness in my lower back. I was only in my mid-twenties. This was not okay.
He was standing at the edge of the room in my clothes, all a little too big on him, and holding a plate with a sandwich on it. “You ready to break for a late lunch? It’s not a snowman grilled cheese, but it’s edible.”
Max made me lunch? Without the girls being around? “Thanks,” I managed after a second. “That sounds great.”
“I made you a ham, mustard, and mayonnaise masterpiece, because that’s what I found in your fridge. And look!” He held the plate down a little lower, and I could see that while it wasn’t a snowman, it was a cutout of some kind with those pointy ears, maybe a cat or a—
“Is that a raccoon?”
“It’s commemorative!” Max glanced down at it. “What, too much? The extra pieces didn’t go to waste. I left them in the kitchen on the cutting board.”
Part of me wanted to laugh. Part of me wanted to get choked up, because nobody had ever gone to such weird, funny lengths for me before. Most of me just wanted to eat the sandwich, because now that I was aware it was mid-afternoon, my stomach also started rumbling at me. But I also wanted to wrap him up in my arms and kiss him senseless to satisfy another type of hunger.
My stomach growled loudly enough for Max to hear, if the sudden grin was anything to go by. I held out my hand. “It’s the most delicious raccoon I’ve ever seen. Gimme.”
…
Late lunch turned into an early dinner once it was clear that Max was done for now and didn’t mind something a little more elaborate—in this case, a second course of canned beef stew over egg noodles. Then it was my turn to shower, and I blessed my brand-new hot water heater the whole time. When I came out, Max was sitting against the headboard of my bed with his tablet in his hands but clearly not working on it.
“Hey…want to watch a movie?”
He could have asked me to watch the snow melt and I’d have said yes. “Sure, that sounds great.” I wasn’t a movie buff or anything, but I enjoyed superhero movies as much as everybody else did.
“Great, do you like classics? I’ll cue up Casablanca.”
Casablanca? Wasn’t that a really old movie? What was I getting myself into? “Okay.”
The set-up was pretty nice, at least. Max set his tablet up at the end of the bed, and we settled in beside each other to watch. He smelled like my bodywash, and he was so warm—I didn’t know how he kept so warm when my own fingers felt like ice. The movie started, and it was interesting enough to hold my attention, at least for a while.
I woke up slowly to the feeling of a warm hand rubbing circles against my shoulder. It felt so nice I almost didn’t want to wake up, until I remembered who it had to be. “Mmm, Max?”
“Hey.” His voice was quiet. “The movie’s over.”
“Oh.” Oh damn, that meant I had slept right through most of it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“That’s okay. You worked hard today. You clearly needed the nap.”
Maybe I had, but I was getting more awake by the second now. His hand slid down my arm as he leaned in. The heat from earlier sparked to life again in his gaze. I wanted to both pull him down to me and lunge up toward him all at once.
“Hey, Max? Do you maybe want to—”
Suddenly, it was my phone going off. Max and I groaned. How many times was life going to cock block us?
“Shit, where is it?” he asked.
“I’ve got it,” I muttered, rolling over from where I’d propped my head against Max’s hip—which was familiar of me, jeez—and over to my discarded jeans, where I’d left my phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Dom!” I heard the familiar, cheerful voice of my psychologist from the VA. “I was just calling to let you know that we’re going to have to reschedule the appointment we had set for tomorrow, unless you want to meet up on Zoom. This storm is setting everything back a few days, I’m afraid.”
“Ah.” Wow, I’d completely forgotten that. “Rescheduling the appointment is fine. Can we make it the week after next, actually?” I wanted to be around to help Hal with the girls as much as possible in the lead-up to Christmas.
“That would be fine.” We got something new set up, then I said good-bye and ended the call.
Max was looking at me curiously. “That was my counselor,” I said, trying not to feel too awkward about it. “I see her once a month, for help with my PTSD. Maybe not this month, though.” I gestured in a “hey, what can you do” kind of way.