13. Chapter 13 #2
I squinted at him. “So you’re not mad at me? You don’t despise me for my role in all of that? Because you looked like you thought I was the scum of the earth when I passed you in the parking lot on the way out.”
And he had every right to, even if he didn’t actually feel that way.
He nodded thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on his thigh.
“I’ll admit I wasn’t in the best state emotionally at the time, but I was never mad at you.
I was in shock and humiliated and—I thought —heartbroken.
I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone at the time, especially not someone who was just trying to do her job. ”
“So I didn’t completely wreck your chance at happiness?”
He chuckled and shifted until he met my eyes. “Definitely not. I think I’m happier now than I ever was with Vicky. More… whole , I guess.”
The weight of hundreds of days of regret and guilt and shame slid off my shoulders.
The other shoe had finally dropped, but instead of crushing me like I’d expected, it had crushed the shackles I’d locked myself in.
I was a bird whose cage had just been opened, a gazelle who’d escaped the lion’s clutches after the longest hunt in existence. I could breathe.
Finally.
Fully .
If it weren’t so dark out, I’d almost be convinced the birds were singing and unicorns were flying through the sky sprinkling magic happy dust. Max didn’t hate me. He didn’t blame me. Better than that, even—he’d apparently never hated or blamed me.
I’d never been so relieved to be wrong.
“And you don’t hate me now, even after getting you stuck in the elevator from Hell?” I asked, barely restraining my grin.
“Elevator from Hell, or the elevator to Hell?” He laughed, the espresso-like depths of his eyes twinkling. “Either way, the answer is no. I don’t hate you. Not even a little bit.”
“Even though you couldn’t stand looking at me a week ago?”
“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, once again looking away. “Sorry about that. That was… I was a little preoccupied with some… stuff… and tried to avoid it. Internal stuff. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
That was incredibly vague, but okay. Considering how often I worried about things, it only seemed fair that he could do the same. Even if it meant avoiding looking at me for some reason.
I huffed a laugh of pure relief, like I’d seen the sun for the first time in years. My grin broke free, so wide and unrestrained that my cheeks hurt. I didn’t care.
We sat there, shoulder to shoulder, smiling at each other like goofs for a good ten seconds.
“Wow!” I sucked in a full breath, relishing the feeling to the tips of my lungs. “I can’t even tell you how good this news feels.”
His smile faltered, and he fidgeted with his fingers in his lap. “Like you’re no longer drowning?”
I swallowed hard. He remembered our conversation from this morning. It felt like ages ago by now, and with the way things had changed for me since then, it may as well be.
“Yeah,” I whispered, offering a small smile. “Turns out I’ve been swimming in the shallow end the whole time.”
He bumped my shoulder again. “Hey, people drown in shallow water all the time. It isn’t about how deep the pool is, but how much gets in your lungs.”
I hummed thoughtfully. It made sense, in a way. Some people could tread water for hours, while some needed the safety of the shallows. And then there was me, who felt like I’d been trying to swim with one arm tied behind my back for a long time now.
I took the gloves off and fanned myself with my hands, pushing cooler air against my cheeks. The donkey suit was quickly getting uncomfortably warm. As opposed to all-around uncomfortable, which it had already mastered. “Does this mean we can be friends now?”
“And here I thought we were already friends,” he teased. “When you weren’t avoiding me like the plague, that is.”
I blushed, which did nothing to help cool me down. “Sorry. I really thought you were going to sneak snakes into my vents or barbecue my favorite pair of socks or something.”
He scratched his chin, resembling the famous thinker statue. “Both good options.”
“Hey, don’t get any ideas now, okay? We’ve declared a truce. No takesies backsies.”
I didn’t think my heart could handle the stress if he did a one-eighty. Especially now that it had tasted freedom.
I nudged the donkey head safely away from my feet and hesitantly extended my hands. “I hate to ask this, but could you help me stand up and get this off? I’m melting, and I’d rather the paramedics not find me in a fur suit if I pass out from heatstroke.”
“Fair enough.” He laughed as he gracefully eased himself to his feet. “And here I thought the suit was growing on you. You seemed pretty comfortable on the way back here.”
“That had everything to do with being distracted and nothing to do with cosplaying Eeyore’s possessed twin.”
I accepted his offered hands, only meeting his eyes for a second when we touched, despite the zing. I launched myself upward with as much gusto as I could muster, determined not to make him do all the heavy lifting yet again.
Unfortunately, I underestimated how much oomph he’d put into pulling me up. I shot up like an arrow, stumbled with my bum ankle, and smacked right into his chest. He instinctively wrapped a hand around my waist to steady me, the other still holding my hand like we were dancing.
The heat in the elevator cranked up at least ten degrees this close to him.
