He hated that party, though. I knew that. And he hardly ever drank. Or maybe his perspective had changed. Either way, I didn’t want to dwell too hard on Max being either raucously happy or lonely and sad tonight. What could I do about it, after all?
I mean…I could text him.
But he might not want to hear from me.
Although, if I had to pick any night to break the ice, this was the night.
I groaned. Thinking like this was getting me nowhere.
I opened up my phone and looked back at our last text conversation. It was the one we’d had before I’d been called out to the accident on the highway, before everything had gotten all fucked up. It was light, it was cute—Jesus, it was so cute, it was full of pictures of the girls trying on fancy clothes and Max wondering why dress-up was so complicated. There was even one of him in there, wearing Marnie’s tiara and puckering his lips for the camera.
Why had I ever made him think he wasn’t wanted? Why had I ever let him go? I needed to do something—to text, to call… My hand hovered over the phone app, poised for action.
The door opened in a rush.
“Damn, it’s cold out there!” Lauren said cheerfully as she got back into the Jeep. I scrambled to put my phone away before she noticed my indecision. “And it turns out the pie’s on hold because of the party, but there’s some killer cake, so I brought you a slice.” She handed me a paper plate and plastic fork topped with a slice of red velvet cake covered with way too much thick, sugary frosting. I scraped some of it off then took a bite.
“Pretty good,” I admitted once I swallowed it down.
“Don’t let Dinah hear you call her cake ‘pretty good,’” Lauren warned me.
“It’s not like I’m saying it in the diner.”
“True.” She had her own piece, which was already half eaten, and took another bite of it before continuing. “So. Spill. What’s bothering you?”
I didn’t have to tell her. I could hold it in and let it fester, and eventually it would fade away until it was just a scar, like an old wound. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I felt it more than ever now—I missed Max, and I wasn’t going to feel right until I told him that. Lauren was a good start.
“I wish Max were here.”
Lauren nodded slowly. “I knew it.”
“We had an argument before he left. And it changed things between us, and that wasn’t what I wanted.”
“What do you want?”
“I want him to be here,” I burst out. “I want him to come back to Edgewood and stay. I want him to be there for the girls and for Hal, but mostly I want him for myself.”
Lauren whistled. “You’re really hung up on him, aren’t you?”
“I think I’m in love with him.” My mouth went dry putting that out there, but it was true; that was the fucked-up thing. I was in love with Max, and he wasn’t here, and that was my bad. But it wasn’t impossible that I could fix it. “When he was here, we just…we clicked, we connected. I wanted to see where it could go, but I screwed up, and he went back to New York.”
“Did you try talking to him? Apologizing?”
“Of course I did! But he still left.”
“Maybe he was just overwhelmed and needed time to sort things out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dinah was saying the other day that their delivery guy had seen Max stopping by his father’s place on Christmas. God knows what the man said to him,” she said. “Did you not know this?”
Oh fuck. I hadn’t known any of that. And why would Max tell me, when I’d just picked a fight and given him the impression I was kicking him out? To think that he’d gone to his father’s after that…and nothing good had come of it, or I wouldn’t have found him alone on an icy trail in the dark.
God, did he still feel that way? Alone and rejected?
“I need to talk to him.” I grabbed my phone, intent on calling, but no, that wouldn’t do. “I need to see him. I have to see him. What do I do?”
“You have a car,” she said.
I blinked. “Um, yeah.” I gestured around us. “We’re sitting in it.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “You have a car, and you have tomorrow and the next day off, and you could go and visit him right now, genius,” she said impatiently. “Especially if you’re worried. Go to him. Text him first if you really feel the need, but nothing says ‘I love you and I’m there for you’ like actually being there for him. Show him that you’re serious.”
“That’s…” Wow. “Not what I expected to hear from you.”
“Are you kidding?” Lauren scoffed. “I’m a total romantic. I fell in love with Jimmy at first sight. We were married in less than a year. You think we could hold it together with his disabilities and my job and four kids if we weren’t madly in love with each other? No way. You have to go the distance for the people you love. This is your chance.”
Maybe there was something to this. “You really think so?”
She tapped the phone so the lock screen lit up. “Oh, look at the time! We’re off in five minutes. I think you should leave me here—Mary already offered me a ride home tonight. You know she lives right down the street from me. Then you should drive home and pack a bag, maybe catch a little sleep if you have to in order to drive safe, and get your ass to New York City on New Year’s Day to tell Max how you feel. I mean, that’s just my two cents.” She shrugged and ate her last bite of cake, scraping every last scrap of frosting off the plate.
“That was more like five bucks’ worth of opinions.”
“Bargain for you then, bud.” She gestured at my cake with her fork. “Are you going to finish that?”
“No.” I offered it to her, and she took it with a smile.
“So…” She left it hanging.
“So…” I grinned. “Get a ride home with Mary, because I’m heading out tonight.”
She grinned back. “Atta boy,” she said and opened the door again. A light snow had started to fall. “Drive safe.”
“I will.” She shut the door, and I watched her walk back into the diner before checking my phone. It was just a few minutes to midnight. I could get back to my house in fifteen, grab a few things, and—
“Unit Nine, we have an eleven eighty-two out on Highway 10, repeat, eleven eighty-two. You’re our closest unit. How quickly can you respond?”