Maxine’s stubborn response didn’t surprise me, but it did bring a smile to my face. She’d sent an email updating me on everything she’d done to prepare for the upcoming Fall Ball. “Dammit!” My fist absently pounded the sturdy table in the back of Big Mama’s place. She was punishing me. I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, but I’d been tried and convicted. It was completely unfair.
“Stop scowling at my burger or I’ll smash it against your face,” Scott growled in my direction, his deep voice pulled me from thoughts of Maxine. “What the hell is eating at you, anyway?”
I debated, for about half a second, on whether or not I should share my problem with Scott. He was my best friend and the only one I could trust with the news of mine and Maxine’s relationship. Maybe our former relationship. “Maxine,” I sighed, watching as his expression went from uninterested to totally intrigued. “She brought Callie in to get her arm checked out and she found Tricia Findley coming on to me. Now, she’s not talking to me. At all.”
Scott’s dark green eyes grew as round as dinner plates and he smacked the table, drawing the attention of a few late morning diners. “Holy shit, the matchmakers got another one!” His laugh came out in a loud, booming sound that had even Big Mama raising her eyebrows in concern.
“Keep it down, would you? The last thing I need is the whole town to find out about us. If we even are still an us.” The fact that she’d gone radio silent was a good clue that I’d be attending the ball on my own, at the mercy of all the bored housewives who loved to get dressed up and flirt with men who weren’t their husbands.
Scott’s expression changed from amusement to guilt. “Sorry. How in the hell did you both manage to keep this quiet?”
“Only Callie knows. Nina suspects, but Maxine’s catering the ball so it isn’t odd that we’d spend some time together. That time turned into something else.”
“I’ll say,” he grunted and bit into his burger just as Ginger returned with my stack of pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and over-easy eggs. “Sounds like there’s nothing to tell anymore. No offense,” he added at my outraged expression.
He was right. “You’re an asshole,” I told him, but he was still right. “I didn’t do anything,” I insisted, like I had to plead my case to my best friend.
Something in my tone or my expression must have clued him in on my feelings because Scott leaned forward, his expression now serious as he planted his elbows on the table, burger still gripped in both hands. “Okay. Tell me what happened. Exactly what happened.”
I did. I revealed everything, from her concerns that I was a playboy like her ex, to her finding Mrs. Findley’s lips glued to mine. “That’s it. She saw what she saw and instantly went cold. Now she’s refusing to talk to me other than about the ball.” It just didn’t make sense—Maxine wasn’t a woman prone to histrionics. She wasn’t irrational or overly emotional.
“You’re right,” Scott agreed and leaned back in the booth seat. “You didn’t do anything.”
“See?” I suddenly felt a little lighter with vindication on my side. “I knew I wasn’t being unreasonable.” I leaned back, mirroring his move, satisfied if not mollified. “Women,” I scoffed, even though there was just one woman I wanted, even if she was being stubborn and unfair.
Scott’s serious expression sat like lead in my gut, thought. “No, dude, you didn’t do a damn thing. Did you push this Findley woman away?”
I frowned. “No. She’s a harmless flirt and her husband is a big donor at the hospital, something you know a small town like this relies on to provide the best care possible.”
“So, you chose the hospital over Max’s feelings?”
What the hell? “Why are you angry with me? I didn’t do a damn thing!”
“That’s right, you didn’t. How long did the kiss last, Derek?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think. “It wasn’t a kiss, dammit.” But still I tried to remember how long. “It felt like a few seconds, I guess.”
Scott’s eyes went wide and round, and he let out a low whistle. “That is most definitely a kiss, my friend. And it, unfortunately, sounds like you showed Max exactly what she means to you. A big fat nada.”
“That’s not true,” I insisted, but it sounded a lot like what Maxine had accused me of being: a careless playboy. “So, what, nothing else counts? Not all the ways I showed her that I’m not a cheating bastard like her ex?” If Maxine didn’t believe now, then she probably never would.
