by Jana Aston
“You’re way too excited about my social life, Allison,” I comment.
“I’m bored. Sue me,” she retorts.
I’m about to ask her why she’s home for the second weekend in a row, as it’s not like her, but Max is here so I slip my feet into a pair of sandals and fasten the straps while introducing them.
Allison takes an instant liking to him, meaning she grills him for info.
“What are your intentions towards my friend?” she asks exactly one heartbeat after introductions are made.
Max laughs and I roll my eyes. I don’t have to tell Max she’s joking because she can’t keep a straight face herself, bursting into a fit of giggles the moment the words are out of her mouth.
“Sorry, I don’t know where that came from,” she says between giggles. “I just channeled my dad for a minute there.”
“Well, rest assured, I’ve only the kinkiest of intentions towards Lauren.”
“Lucky bitch,” Allison mutters and we all laugh while I grab my purse.
“Don’t forget your stuff,” Max tells me as I raise a brow in question. “Weekend bag? I’m not bringing you home,” he murmurs into my ear as he pulls me close and kisses the spot just under my ear.
I was hoping I’d be spending the weekend with him again, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I’ve only mentally packed a bag. As in I know exactly what I need to grab right now and even which bag I’m bringing, but I haven’t actually packed the bag.
“Okay,” I agree with a quick nod. “Just give me a second to grab some things,” I tell him as I dash into the bedroom to grab my bag and the predetermined outfits for the weekend. Max stands in the doorway and watches me with an amused expression on his face.
“You’re packing pretty fast there, tiger.”
“Yeah, because I’m starving and we’re going to be late for dinner,” I lie.
“No rush, my sister is rarely on time.”
“I’m ready,” I announce half a second later and he does nothing to hide his smirk as he walks into the room.
“The infamous bunk beds,” he comments as he takes the bag from my hand. “Which one’s yours?”
“Top bunk,” I say, patting the side of the mattress.
“We can play top bunk later if you want.” He winks at me and I laugh while pushing at his chest and directing him towards the door. I grab my makeup bag as we pass the kitchen table. I’ve already got a toothbrush at Max’s. He gave me a spot for it and everything. He bought me shampoo and conditioner last weekend too. He’d complained that my hair didn’t smell like vanilla when I used the stuff in his shower and then ordered the stuff I normally use and had it delivered the same day. Manhattan is great for indulgent same-day delivery. Full-size bottles. His walk-in shower has two recessed niches for shampoo bottles and he gave one of them to me.
Who says chivalry is dead?
Toiletry space in the shower is a really big deal.
Chapter 9
Max’s sister is great. She is late, he wasn’t wrong about that. She bursts into the restaurant at quarter past eight with a big smile and apologies for her tardiness. She’s a student at NYU and full of bright-eyed optimism about humanity and the future. She waves her hands around when she talks and casually tosses out that Max and I would make cute babies midway through dinner. She says it like it’s fact and with an offhand sincerity, not as if she’s trying to cause trouble or rile Max up.
“Thank you, Molly. I haven’t had the chance to talk to Lauren about knocking her up yet but now seems as good a time as any,” Max deadpans while I enjoy watching their interactions. I’m an only child so this sort of sibling banter is new to me. “Lauren,” he begins as he places his hand over mine on the table. “Would you like to have my children? I was thinking five with exactly twenty-six months between each, so we should probably get started sooner rather than later. Perhaps tonight, if you’re ovulating.”
“Five? In the city?” I widen my eyes in response. “Not unless you have a third floor I didn’t notice.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll move to Connecticut between the second and third child. I’ve already put a deposit down on Max Junior’s future preschool. The good ones book up before birth. Everyone knows that.”
“Of course,” I agree. “But how do you know the first will be a Max?”
“Max, Maxine. Either or.”
“Huh.” I shrug. “Well, I have some reservations about having five of them, but it sounds like you’ve already thought this through so why not.”
“Okay, okay, enough, you two. Now you’re grossing me out,” Molly protests.
“You asked for it,” Max says, pointing at her with a piece of naan before ripping a piece off and stuffing it into his mouth. But he does it kindly and with humor. I love that about him. The way he treats his sister. The way he glances behind me every time he holds a door open to make sure there’s not another woman within a ten-foot radius he should keep holding the door for. It’s so freaking archaic, and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it—and I love it. I love that in a city of haste he never seems rushed when he’s around me. I know he’s got a stressful job—he works in venture capitalism just like Brad did. So I know it can be brutal and the hours long, but he leaves it at the office. Yes, I’ve seen him pull out his laptop on the weekends to catch up on something, but he never makes me feel like I’m in the way. When he’s around me his focus is me and it’s sexy as hell.
The way he flirts with me and how he makes me laugh all the time. The way he makes sure I have my shampoo at his place and how he walks on the outside of the sidewalk because he wants to be between me and the street. He makes me feel protected when I didn’t even realize I was missing that feeling.
Don’t even get me started on the sex. Raw and dirty and good. Uninhibited, messy. He makes me laugh and makes me come. Yet as good as it is—as great as it is—we fit together in so many other ways too.
