Chapter Fifteen
The walk back to the house was slow and awkward, even though Bo’s mind was running at what felt like lightning speed. After Max’s confession, she’d fallen into a stunned silence, hardly registering what he was telling her.
He’d looked at Bo then with eyes that were swirling with regret and anger.
“I know Geoffrey was kind to you, but he wasn’t always kind to everyone else. The night we met, I know you thought I was being a dick. I know you thought Geoffrey — beloved Sir Geoffrey, who wouldn’t hurt a fly — didn’t deserve my anger. He did though. He really did, and he knew it.”
They’d eaten in silence after that, and Max paid the bill absently, clearly lost in thought as they strode back across the heath to Geoffrey’s old house.
As they walked, Bo could hardly believe what Max had told her.
How could Max be Geoffrey’s son? Geoffrey, who’d so desperately wanted children.
Geoffrey, who’d bought 12 Orchard Drive as a home for the family he intended to have?
It was hard for Bo to fathom that Geoffrey had a son, and an unacknowledged one at that.
All the way back, she stole sideways glances at Max, looking for similarities between him and the old man she’d adored.
She’d always thought of Geoffrey as a distinguished, handsome gentleman, and Max — well, Max wasn’t her type, but there was a distinguished aura to him too.
His hair was different to Geoffrey’s, and his nose and mouth were his own too, but Bo had to admit that there was something about the set of Max’s eyes that reminded her of the man who was undoubtedly his father.
Besides, Max said she could trust him, and she knew he had no reason to lie. There was nothing for him to gain in lying about Geoffrey being his father. Instinctively, Bo knew he was telling the truth.
When they got to the gate of Geoffrey’s house, Max looked down at her, hands deep in his pockets, glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.
“Why did you come here?” Bo asked, looking up at him curiously.
“To this house? This was the house Geoffrey lived in with his wife; you must know that. I know it’s yours now .
. . I know he left it to you . . . but you don’t have to live here, Max.
You could have rented it out. Could’ve spent the summer in a house with fewer painful memories for you. ”
“I know.” Max sighed. “I thought it would do me good to stay here for a time though. I thought it would be . . . What’s the word? Therapeutic?”
Bo nodded.
“Geoffrey would bring me here as a child for visits, you know. His wife tolerated me . . . just about. I spent a lot of time hiding in your summer house.”
“I remember. You didn’t knock on the door,” Bo reminded him, but she smiled all the same, and Max smiled back.
“I never needed to before.” He paused for a moment.
“I’m glad Geoffrey left it to you, you know.
The summer house . . . the garden. I meant what I said before: I really am glad Geoffrey had someone to love him in his final days.
I think if he’d died alone, I’d feel worse than I do about how fractured my relationship with him was. ”
“Do you ever wish you’d reconciled with him?” Bo asked.
“No. Yes.” Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes when I think about Geoffrey, I feel guilt.
Sometimes I feel anger. Sometimes I feel .
. . it’s not exactly love, but something similar.
Maybe its adoration. The adoration a boy feels for his father, before he realizes his father is just a man . . . and a selfish one at that.”
“You adored Geoffrey?”
“As a child, yes. As a man? No. Children naturally adore their parents, Bo, but then as they grow, they come to understand that they’re as flawed and fallible as any other human being.”
Bo nodded. She thought about her father, who she’d loved without reason, and her mother, whose advice she’d followed without question.
She understood what Max was saying. She looked up at the sky, at the stars that were hardly visible above the bright London lights, like unintentional splatters of paint from the flick of a paintbrush, and sighed.
“I get it,” she said softly. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How the older you get, the more human your parents become to you?”
Max hummed in agreement, his gaze distant. “I think that realizing your parents are flawed and fallible is the mark of a grown-up.”
She turned back to Max at that, considering both him and his words for a moment. “No,” she finally said. “But I think forgiving them for being flawed and fallible might be.”
That made Max blink. He looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“I don’t understand how you can think you’re not clever and then say something like that,” he told her, shaking his head in amazement. “Do you even hear yourself? Only an observant person would say something that simple but true.”