“Maybe, and call me crazy here, but maybe you should be telling Max all this.” He held back a smirk but it filled his eyes, making his amusement impossible to ignore.
“Glad this is so damn amusing for you, friend.” I shook my head when he let out another laugh, half an apology in his eyes. “And it’s kind of hard to tell her anything when she refuses to hear me out or return my calls.”
Scott shrugged. “Show up at her house. You didn’t have a problem doing that when you were getting nonstop sex.”
“Asshole,” I grunted, mostly because he was right. I had done a lot to get Maxine to open up to me, to make her mine, and now that it was more important than ever, I was letting her make all the decisions.
“Maybe so, but I’m not wrong. Bring a gift for her kid if you have to, I happen to know she’s a fan of dinosaurs, unicorns, and pretty much all bugs and insects.” He flashed a smile and held his hands up defensively. “But only if she means enough for you to go through the trouble.”
“Such an asshole,” I added, but this time there was no heat behind it. Scott was right, and in this situation, I was afraid that the real asshole was me.
“Is that any way to talk about your best friend?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, good luck. Maxine is smart and tough; you’ll need to bring your A-game if you want to earn her forgiveness.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “Single mothers always are. They have to be, mama bears and all that.”
He was right, again. I couldn’t just wait for Maxine to forgive me, because that might never happen—especially if she didn’t give me a chance to plead my case. “Don’t count me out yet. I made her mine once. I can do it again.”
Maxine
I loved days like this, when work was so busy that I didn’t have time to focus on anything else. Chopping and slicing and dicing, sautéing, frying, broiling and seasoning. Tasting. Making sure all the details are just right so that when it’s show time, everything will be perfect. Getting lost in the busy work of preparing for an event was exactly what I needed right now.
What I didn’t need was thoughts of a certain blue-eyed doctor forcing me to waste perfectly good pastry dough, which I couldn’t afford to waste when today’s event started in a few hours and tomorrow was blocked to do the rest of the cooking for the Fall Ball. “Everything all right, boss?”
I looked up at the sound of my new assistant and put on my best attempt at a smile. “Sure thing, Becks. You need something?”
She flashed a grin and gave a casual shrug. “A hot guy bursting at the seams to see me, otherwise I’m good.”
“Smart ass,” I teased. Becks was young, eager to work and to learn, and she was new to Tulip.
“Be careful what you wish for. We have a bunch of wannabe matchmakers waiting in the wings.”
So far, they’d kept their distance—which I was grateful for, but which also made me kind of wary.
“Maybe so, but you have a visitor.” She pushed open the door that separated the front of the shop from the expanded kitchen area and let it swing behind her.
I knew who the visitor would be even before Derek came strolling into the kitchen, his long-legged gait all casual and relaxed like he was wanted here. “Morning, Maxine.”
I sighed instead of responding, wishing Callie was here instead of at her friend Bailey’s house, so I’d have an excuse to avoid this conversation the way I’d managed to for the past few days. I had two choices: I could handle this li
ke an adult or I could channel my inner bratty child. “Don’t tell me you have menu changes, because it’s too late for that. Way too late.”
His gaze slammed into mine, expression serious as if someone had died. “No” he sighed. “I’m here because we need to talk.” Derek raked one hand through thick, already disheveled black curls, his eyes still on mine while I worked hard to put all my armor on and erect the protective walls around me.
I didn’t want to have this conversation any more than I wanted to at the hospital, or all the times he’d called. Or texted. After catching my ex, I hadn’t wanted to have this conversation with him, either. It was kind of a rule of mine: stick your dick or tongue inside another woman and we’re through. No questions or explanations necessary. “If you don’t have any menu changes, then we have nothing to talk about.” I might be willing to concede that Derek wasn’t exactly like my ex, but he wasn’t much better.
“Dammit, Maxine. We’re good together,” he growled, like he really believed it—or worse, like he really expected me to believe it. His outburst drew the attention of several assistants working hard in the large kitchen, and now I was upset.