The air charged with an intensity I’d never felt before, like we were on the edge of a precipice as a lightning storm raged all around us.
The punch of his masculine scent overpowered the baked beans aroma that followed the suit like a shadow.
His breathing synced with mine, our chests brushing together with each inhale.
I met his eyes, their dark depths churning with unidentified emotions that begged to be named and given a home before they could be swept aside and forgotten. My mouth went dry. My heart skipped. Whatever this heady feeling was, I wanted to preserve it. Immortalize it and drink it forever.
His eyes flicked over my face. When I licked my lips, he tracked the motion with laser like intensity. A muscle in his jaw flexed.
And then, just as suddenly as the moment had ignited upon our collision, he cleared his throat and backed up a step, taking the electricity in the air with him.
“Let’s get you out of this.” He circled around to the zipper at my back.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. I still wasn’t sure what the hummus just happened, but it felt too intense to be nothing. Then again, I’d also been awake for eighteen hours now, so I could’ve hallucinated the whole thing. Max was the type of guy a girl could get drunk on daydreaming about.
I swept errant curls out of his way from where they’d escaped my bun. His touch was light, yet my body tuned in to each movement like I was the pigeon, and he was the unsuspecting tourist eating a hotdog.
Heat trailed down my back where he unzipped the suit. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, yet it felt like an eternity. His breath feathered ever so lightly across my skin where my T-shirt’s stretched out collar dipped further down my spine. I shivered.
When he’d reached the small of my back with the zipper, he stepped away quicker than a rabbit chasing after lettuce.
He cleared his throat. “There you go.”
I sighed in relief and immediately set to shedding the donkey skin as best I could while balancing on one foot. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” He looked anywhere but at me. “Do you know what you’re going to do about the bakery tomorrow?”
The reminder splashed ice water on whatever hormones had hijacked my brain while he’d held me.
I paused, my bottom half still donkey-fied. “I think I’ll have to close for the day.”
He shrugged and offered his forearm for me to steady myself with. “If that’s what you want to do, go for it. I don’t think anyone would hold it against you.”
Gale might. The baristas depending on the day’s wages and tips might. And most of all, I’d hold it against me.
“It isn’t what I want to do” —I wobbled precariously as I extracted my injured leg— “it’s the most practical solution.”
“Then what do you want to do about it?”
I considered for a moment, using it as a convenient excuse to procrastinate putting any weight on my ankle for as long as possible.
Obviously I didn’t want to close and risk the wrath and disappointment of customers and employees alike, but what could I feasibly do at this point?
I wasn’t really in charge. I only had the authority of a hall monitor when I needed that of a principal.
“If this was your bakery,” Max continued, waiting until I met his gaze, “and you weren’t just filling in, what would you do?”
I suppressed a shiver from how closely his question mirrored my exact train of thought.
How would I have handled this pre-Besserman?
The Dekker from back then, confident in her abilities, felt like a completely different person.
But I used to be her. Maybe—just maybe—part of her still existed somewhere deep down.
I squared my shoulders. “I’d call the people who usually help the owner in the back on my days off and see if they can come in to help tomorrow.
And if they can’t, I’d come in earlier to give me more time to get things out and into the oven, even if I have to Uber there.
I’d simplify the menu for tomorrow and run a sale on coffee orders to compensate for the inconvenience.
” I looked down at my stocking foot dangling in the air.
My sweatpants hid most of the swelling around my ankle but not all of it.
“And I’d take a crap-ton of painkillers. ”
Max grinned and hoisted me with his hands gripping my waist, up and out of the last donkey leg. He gently set me back down before I could process how quickly he’d sent my world spinning from his touch. “Then let’s do it.”
My eyebrows rose. “What?”
“Let’s do it.” He pursed his lips in the direction of my pocket, where the solid rectangle of my phone was unmistakable against the fabric. “Make the calls. We’re going to make it work. The fire department won’t be here for another five minutes to get us out, so we still have time.”
Panic seized my heart. Calling people? On the phone?
Instead of texting them like a sane person?
Sure, I’d said that I’d call Quincy and Jenny, but I was also talking about hypothetical solutions.
Actually doing them was another story. I would almost literally rather eat nothing but raisins for a week than call a stranger or mere acquaintance on the phone.
But he looked at me with so much excitement, so much expectation and fire in his eyes that I found myself pulling my phone out anyway. And, like watching myself from afar, I dialed my coworkers’ numbers.
Before Quincy answered, Max nudged me to get my attention. As if it ever seemed to leave him.
“When you’re ready to go in the morning, just knock on the wall we share, okay?” he said softly. “You’re going to run that bakery tomorrow, Dekker Piper. One way or another.”