Bo felt something warm bloom inside of her, and she gave a small and disbelieving laugh. “You really think that?”
“I don’t just think it, I know it.” His tone was certain but gentle, and for a heartbeat too long, he didn’t look away from her, and the warmth in Bo’s chest spread to her cheeks. “It’s late.” Max suddenly added. “Are you tired or . . . ?”
Or.
Inexplicably, Bo felt a sudden flair of panic.
Max was looking at her with those wide eyes of his, his gaze full of meaning, and once again she realized just how much she liked him.
She liked the way he thought and the way he talked and even the way he looked, she realized.
She liked everything about him, in fact.
Which wasn’t ideal, was it? Not when they had their arrangement, an arrangement Max had every intention of sticking to.
At the end of the summer, he fully intended on returning to Berlin and his life and other sexual partners, which left her where exactly?
Heartbroken once again, most likely, and back to the square one Oliver had left her in not two years earlier with a vengeance.
Bo had enough self-awareness to understand this.
She also had enough of a sense of self-preservation to understand that she needed to get off this rollercoaster ride to heartbreak now, even if she was immensely enjoying the ride.
She knew that Max’s “or” was just a polite way of asking if she was DTF (which she was, who was she kidding?) and while it was tempting — so, so tempting — to say yes, her crumbling common sense pulled itself together just enough so that she could shake her head and decline.
“Thanks, but I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going to go to bed.”
Max nodded, giving her a long look, and Bo tried not to blush in front of him.
God, she really was the worst actress in the world.
She knew she was lying, Max knew she was lying, every inanimate fucking brick in Geoffrey’s house knew she was lying, and yet here they were, nodding away like she hadn’t just given a performance worthy of a nomination in the worst actress category of the Razzie awards.
Still, Max said nothing, bending to lightly kiss her cheek goodnight.
She could feel his eyes on her back as she made her way through the gate towards her garden, and by the time she reached her summer house, her heart was pounding, she felt slightly sick, and worst of all, she was still unbelievably turned on.
What are you doing? Bo asked herself in disbelief. She and Max had an arrangement; there was nothing wrong in shagging whenever they both saw fit.
Except that the arrangement was meant to be casual, wasn’t it?
The arrangement was meant to be easy. The arrangement would work fine when it was two indifferent adults with chemistry having a bit of fun.
Unfortunately for her, Bo was honest enough with herself to admit that where Max was concerned now, indifference had long been thrown out the window.
Their arrangement might have been solid in Max’s still nonchalant eyes, but for Bo, who liked Max (and ugh, she really, really liked him, like more than she’d even liked Zayn Malik back in her 1D fandom days, and she’d once bought an eyelash that was purported to be his on eBay) their arrangement was as solid as a house made of jelly built on the crumbling cliff edge of a volcano.
Under normal circumstances, Bo would call Willa, and under normal circumstances, Willa would give Bo sage advice which Bo would ignore until weeks later, when she’d realize too late how apt and correct her friend had been.
However, Bo and Willa weren’t speaking right now, and even if they were, Willa was thirty-odd thousand feet above the Atlantic, rushing to towards her own bad decision-making.
Once again, a grim kind of nausea gripped Bo when she recalled their earlier argument.
She hadn’t meant to be so sharp, just as she hadn’t meant to sound so judgemental.
God knew she wasn’t anyone to criticise others for their romantic missteps.
Willa’s rushing after Berg once again though .
. . it was a misstep, and Bo knew it was.
She’d seen Willa patch Berg up too many times already, seen her cry over him too many times, and she just wanted her best friend to be okay.
The thought of Willa hurting once again because of that stubborn, beautiful and self-destructive man made Bo’s stomach twist.
Bo sighed, rubbing her temple. She’d already left Willa about a dozen voicemails, but the temptation to call her again was strong.
Willa was her best friend in the world, and she loved her dearly.
But what could she say that wouldn’t sound like I told you so or please don’t do this to yourself again?