“This is not the time or the place, Derek.” I grabbed his wrist and tugged him through the kitchen and down the hall to my office, thinking how much different this trip was than the last one. “I didn’t confront you at your office, and I’d appreciate the same damn courtesy. Or is that too much to ask?”
His shoulders sank and he rested his big body against the door, closing it and effectively closing us in the small space. Together. “No, it’s not, but I’m desperate. You won’t talk to me.”
For just a second, my heart melted at the agony in his voice, but my inner bitch told my stupid heart to focus on beating and pumping blood, nothing more. “Desperate to do what, Derek? You made your feelings about me pretty damn clear when you didn’t reject Mrs. Findley’s kiss, so no, we don’t have anything to talk about.” He hadn’t wanted it, I’d seen that much, but the fact that he found it so hard to pull away from an unwanted advance was troublesome, especially considering how many times I’d witnessed women coming on to him.
“She shocked me.”
“I know.” His shoulders relaxed at my admission, but it was premature. “The problem I have with all of this is that you’d rather spare her feelings than mine. For me, that’s a deal-breaker.” If I ever chose to give my heart to another man, he wouldn’t be afraid to put my feelings above some random woman. “Is that all?”
“No, it’s not all, Maxine. I’m not ready for this, us, to be over.”
“Then you should have thought about that when you let that woman kiss you in the middle of the damn hospital. I’m just glad we didn’t go public sooner.”
He scoffed. “Or maybe you were just hedging your bets,” he added with a bitter challenge in his voice.
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, Derek, go right ahead. There is no justification for what you did. None. And for the record, I wasn’t ready for us to be over, either. Unfortunately, I can’t trust you.”
“You never did, Maxine. Did you?”
I barked out a laugh at his childish attempt to turn the tables on me. “If that was true, I’d be talking to you like you were anyone else. Someone who barely mattered to me.” I took a step forward and poked a finger in his chest. “No, this is all about you, Derek. Fine, so you didn’t want the kiss, what did you do tell her that?” He opened his mouth and I poked him again. “Not a damn thing. You stood there and took it and not once said, ‘I’m seeing someone, I’m not interested, you’re married!’ Nothing!”
He stared at me like he was just seeing me for the first time, or maybe he was just seeing for the first time how deep my feelings for him ran. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” I told him honestly, because I was. I was sorry that I’d taken a risk on him. Sorry that I’d handed over my heart without any proof he was worthy. Another pretty face attached to a charming mouth and I’d given him all the tools to hurt me. “I wasn’t completely right about you, Derek, but I wasn’t wrong, either.”
“You are,” he insisted, anger now coloring his voice.
“Four seconds.” I waited, letting those two words sink in so he would know that I wasn’t wrong. “She kissed you for four seconds, and you didn’t pull away. I counted, Derek, because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, and you only pulled back because Callie called out to you. So don’t turn this around on me. Callie saw you kissing another woman, and I need to be a better example than that.” His shoulders sank and I could see the truth finally starting to sink in. We were over. “I don’t have time to rehash this with you. I have work to do. See you around, Derek.”
I left him standing in my office, refusing to allow myself to shed another tear over another cheater. I’d done plenty of that in my time, and I was well and truly over it. Not to mention, I had about three days worth of cooking to do in the next day and a half.
There was already too much on my plate, I didn’t have time for heartbreak.
Not that my heart was broken. It wasn’t. Dented maybe, but not broken.
Definitely not broken.
Derek
When I’d woken up this morning, I’d tried to start the day with a good attitude, thinking that whole fake it till you make it thing might hold some water for me. There were no filters for the coffee, no sugar for the instant crap that was, for some reason, in the back of my cabinet, and no hot water until eleven.
So much for a good damn attitude. When the hot water came back on, I thought maybe I was being a bit naïve in my thought process. I didn’t need a good attitude, just a reasonable facsimile of one. Good-attitude adjacent. It was the same as an actual good attitude, only fake. With how my luck was going, I decided to skip the toast and bacon in favor of cereal, because what could go wrong with cereal?
