“And you!” I walked toward him, my pointer finger flailing wildly. “You didn’t say anything! You just sat there and let him push and push.”
His smile grew wider. “You didn’t need me to say anything. You handled it just fine on your own.”
I laughed bitterly. “Clearly not.”
He stood from the bathtub ledge and crossed the room. When he reached me, he opened his arms and pulled me against him. “Can you still pronounce Spago?” he asked against my hair, and my laughter grew less bitter.
I sniffed and rested my head against his shoulder. “I just didn’t want to give him what he wanted. You know?”
“I know.”
“And, let’s face it . . . if anyone was going to lose their temper, best odds were on you.”
I felt his chest and throat rumble with laughter against me. “You know what my favorite part was?”
“That I called him Marshall?”
He threw his head back as the laughter exploded out of him. “Yes! It was such a perfect Hadley Beckett insult. The worst name you could possibly call him was the name he’d been telling you to call him since day one. It was so polite, but still scathing!”
And then I lost it. We both did. I buried my face in his chest and we laughed until we couldn’t breathe. Finally, our breath began to regulate, and he gently rubbed my back as he softly said, “We should probably get back down there.”
I let out another groan and pulled away from him. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. Seriously, Hadley. You said you didn’t want to give him what he wanted. Well, I don’t think you did. Do you think for one minute that’s the reaction he thought he was going to get out of you?”
It was hard to imagine he’d seen that coming. I sure hadn’t.
“Probably not.”
“You know what I think?” I shook my head and he continued. “I think he was hoping to make you cry. But you didn’t cry. You didn’t back down when Marshall Simons underestimated you any more than you did when I underestimated you. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and I sighed—the combination of all the sweet words and my favorite Maxwell Cavanagh posture almost more than I could handle. “In fact, I think you should be proud of yourself. I know I am.”
I looked down at my feet and noticed they were close enough to kick his, so I did. “Thanks.” There was no way I was going to ruin that moment with some emotion-deflecting attempt at humor.
“Welcome,” he said, kicking me back.
I took a deep breath. “Shall we?”
“Ready when you are.”
I looked up and smiled at him, and then unlocked the door and made my way out. But he stopped me just before I got to the second door standing between us and the cameras.
“Hey, Hadley?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember when I ordered for you at Cavanagh’s and you said it was the sexiest thing you’d ever seen in your life?”
I felt my cheeks flush—for many, many reasons. “I do.”
“Well, you standing up to Simons like that?” He stepped in front of me, unlocked the door, and opened it. Sure enough, there was a camera waiting for us just on the other side. But that didn’t stop Max from saying, “Ditto.”
After my makeup was retouched and lint rollers and other magic tools were used to remove my powder from Max’s shirt, we were ready to roll again. And neither Max, Chef Simons, nor I said a word until the cameras were rolling.
“Chef Hadley,” Simons began as soon as Lowell had counted us down. “Your friendship with Chef Max seems to matter to you a great deal.”
I nodded. “Of course it does.”
“And Chef Max.” He slightly adjusted his angle in the chair to have a better view of Max and, more importantly, the camera over Max’s shoulder. “After your nervous breakdown on America’s Fiercest Chef, resulting in one of the most spectacular falls from grace I’ve witnessed, very few in the industry believed you would ever again be considered reputable. Respected.”
“Is there a question in there, Chef Simons?” Max asked calmly.
“Well, my question would be how did you ever convince Chef Hadley to trust you? To let you in. To, somehow, become a friend?”
Max leaned forward—calm, cool, collected—and rested his elbows on his knees. I found myself repositioning my body so I could see him better. My trust in his transformation was absolute, but I was endlessly fascinated by it, nonetheless.
“That’s a great question, Chef. One I’ve asked myself many times. And the truth is—”
“Because you have to admit, Chef Max—”
Max held up his hand and Simons stopped speaking at once. I couldn’t quite see Max’s eyes, but there must have been something in them that our host took seriously.
“Let’s not do that. What do you say? Maybe you can ask questions, we’ll answer them, and then we can move on to the next? I’d say that sounds like a good plan.”
Well, doesn’t that just beat all? I chewed on my lip to keep from laughing as Chef Simons sat back in his chair and plastered on a fake smile.
“Indeed. Please proceed, Chef.”
Max nodded. “The truth is, Hadley and I were able to become friends because of Hadley. It had very little to do with me. I mean, forgiveness. I don’t know if I’d ever really seen it in action before. But she didn’t hold a grudge, she didn’t punish me for what I’d done in the past—”
“Oh, I think I did,” I said quietly.
“I don’t think so, Hadley.” He turned to face me, and for a moment it felt like it was just the two of us in the room. “You didn’t act like it never happened, nor should you have. But you gave me a chance.” He turned back to Chef Simons. “At rehab I had this counselor who said that the key to healing is self-realization, and that the key to self-realization is allowing yourself to embrace nothing. Hadley and I joked about how we didn’t really have any idea what that meant, but I think I’ve figured out that it’s completely backward.”
“What do you mean?” Chef Simons asked.
“I don’t think the key to healing is self-realization at all. I think you’ve got to realize that there are other people out there, and they matter more. And I think you realize that not by embracing nothing, but by embracing something.”
I caught a single tear with the back of my hand before it rolled off the tip of my nose. Without thinking, I stretched my other arm out and almost placed my hand on Max’s arm. It had become instinctive. Second nature. But just in time I caught sight of Chef Simons’s gaze following my hand. No. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of digging up any more of my very private emotions.
But Max would, apparently. Before I could pull it away, he had clutched my hand in his.
Looking like a kid in a candy shop, Chef Simons asked, “Chef Max, have you found religion?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what that means. I’m not going to act like I have things all figured out, or that I even understand what all there is to figure out. I just know that Hadley has something that not everybody has. And whatever it is, I think it’s at the core of why we were able to become friends. So, I’m grateful to whatever or whoever made that possible.”