It occurs to me then that I love a lot of things about him and my stomach tightens. I swore I’d never get this lost in a guy again, but here I am tumbling into love like an idiot.
“Anyway,” Molly interjects. “Are you bringing Lauren to the Hamptons for the fourth? You’re still coming, right?”
“Yes, we’ll be there,” he tells her. “And we’re taking the pool house.”
“You’ve got a pool house?” I question. I knew about the Hamptons house. It belongs to his father but according to Max he never uses it anymore. I knew we’d be sharing it with his sister, but I was envisioning a shore house filled with beds and dated appliances.
“You haven’t been?” Molly questions. “You’re going to love it. It’s only a couple hours outside of the city and it’s a breath of fresh air during the summer. You know how the city gets,” she says, scrunching her eyebrows, “all hot and stinky and extra-crowded. We’re on the beach if you prefer salt water to chlorine.”
“You’ve got a beach,” I repeat with a glance at Max. “And a pool.”
“Oh! We’ll get ice cream!” Molly continues. “I’ll take you to the Fudge Company! They have the best soft serve.” Molly claps her hands in excitement. “And candy!”
“What are you, ten?” Max interjects.
“No, I’m just excited you’re bringing someone this year who won’t hit on my friends,” she retorts while shooting him a dirty look. “And you can have the pool house,” she adds with a sweet smile. “You should enjoy it while you can. Once you have all those kids you’ll have to stay with them in the main house.”
“Touché, little sister.”
***
Later as we’re walking back to Max’s apartment he apologizes for Molly’s enthusiasm.
“It’s okay, I already knew something must be wrong with you.”
“Yeah, that I’m related to a crazy person. Don’t worry about our future children though. Molly’s adopted.”
“She is not,” I say, laughing while I elbow him in the ribs. “She looks exactly like you.”
“Fine, that’s a lie.” He sighs. “She’s my sister. And not even a half-sister.”
“I like her.”
“Yeah, I like her too.” He grins and throws an arm around my shoulders. “So you’re looking for things that are wrong with me, huh?”
“Absolutely.” I nod. “You’re too perfect to be real.”
“I really am,” he agrees.
“So what is it then, Prince Charming? Gambling debts? An arrest record? A shaky psychiatric past, maybe? You can’t possibly have a wife or girlfriend tucked away somewhere, since you’ve introduced me to your sister.”
“No wives. And no girlfriends except yourself,” he adds, grabbing my hand as we cross Eleventh Street. It’s probably not very mature, but my heart beats a little faster hearing him refer to me as his girlfriend. “I gamble during the occasional guys’ trip to Atlantic City, but I can take it or leave it. I narrowly avoided arrest a couple of times in college, but my record is officially clean. And though I haven’t been professionally evaluated, I think my psyche is sound.”
“So what about me? Aren’t you wondering what my crazy is? Everyone’s got some, right? This is still new,” I say, gesturing between us. “Maybe I’m just on my best behavior.”
“No, I’m not worried.” We’re standing at the corner of Perry and Hudson, waiting for the light to change so we can cross. He looks me in the eyes when he says it and I think I might swoon on the damn sidewalk, which while romantic is really unappealing because the sidewalks in Manhattan are generally pretty filthy. Then he adds, “I already know what your crazy is.”
“What do you think you know?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“You get a little nuts if the cream in your morning coffee isn’t just so. You pour it in and stir it,” he says, mimicking a spoon with his hand. “And then you pour in another drop and stir it again. Every time.”
“Fine,” I huff. It’s true.
“And you panic about running out of cream when you’ve just opened a brand-new bottle.”
“An heir and a spare.”
“What?” He glances at me as we walk. “What does that even mean?”
“Royalty? They always have to have an heir to the throne, right? And then they need to have a second in case something happens to the first. So it’s an heir and a spare.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Says the guy who wants five kids.”
“What does this have to do with coffee creamer?”
“Oh! I like a spare bottle. Once the main bottle is open, I like to see the spare lined up in the fridge.”
“Right.” He nods. “Not crazy. I’m two hundred steps from a corner bodega, but a spare bottle of creamer is cause for panic.”
“I just really like for my morning cup of coffee to go the right way.”
“Next. If you eat more than half a bag of gummy bears it hurts your stomach, but you never stop at half a bag. You eat the entire bag and then complain for at least an hour about how much your stomach hurts.”
“Oh, that.” I shrug. “That’s just part of my charm.”
“It’s something,” he agrees.
“So you want to take me to the Hamptons instead of the friends who flirt with girls barely out of high school?” I joke because I have a way of ruining a perfectly good moment.
He glances at the timer next to the traffic light. They have them at every intersection of New York, it seems—a small neon light counting down the seconds until impatient pedestrians can cross and then the clock resets again. The tourists I’ve noted will generally wait for the traffic light to give them permission to cross before stepping into the street. Locals are more likely to step off the curb the moment the last car has spun past.
“Guys from work,” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t realize they were that bad. Or maybe I did,” he adds. “Maybe I should have.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m being rude.”
“You’re fine.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“Forget it, it’s going to come out weird.” I change my mind as I swing our joined hands together as we walk down Hudson.
