Falling for Max

by Shannon Stacey

  The average movie is 2 hours so a quarter is 30 minutes. If you can stay 30 minutes, we can have sex instead because nobody wants to watch a quarter of a movie.

  Who could resist that logic? I’ll be there by six. Get some work done.

  She took her own advice and focused on clearing the to-do list she’d written out that morning. There was a lot of tweaking—one author didn’t like his title font, another wanted a more futuristic spaceship, which made Tori laugh, and one was thinking about redoing the covers of her entire series to boost sales. It was nitpicky, headache-inducing stuff, so after a while, she sat back in her chair to take a break.

  The books next to her computer caught her eye and she grabbed the one on top. It promised a step-by-step plan for healing families split by divorce. By tilting her head, she saw from the spines Hailey had also sent books on being an adult child of divorce and coping with toxic relationships. They didn’t sound nearly as fun as the novels sitting on the other end of the desk.

  But Hailey had gone to a lot of work to choose these particular books, so she opened the one in her hand and scanned the table of contents. Then she flipped to the first chapter and started to read.

  * * *

  Are you naked? Max hit the send button and waited patiently for Tori’s response.

  Why would I be naked?

  A man can hope. It sounded more interesting than are you busy?

  Of course she was busy. It had been almost two weeks since Tori’s schedule at the diner had changed and they’d fallen into a routine of a lot of work, a lot of texting and the occasional exercising of their friendship’s benefits.

  I’m a little busy, but not crazy busy.

  This Sunday’s the bye week, so I was thinking we could go to dinner. Not at the diner.

  What’s a bye week?

  He frowned at his phone screen. The Patriots don’t play. They have a week off.

  Why?

  I can explain it to you, but that would probably tip over into actual telephone-call length.

  Her reply came almost immediately. Dinner sounds good. Speaking of, tomorrow night we’re having a goodbye party for Gavin at the diner. You should come.

  A party? He wasn’t sure about a party at the diner. He liked Gavin well enough, especially his cooking, but he didn’t know him that well.

  I’ll let you walk me home after.

  I’ll be there, he responded so quickly he was surprised he didn’t sprain his thumb. What time?

  Eight. The dinner rush will be over and it limits the festivities to an hour.

  I’ll see you at eight, then.

  Can’t wait. xox

  He’d figured out the xox was her way of ending a text conversation. Though he had no way of knowing if she ended all of her conversations that way, he liked to think those kisses and hugs were just for him. And he couldn’t wait to see her, either.

  Colin had called him earlier in the week to check up on him and see how the plan had worked. After Max explained the plan had gone south almost immediately, but that they were still friends with benefits, his brother had urged him to be patient and not push too hard, too soon. It wasn’t easy, but he was managing not to tell her how he felt. Barely.

  When eight o’clock rolled around the following night, he was confident enough he’d be walking her home, so he went ahead and parked in the back of the bank’s lot and walked to the diner.

  He’d been expecting the staff to be there, along with Gavin’s family, so it was a surprise to find what looked like half the population of Whitford in the diner. It took him a while to find Tori, since she was shorter than most everybody else there, but he finally spotted her in the back corner with her aunt and uncle and started toward her.

  Halfway there, he was hit by a sudden wave of anxiety. He knew Mike a bit, since he made it over for a few games now and then, but he didn’t really know Jilly at all. Right now, she was the closest thing Tori had to a reliable mother figure and he had no idea how Jilly might feel about their relationship. Or how much she even knew.

  “I told you you’d shake each other up.”

  Max looked down at Ava, who’d moved in next to him, and was confused until he remembered the advice she’d given him after his second and final date with Nola. But discretion seemed to be in order, or at least as much as was possible. “Tori and I are friends.”

  “Mmm-hmm. What is it the young folk call that nowadays? Friends with incentives?”

  “Benefits. Friends with benefits.” He told himself it was a correction, not an admission.

  “Right. But you need to start thinking long-term. Like friends with retirement plans.”

  Max stared at the clock on the wall, wondering if the hands were even moving. An hour, she’d said. The festivities were limited to an hour by the diner closing, but did that mean Tori had to stay the entire hour?

  Ava chuckled. “You’re an odd duck, Max Crawford. I like you.”

  The way she said it, with amusement but also what sounded like affection, made him look at her. “I think I like you, too.”

  “I grow on people. It takes a while.” She shook her finger at him. “But you take my advice and start working on that retirement plan.”

  She walked away and Max inwardly cringed when he realized Tori had spotted him at some point and was definitely within earshot. “A retirement plan?”

  Max shrugged. “Ava was giving me some financial advice.”

  “Ava? Really?”

  He didn’t blame her for being skeptical and went for a change of subject. “I was on my way over to say hello. You were with your aunt and uncle.”

  “They’re so excited for Gavin they can’t stand still for more than two minutes. And he’s just as bad. They’re definitely moving targets tonight.”

