26. Chapter 26
twenty-six
“ D on’t forget about the drive-through.”
Max shuddered at Willow’s reminder as he turned the key in his ignition and pulled out of the driveway, but the sound of her soft chuckle had his smile quickly returning.
His alarm had gone off at five a.m., and on any other day, he’d have jumped out of bed, got in a gruelling workout, and eaten eggs before going into work early. But just before he was about to get up, she’d rolled over to his side of the bed and pressed her soft body against his.
Then she’d kissed his neck.
They had spent the rest of the morning in bed together until their stomachs had growled so loudly that they were forced to get up. He’d offered to make her breakfast after his shower, but she’d followed him into the bathroom, stepped into the shower, and asked him to get her breakfast on the way to work, instead.
As if he were ever going to say no to that.
He shook his head, astonished that he had already allowed himself to get wrapped around her little finger. It made him uncomfortable to care about her as much as he did, but it also felt right. It was hard to explain.
“You’re a bad influence.”
She smiled as she flipped down the visor and braided her still-damp hair. “I really want to try one of those egg sandwiches everyone talks about.”
His nose wrinkled. “They’re gross.”
She laughed and rolled her beautiful eyes. “You’re way too stuck in your routine.”
He wanted to disagree, but she was mostly right. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d broken it. Maybe last year when he’d had the stomach flu and couldn’t get out of bed. But he’d never wanted to break it. He did it because he liked it.
“I’ve refined my routine to perfection. There’s no reason to unstick myself.”
“Hmm . . .” she said with a smug smile. “If it’s so perfect, then why did you stay in bed with me all morning?”
Vivid images of her in his bed flitted through his mind. Her bright hair against his white sheets; the soft, pale skin of her back under his hands, not to mention the sensation of her fingers lightly tracing up and down his back.
How the fuck was he supposed to care about a five a.m. workout and a balanced diet after that?
“That’s what I thought,” she said, finishing her braid and flipping the mirror closed with a smile.
He rolled his eyes and turned into the drive-through lane. “Fine. You might be right.”
“I’m definitely right.”
The employee’s muffled voice came through the intercom, and Max ordered their food. They were just about to pull back onto the road when Willow’s phone pinged with a text.
She pulled out her phone, clicked a couple times, then laughed. “It’s Cara,” she said. “She’s asking if I’m dead. I probably should have told her I wasn’t coming home last night.”
Max slowly nodded, controlling his expression. He was still working through how to feel about Willow and Cara being roommates and becoming friends. It was probably a good thing that his sister liked his . . . What the hell was she? He’d told her how he felt, but she’d never told him what she wanted, and he’d been far too distracted to ask her about her plans and what she thought about their multiple-night stands.
“Is it okay if I tell her I was with you?”
Max’s brow furrowed as he glanced over at Willow. “Of course,” he said, wondering why she thought it wouldn’t be.
Willow smiled. “Okay.”
She clicked away on her phone for a few seconds before dropping it in her lap and opening the wrapper on her egg sandwich. “Do you want to—”
She stopped when a message came through, and he wanted to scream. Did he want to what?
Have lunch together?
Meet up for an afternooner in the office?
Sleep over again tonight?
Be her boyfriend?
He glanced over at her and rolled his eyes. He wanted to hear the end of her question so badly he was ready to pull her phone from her hands and throw it out the fucking window.
“Tell Cara to fuck off,” he said, but she just sat there, staring at the screen.
“It’s not Cara,” she said, her voice coming out heavy with worry.
His spine went rigid. “Is it Jer?”
“No,” she said with a deep exhale. “It’s Shane.”
Now he really wanted to throw the fucking phone .
They could stop by the store before getting to work and get her a new one with a new phone number so he couldn’t contact her again. She’d want that, right?
Right?
He swallowed his aggravation and sucked in a breath. “You’ve been talking to him again?”
“This is the first time since he broke up with me.”
“What does he want?”
She looked over, giving him an assessing look with her pretty green eyes, and he turned his attention back to the road and tried to control his face.
“I ordered a gift for Nikki’s wedding, and it came in,” she said. “He needs the email to pick it up.”
His shoulders relaxed incrementally, but the tension was still there. He really fucking hated this. Hated that he had no clue what he meant to her. And hated thinking that she still had feelings for her ex.