No milk, that was what.
By the time two o’clock rolled around, I gave up all pretense of having a good attitude. The Fall Ball was set to begin in a few hours, and who knew what in the hell else would go wrong. I put on the tux my dad had insisted a man needed when he took me to a high-end shop after I graduated from med school, and slipped my shoes on before heading for the door.
But I should have known. The day hadn’t gone right from the moment I opened my eyes, so I wasn’t surprised or even annoyed to see Janey on my doorstep in a long black dress with a beaded collar. “Janey. Why?” My gaze immediately slid to the camera in her hand and I groaned. “No. Not now.”
“Sabrina hired me to take photos of the entire event, including and especially all the hot Hometown Heroes. It’s happening, now or later, so you might as well get on board with the idea. Besides, think of how many calendars we’ll sell of you guys in your black-tie finery.” She flashed a grin that I might have found endearing at another time. Today, it was mostly just irritating.
“Fine. Snap away.” I stood on my porch with my arms folded across my chest and something that might be a distant cousin of a smile on my face.
“Smile,” she encouraged, flashing one of her own as she peeked around the massive black camera. “It’s your big night.”
“Wrong. It’s the end of my sentence.” That’s what it felt like. Despite all that happened between Maxine and I, planning this ball was not my idea of a good time. I didn’t give a damn about flowers and place settings, tablecloths or napkin colors. And on top of not caring, I was now too busy dealing with this crap to go after my woman.
“At least try to look like you want to help get Tulip’s Tribute fixed up again.”
“Guilt, Janey, really? That’s beneath you.”
“And pouting is beneath you, but here we are.” She shrugged and put the camera right in my face. “Smile, dammit.”
I flashed an automatic smile to appease Janey, because she didn’t deserve my bad mood. It wasn’t her fault that I was grumpy and angry, mostly with myself. Maxine’s words hadn’t stopped playing in my head since she’d
left me standing in her office like a fool. I realized that though she wasn’t right about me, she wasn’t completely wrong about my actions. I should have pushed Tricia away, told her that I wasn’t interested and that there was a woman in my life I gave a damn about. More than a damn, in fact.
How could I expect Maxine to want to go public and tell the world about us when I couldn’t even say it to get out of unwanted advances?
“Are we done?” Suddenly, all I wanted to do was get to the ball, to Maxine, so I could make her listen.
“For now. Next time I see you, I won’t be so nice.”
“Noted,” I told her before grabbing my keys and stepping on the gas. As soon as my duties were over, Maxine and I would have a long chat.
A very long one.
The ‘ball’ part of the Fall Ball was actually the large event room at the Tulip Community Center, which meant I didn’t have to drive all the way to the hospital. I parked, ignoring the clusters of people gathered in the parking lot for the other event rooms, and found the ballroom fuller than I’d anticipated. “What are you guys all doing here?”
Scott turned first at the sound of my voice, flashing a wide grin as he smoothed the wrinkles from a tablecloth. “Look who finally showed up! We got an S.O.S. call that your volunteers were knocked out by a nasty bout of the flu.”
“And since this is a shindig to celebrate the awesomeness that is all of us,” Jase added with a grin, handing the other side of the Fall Ball banner to his brother Nate, who stood on another ladder, “we all answered the call.”
The call? “They all have the flu? Why didn’t I hear about this?”
Preston stood behind Scott with a rolling cart stacked with dinnerware. And centerpieces. “Nina got the call from Max this morning and she asked me to rally the troops.”
Maxine had called them in? That had to mean something, right? “Well, I’m glad you knuckleheads showed up, because we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.” I smiled at my friends and fellow Hometown Heroes, removing my jacket like the rest of the guys had done and getting to work. It took more than two hours with all of us helping, but we finally made the plain room look like a ballroom fancy enough to satisfy the discerning tastes of Sabrina Worthington. “Damn, guys, I owe you all. Big time.”
Misters of Love: A Small Town Romance Boxset Page 28