  They moved around themselves, making small talk with different people as they went. Max was surprised by how well he managed. Between making the effort to get to know people over the last month and a half and having Tori at his side, he was comfortable in the crowd. Two parties in a row, he thought, where he hadn’t made excuses to leave early.

  Not that he was complaining when the cake had been eaten and the neon open sign shut off. There was still the walking home to look forward to, as soon as Tori was finished saying goodbye to her cousin.

  While she had her arms wrapped around Gavin’s neck, telling him how wonderfully he was going to do, Max shook Mike’s hand and then Jilly’s, congratulating them. Tori’s aunt seemed nice as she talked about how proud she was of her son and how strange it was going to be not having him around. There were no sideways glances or speculative questions.

  Once he’d gotten the chance to wish Gavin luck, it was finally time to head out. Once they were on the sidewalk, she slipped her hand in his and they walked silently in the cold night air.

  * * *

  Tori tossed her keys onto her counter and took a deep breath. She’d lured Max into attending the party with the promise of walking her home, both of them knowing what that really meant.

  But it had been a really crappy afternoon and, after the effort of putting her mood aside to enjoy the party, she just wanted to curl up in a ball and feel sorry for herself. Max’s arms slid around her waist and she sighed.

  He kissed the back of her neck. “You’re very tense.”

  “I had a rough day, actually.”

  “Then sit down and I’ll make you some hot cocoa.”

  “That sounds good. I’m going to change first, though.” Comfortable sweats were a pretty universal not in the mood signal, but she wasn’t sure if Max would pick up on it or not.

  Her mug was already on the coffee table when she was done making herself less attractive, and he joined her on the couch when his was ready. He didn’t seem to even register the sweats, but he left a little space between them.

  “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” he asked. “Is it Gavin leaving?”

  “No. My mom called earlier, about Thanksgiving.” She sighed and
leaned her head back against the couch. “And Hailey interlibrary loaned me some books about divorce and toxic relationships and stuff, and they’ve been weighing on my mind a lot.”

  “Do you think they’re helping?”

  “I tried explaining to Mom that it’s hard to be around when she’s angry, but then she tells me what my father did to make her angry. I told her that nobody wants to hear a litany of complaints over pumpkin pie and all she does is give me the whole list to prove it’s valid.” Tori shrugged one shoulder, rubbing her index finger over the edge of her thumbnail. “One of the chapters I read earlier—right after she called, actually—covered when a toxic person in your life isn’t taking hints or redirection and has to be cut out of your life.”

  “If that concept’s disturbing you, I take it you’ve reached that point with your parents?”

  “Maybe my mom. Dad’s not quite as bad and I have hope for him, eventually. But they’d have to hear what I say to get the hints. Maybe if the holidays weren’t coming up, it wouldn’t be so bad, but they’re in a frenzy right now.”

  He put his arm around her and pulled her close, so she was snuggled against his chest. “Have Thanksgiving with me.”

  The words came out in a casual, almost throwaway tone, but alarm bells still went off in Tori’s brain. Thanksgiving was a holiday. Spending holidays together was a big deal. A very big deal. “I was planning on going to Uncle Mike and Aunt Jilly’s. My mom keeps threatening to show up, though. We might all come down with a case of the flu.”

  “If you tell her you’re spending the day with a friend, she can’t invite herself and, if you’re not at their house, there’s no reason for your aunt and uncle to have to pretend to be sick on a day dedicated to food. Besides, it would be fun.”

  Or it would be intimate. A couple spending Thanksgiving Day together. The familiar fear rose up in the back of her mind, but she did her best to shove it away. “It does sound fun. Friends can eat too much turkey together and then fall asleep on the couch watching movies.”

  “Or football.”

  “I’ll definitely fall asleep on the couch. But aren’t you supposed to go home to Connecticut?”

  He shrugged, which she felt since she was pressed up against him. “With six adults and five kids, they’ll barely notice. And I’ll be going home for Christmas a month later, anyway. They won’t mind. I promise. And it’ll get you out of a tough spot with your parents.”

  Tears stung her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “Why can’t I tell them to...I don’t know, go jump off a cliff or something?”

  “Because they’re your parents.”

  “I don’t want to end up hating them as much as they hate each other.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I wish I knew what to tell you. But I can help you dodge Thanksgiving and maybe they’ll start listening to you.”

  She doubted that part, but it would be nice to have a reprieve from the marital warfare, even if it was a brief one. There was no doubt in her mind things would reach a fever pitch leading up to Christmas, just like previous years. One of the books, which she’d already read twice, had a recommended reading list and she made a mental note to ask Hailey to borrow a couple more.

  “I’d like to have Thanksgiving with you,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “We could try that thing where they shove a duck into a chicken and then shove the chicken into the turkey. Or maybe the chicken gets shoved into the duck. I guess it depends on which one’s bigger.”

  She laughed, shoving away from him. “I’d rather go to my mother’s.”

