Chapter 18 #2
“The Max Whisperer.” Sophie holds up her phone.
A group chat appears on the screen. The hockey husband’s group chat.
A thread I did not know existed. In it, a GIF of a horse trainer, labeled with my name.
“He sent this after the Boston game,” she says.
“With the message: ‘She got him to let Rourke go four times. Four. I watched him count to four and skate away. I’ve known this man for six years. He doesn’t count past two. ’”
I stare at the GIF. The GIF stares back.
“I’m going to need more wine,” I say.
“Yes, you are,” Piper agrees, already pouring.
The evening deepens. The fire dims. At some point, Scarlett is demonstrating her warm-up routine using Piper’s patio umbrella as a prop.
Sophie and Harper engage in a serious debate at some point regarding whether Lake Shore Drive is a scenic route or a trauma response.
I’m on my third or fourth glass, wrapped in a blanket, watching the embers pulse orange and red, and the honest truth is I can't remember the last time I sat still like this without managing something. Not building a wall.
My eyes are heavy. The fire is warm. The women’s voices blend low and comfortable around me.
I think I close my eyes for one minute. The back door slides open with a sound I register from somewhere below actual consciousness.
Voices. Male voices. Chase’s low Canadian cadence. And then the other one.
“…probably asleep by now; the fire’s almost out.”
“Man, it is cold out here. Why are they—oh? There they are.”
I am awake. I am choosing not to show this information.
Through the narrow slit of my eyelashes, I take inventory.
Piper is asleep in her chair, head tipped sideways at an angle that will cause neck problems tomorrow.
Scarlett has somehow migrated to the outdoor loveseat and is curled into a small, elegant ball with a throw pillow over her face.
Sophie is upright, but her eyes are closed and her glass is listing at a forty-five degree angle.
Harper is the only one awake, sitting straight-backed and composed as if she had been waiting for this exact moment.
“Knox,” she says pleasantly.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Harper Knox’s husband leans down and takes the listing glass from Sophie’s hand without waking her.
Sets it on the table. Looks at the assembled wreckage of the Gold Coast Guardians’ wives and assorted companions with the resigned expression of a man who knew this was how the night would end.
Chase is doing a similar inventory. His gaze lands on Piper.
His expression is too fond to describe. He crosses to her chair, crouches to her level.
“Piper.” She makes a sound that is not a word.
“Pipe, hey.” He brushes her hair from her face.
“C’mon, sweetheart, let’s get you inside. ”
She opens one eye. “I’m networking.”
“Yeah, you’re doing a great job. Come on.”
“The fire—“
“I’ve got the fire.” He scoops her up in one motion, and she makes a sound of protest that immediately becomes a sound of complete surrender as her head drops against his shoulder.
He carries her past me toward the door, and I watch through my eyelashes as Piper reaches up with one hand and pats his face.
“You’re a good husband,” she announces.
“I try.”
“Ten out of ten,” she mumbles. “Tell Max I said so.”
“Tell him yourself,” Chase says.
“Max,” Piper declares to nobody. “Ten out of ten.” Then she is inside.
I hear Knox’s voice, low. Then Sophie’s surprised murmur as she wakes, then giggling, then the sound of people gathering coats. Harper’s measured goodbye. The slide of the door. The yard goes soundless.
Then footsteps. And I know which ones they are.
“She’s asleep,” Chase reports.
“I can see that.”
“I’m not leaving her out here. It’s October, it’s forty degrees, and she’s got one blanket.”
“Of course not! I’ll take care of her.” A pause.
“Max—” Chase warns.
“Chase.” His voice is even. “I’ve got her. Go take care of your wife.” A long pause. Then: “She’s my sister’s new friend.” Max continues.
“I know what she is.” Another pause. Then the door. The yard goes completely still. The fire pops once. I count to ten.
“You can open your eyes,” he says. “You’ve been awake since we came through the door.