But he had only broken up with her a week ago, and she’d been left devastated. She probably wasn’t over that. And yet, he was so much further along in his feelings already.
He just wished she’d see that asshole for what he was and move on. With him.
“What’s wrong?”
Max shook his head. “Nothing. ”
She gave a slow blink and tipped her head. She knew he was full of shit.
He shrugged. “I’m just . . . worried, I guess.”
“You don’t look worried. You look angry.”
He shook his head, braced himself to speak.
“I’m not angry. I’m . . .”
Jealous.
Scared.
Frustrated.
He knew it, but there was a 0 percent chance he was going to fucking admit it.
“You’re . . .” she drew out, waiting for him to finish.
“Annoyed.”
It was true. He was very annoyed.
Annoyed that he couldn’t ask her to tell that guy to never call again. Annoyed that she didn’t seem to know what she wanted. Annoyed that he’d let himself feel all the feelings.
Annoyed that he was just a hookup to her. A rebound. A way to distract herself from the guy she actually wanted who’d dumped her.
He let out a heavy sigh.
It had been impossible to contain his feelings for her. She was like a magnet, drawing him in. Every word, look, laugh, sucked him deeper and deeper, no matter how hard he fought to control it .
He pulled out his mental broom and started sweeping it all away. But the little Willow box in his mind was severely overflowing, so he visualized an entire wall of shelving full of totes and filled them all up with his wayward feelings, then sealed them and backed out of the room.
“So . . . you don’t think I should talk to him?”
He gave a casual shrug as he pulled into the parking lot of the pub. “That’s your call.”
She frowned at the shift in his tone. “What if he wants to get back together?”
“Then you’ll have to decide if that’s what you want,” he said. He grabbed his coffee and stepped out of the car, headed for the door.
She fumbled with her stuff, but made it out of the car, and fell in step beside him. “But you think it’s a bad idea?”
He stopped and turned to her. What the hell did she want from him? He’d told her how he felt about her, and she was talking to him about texting and getting back together with her ex.
“Since when do you care what I think, Willow?”
“I guess it’s a recent development,” she said, shuffling her feet.
He took in the tortured expression on her face and wished he hadn’t fallen in love with someone so indecisive. If she would just tell him she was into him, or tell him to fuck off, then he could move on instead of being left in this torturous limbo.
“Fine,” he said, his voice betraying his frustration. “I think it would be a terrible decision.”
The door from the back of the kitchen burst open, and Luis came stepping toward them. “Max, thank God you’re here.”
Max pushed all that out of his brain and switched gears again for the billionth time that morning. “What’s wrong?”
“We just received the delivery from the supplier, and it’s all wrong. All wrong.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll sort it all out.”
“And the lead host just came to me. We’re having problems with the point-of-sale equipment.”
“Okay,” he said again, this time slower. He sensed Luis might have been having a meltdown.
“And I think the thermostat in the cooler isn’t working properly. My tomatoes froze.”
“Everything is going to be fine, Luis,” he said, making mental notes of all the issues he’d just run through. “Let me worry about all of this. You worry about the menu and kitchen staff.”
Luis started shaking his head. “We might not open on time.”
Max closed the distance between them and put a hand on Luis’s shoulder. “I don’t care if a fucking tornado rips the roof off the place. We’re opening on time. There’s no way around that.”
“But I don’t know—”
“You don’t need to know anything. Just do your job. I’ll deal with it.”
Luis took a few deep breaths, then turned without another word and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Do you need me for anything?”
When he turned to Willow, he noticed that she’d shrunk back, nervously twisting her hands.
“No,” he said. “I’ll deal with all of this. Just make sure we have beer.”
She nodded, then awkwardly closed the distance between them. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but she rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek before walking off. He stared at her back as she walked away, the feel of her lips still on his cheek, and couldn’t believe how calm her touch made him feel.
Just as his mind created a vision of a future where they commuted into work together every day, he forcefully rejected it with a violent shake of his head.
God, what a fucking mess.
He needed to give himself some space from Willow to pull himself together, so he resolved to stay away from her for a couple of days and put a moratorium on the multiple-night stands .
He shifted his focus to work, walked into the office, and opened his laptop, then began putting out all the fires so they could open on time.