  He pulled her back, and she figured he’d make his move now. Maybe slide his hand up under her sweatshirt or start nibbling at her neck, but he only wrapped his arm around her again. “I think a plain turkey would be best. When you start shoving food inside other foods, it must be difficult to figure out the cooking time.”

  “Have you ever roasted a turkey?” She assumed, if he always went home to Connecticut, his mother probably did the honors.

  “No, but they have directions on the wrapper. And there are YouTube video tutorials for everything.”

  She laughed, trying to imagine him watching videos on how to properly stuff a Thanksgiving turkey. “I usually just watch videos of people doing really stupid things.”

  “Speaking of videos, where’s your TV remote?”

  “Probably under the books on the table next to you,” she said without bothering to lift her head to look. Her hot cocoa was getting cold, but Max was a great pillow.

  A few seconds later, her TV came on and he started flipping through channels. “Stop me if you see something you want to watch.”

  When he landed on an episode of Firefly, she told him to stop. “You can’t pass by an episode of Firefly.”

  “This one’s early in the season. If it’s a marathon, we’ll still be sitting here hours from now.”

  She snuggled deeper into his embrace. “Is that a problem?”

  “No, it was a wish,” he said, and rested his cheek on her hair.

  Chapter Twenty

  Max wore the blue sweater on Sunday. While he’d always known it suited him, because his sister-in-law had told him so when she gave it to him for Christmas a few years before, there was something about the way Tori looked at him when he was wearing it that made him wish he could wear it every day.

  Unlike their first trip into the city for dinner, there were no awkward silences, even with the radio turned down low. They’d had some applicants for the cooking position at the diner, and Tori shared Paige’s stories about some of the least qualified. It wasn’t looking good for filling Gavin’s shoes anytime soon, but at least they were all being entertained in the meantime.

  They were almost halfway to the restaurant when Tori’s cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag and he could tell by the sigh it was probably one of her parents. After the third ring, she hit the button to answer it.

  “Hi, Dad.” She was quiet then, and he could hear the faint rumble of a man’s voice, though not the words. “I haven’t looked for your fishing rod yet because I haven’t been to Mom’s house. I’m really busy and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance.”

  While her dad responded to that, Max reached over and put his hand on her thigh, trying to offer comfort. Or maybe strength. What he’d like to do was take her cell phone and throw it out the window, but that wouldn’t do any good. She’d just get another one.

  “Dad, I’m going to interrupt you because I’m actually on my way out to dinner. I live three hours away from you and Mom. If you want your fishing pole, you need to call your ex-wife and ask her for permission to look in the garage. Call your lawyer if you have to, or buy a new fishing pole, but this is not my problem.”

  Max squeezed her leg and she slid her free hand over his, her fingers curling around to squeeze back.

  “I’m sorry, Dad, but I don’t have your fishing pole, so those are your options. I have to go now, but I love you and I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Once she’d hung up, she shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “Sorry. I should have sent him to voice mail instead of letting him into our date, but then I would have wondered about it. Now it’s done.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She didn’t sound sure, but then she nodded. “Yes, I’m okay. I didn’t tell him to take a flying leap or anything. I just told him getting his fishing pole is his responsibility and not mine. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “No, there isn’t.” He squeezed her hand, knowing that, no matter what she said, it had been a big step for her. And she’d used the word date, which was quite the mood booster. “So you were telling me about the woman who asked Paige if she wanted a grilled cheese sandwich on toasted or plain bread...”

  Tori laughed and fell back into the stories from the diner, though she didn’t let go of Max’s hand until he pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. He went around to make sure she didn’t ding his do
or and to help her out, getting a kiss for the effort. This was definitely better than the mock date.

  “You smell...nice.” He kissed her again. “The good nice.”

  “Thank you. Did I tell you how nice you look tonight? Definitely the good nice.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He took her hand and started toward the door.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I see the way you look at me in this sweater.” He stopped walking. “Maybe I should leave it in the car. This is a family restaurant.”

  She slapped his arm and nudged him forward. “I’ve created a monster.”

  “So, did Gavin settle into Kennebunkport okay?” he asked her once they’d ordered drinks and their meals.

  “Yes, he did. He left yesterday morning and moved into the apartment they helped him find. I guess it’s very small and on the third floor of some grand old mansion, but he can see the ocean and walk to the restaurant.”

  “Which is probably good, considering the condition of his truck.”

  When Tori laughed, Max was proud to notice more than one male head turned in her direction. “Aunt Jilly’s driving the truck right now. She let him take her car until he saves enough to buy one of his own. So then she took my car to do her monthly grocery run because the truck burns too much gas. I really hope Gavin makes good money at that restaurant because we’ll be playing hot potato with his truck until he gets rid of it.”

  She talked more about him and her work, but he lost his focus on her words. She was happy tonight, despite the call from her dad. Her eyes sparkled and she was quick with the smile that crinkled the corners of them. She could have been reciting weather forecasts and he would be mesmerized.

  She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “Are you listening to me?”