“It can’t be weirder than a conversation about how cute our future children are going to be.”
“So that,” I start because that’s what I want to ask him about. “Do guys really think about that stuff?”
“What stuff? Having a family? Some guys do. I do.”
“Huh,” I say, because honestly it surprises me a little. Men have always been a bit of a mystery to me in that regard. I assumed women were the ones who thought about babies and school districts and just sort of dragged the men along. When I was engaged I was the one who did all the planning, and I thought that was normal. Not that we got very far into it anyway.
“Guys worthy of your time think about that stuff.”
“Worthy of my time. I like that. So full disclosure,” I say, drawing in a breath. “You remember that I was engaged before?”
“Yeah,” he replies, squeezing my hand.
“That weekend you want to go to the Hamptons is the weekend I was supposed to get married. Before I cancelled the venue and gave back the ring, that was the weekend. I haven’t thought about it in a while but then at dinner your sister brought up the holiday weekend and I just thought I should mention it.”
“His loss,” Max replies and I fall a little bit more in love with him. “I’m sorry that he hurt you,” he adds, “but I’m not sorry that it led you here. To New York. To me. I’m not sure that I would have found you in Iowa.” He grins when he adds the part about Iowa and pulls me a little bit closer to him.
“Yeah, me too.” I smile in response. And I am. Happy, that is. I can see now how much better of a fit I am with Max than I ever was with Brad. I loved Brad, I thought I was going to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him. But I’m grateful that I didn’t. That it didn’t get that far. I might have chosen a different way to end it, but looking back I can’t say it wasn’t for the best that it ended. This thing with Max might be new, but it’s easy. It’s so much easier between us, like I’ve known him for years instead of weeks. He’s so transparent with me, I never feel like I have to guess what he’s thinking or what he really wants.
“So, full disclosure,” Max repeats before a random passerby interrupts and asks where the nearest subway entrance is. Max directs them over to the Christopher Street Station and then the light changes and we cross the street. Then we run into the drugstore and I realize he never finished his sentence.
“Did you want to tell me something?” I ask as we exit the store.
“Yeah, we were dangerously close to being out of condoms,” he says, holding up the bag.
“No.” I roll my eyes in his face. “Before. When we were interrupted? Also, I’m on the pill by the way.”
“Okay, whoa,” he says, holding up his hands. “There’s no ‘by the way’ about that statement, Lauren. Because if that was a green light to fuck you bare then that was the focal point of everything you just said. That’s all I heard anyway. I’ve already blacked out on the rest.” He turns me in the direction of his apartment with a firm hand on my back and nudges me to walk, his hand remaining in place as we go lest I might slow my steps and need to be prodded. “Should we get a cab?”
“Your apartment is literally around the corner,” I say, pointing. “It’s a tenth of a mile and with the one-way streets it would take longer to cab than walk, and why am I even entertaining this question with a response?” But I laugh because I know he’s half serious and I love that about him.
“Shit, Lauren.” He shakes his head like something’s just occurred to him.
“What?”
“It’s not even my birthday,” he says softly. Then he winks and he’s so freaking cute I’m about two seconds from handing him my panties on the sidewalk.
And then I’m not.
We should have turned left when we exited Rite
Aid. We should have turned left and taken Tenth to Bleecker. Fuck it all to hell, why didn’t we turn left?
Chapter 10
We turned right.
We turned right to take Charles to Bleecker.
We turned right, which took us past the Irish pub on the corner. And in only in New York fashion we bumped smack into my ex-fiancé, Brad. Eight million people in New York, one point six million people in Manhattan alone and who do we bump into? The last guy I’m interested in seeing.
I haven’t seen him in the ten months since we broke up, not once. I always imagined I’d bump into him again, but in Iowa. We’d both be home for the holidays and run into each other at the Hy-Vee while picking up a last-minute ingredient for Christmas dinner. Or maybe at the airport, waiting for a flight back to New York. But in Manhattan, I assumed I was safe from any awkward encounters.
I see him before he sees me. He’s directly in front of me but he’s not facing my direction. He’s looking behind him, reaching for someone’s hand. A woman. She’s pretty, I find myself noticing in a detached way. I feel flushed, the way you do when you’re surprised by something, because I’m surprised to see him. But I’m not sure I feel anything else. I wait, expecting to feel a bite of pain or hurt, but it’s not there. I find myself hoping he’s grown up, if not for his own sake then for hers. Whoever she is.
Brad turns and recognition crosses his face—but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Max. “Hey, man,” he’s calling out a second before my brain registers what’s happening. Before I realize they know each other. A heartbeat before I observe something in Max’s expression that makes me realize that not only does he know Brad, he knows exactly who Brad is to me. That this is Brad. This all happens in a moment but it feels like slow motion, my brain a step behind. It’s not a New York minute, that’s for sure. It’s more of a microwave minute. You know? How a minute spent waiting for something to cook in the microwave feels like five? Sorta like that.
Then Brad’s gaze moves from Max to me, to Max’s hand around my shoulder, and a flash of surprise crosses his face at seeing us together.