” I open my eyes. Max Stevens stands on the other side of the fire pit with his hands in his jacket pockets and an expression I still haven't filed anywhere. He’s in a gray henley and dark jeans, hair slightly messed from whatever chaos Chuck E.
Cheese apparently inflicts on adults. He looks warm and tired and annoyingly, unfairly real.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“You were breathing wrong for someone asleep.” He tilts his head. “Also your eyelashes were doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you’re watching.” He pulls the second Adirondack chair from beside the wall and positions it in front of the embers and drops into it. Not too close. Close enough. “How much wine?”
I consider lying. “Enough that I should not bear responsibility for anything I say for the next forty-five minutes.”
“Noted.” He reaches past the arm of his chair and adds a piece of wood to the fire. It catches fast, and the warmth expands, and I burrow further into the blanket.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say.
“Chase asked me to.”
“You volunteered.”
He looks at the fire. “Yeah.” The wood catches fire, and warm light spreads across his jawline and throat. I watch longer than I should.
“They have a group chat,” I say. “The husbands. They call me the Max Whisperer.”
He goes still for exactly one second. Then makes a sound that is almost a laugh, pressed down. “I know about the group chat.”
“Sophie showed me the GIF.”
“Soph has a big mouth.”
“Is it inaccurate?”
He turns his head and looks at me. In the firelight his eyes are warm emeralds and direct. “No,” he says. “It’s not inaccurate.”
My blanket is extremely useful right now. I cinch it more securely. “Piper said you showed up for the sink.”
“She needed help.”
“At three in the morning.”
“Pipes don’t wait for business hours.” He tips his head back against the chair. “She’s family. Family doesn’t have hours.”
The fire pops again. The embers are orange and red and warm against the dark yard. Chicago in October is holding onto the last of its warmth for tonight, cold pressing at the edges of the light.
“Why did you come tonight?” I ask. “Chuck E. Cheese.”
“Chase needed backup. Christopher, at three years old, possesses grenade-like energy and dictator-like purpose. Knox bailed last minute, so Chase called me.” He pauses.
“I would like you to know that I played forty-five minutes of Skee-Ball so that a three-year-old could win a rubber bracelet with superstar on it.”
“Did he?”
“He won three, SUPERSTAR, GLOW POWER, WINNER. He gave me one.” He holds up his right hand. On his wrist, incongruous and perfect, is a small rubber bracelet with SUPERSTAR printed on it. “I’m wearing it.”
I stare at the bracelet holding back my grin by smashing my lips together. “You’re wearing the bracelet,” I say.
“Christopher gave it to me. Said, ‘You get powers now.’ You don’t refuse a gift from a three-year-old.” His voice is matter-of-fact, as if this is obvious, and it is, and that is the problem. “It’s basic etiquette.”
“Right,” I say.
“Toni.”
“Max.”
“You’re staring at my gift.”
“I’m staring at the fire.”
“You’re staring at my bracelet, and you’re three glasses of wine into an evening where you’ve apparently spent four hours being told nice things about me by women who like you, and—“ he pauses, “your face is doing the thing.”
“What thing?” I say, for the second time tonight.
He doesn’t answer right away. He watches me. The firelight catches his face in a way that is not helping. Four glasses of wine and a dying fire and I am in significant trouble. “The thing where Toni goes away,” he clears his throat lightly, “and Antonia comes back.”
The words land right into my heart. “That’s not—”
“You’re wearing a green dress, which seems formal for a girls’ night at home.”
“Elena picked it.”
“You could’ve changed it.” He tilts his head. “Did you know I’d be here?”
“I knew you might be.” My buzz is not helping. “It’s your sister’s house.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“That sound. Like you already know.”
“I already know.” His voice drops, easy and low and warm as the fire.
“You wore the dress. You've been watching the door all evening. Don't argue. Piper texted me. By the way, she’s absolutely terrible at keeping secrets. And right now, your gaze suggests you’ve been thinking about looking at me for a while, and you’re deciding whether the wine is a good enough excuse to do it. ”
I open my mouth.