CHAPTER TEN
It wasn’t until I got back into my apartment that I realized I still had Max’s coat on. This whole night had been so strange and surprising that it was like I’d forgotten about everyone and everything else. I collapsed onto the couch, kicking my shoes off.
Since I was all alone, I gave in to my impulse and smelled his coat. It had the same clean, fresh, and masculine scent as Max. I took it off and set it on the couch next to me.
I reached into my purse and grabbed my phone, sending him a text to let him know that I had his coat, ignoring the part of me that was overjoyed at the notion that I was going to see him again.
His coat started to buzz.
I searched through it until I found his phone in his pocket. I registered that he had an Android and it buzzed a second time, and then again.
Both new texts were from different women—one named Emanuela, the other Jade. Muscle memory had me swiping up the screen, and to my surprise, he didn’t have a security lock on his phone. That was weird.
I was in his messaging app and couldn’t help my curiosity—I quickly scrolled through it, and every message seemed to be from a different woman. Natalia, Coco, Alana, Elle, Kate ... did he date supermodels exclusively?
Violetta? As in Princess Violetta, Nico’s sister? My rational brain reminded me that wasn’t possible because she was married and Max did not seem like the kind of guy who would cheat.
Especially not after it had been done to him.
I put his phone down, feeling guilty for having even glanced at the names. I didn’t read any of the messages because I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself for violating his privacy even worse than I already had.
My cell buzzed, and for one brief, clearly stupid moment, I hoped that it was a text from Max.
Which was obviously impossible.
No, it was from Adrian.
Can you call someone at the hotel I’m staying at and have them bring me toilet paper?
For the first time in, well, forever, I found myself feeling annoyed at Adrian. In the time it had taken him to write a text and send it to me, he could have called the front desk himself.
I did as he asked and texted back that his toilet paper was on its way.
After I pushed the send button, I realized that I hadn’t thought about Adrian even once after I told Max about him. When I had been talking to Max, if someone else had said Adrian’s name to me, I probably would have asked, “Adrian who?”
It was like I had completely blocked him out of my mind.
Or Max had inadvertently pushed him out.
This felt significant.
I leaned back and took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Was I just trading one impossible crush for another?
The door opened and startled me. Vella dramatically strode inside and slammed it shut.
“Never. Again.”
She stomped into the kitchen and took a log of cookie dough out of the fridge. She threw it on the counter and grabbed a serrated knife and started sawing through it.
“Did you want to talk about it?” I asked. “Did you light Otis’s hair on fire and you need me to be your alibi?”
“The bar for men is so low it’s in hell and those idiots still try to play limbo with the devil.”
She finally cut through the entire thing and brought half of the log into the living room, sitting on the couch next to me. She squeezed the dough like a tube of toothpaste and took a big bite.
After Vella had chewed and swallowed, she said, “He wanted us to get back together, which, as you know, I’m morally opposed to because he’s the actual worst. When I asked him why, he said he has to go out of town for a week and wanted me to take care of his cat.”
A pulse of unease began to throb at the base of my stomach. Now was not the time to tell her I was doing the same thing for Adrian. “Like, he wanted you to go over and feed it? Change the litter box?”
“No, he wanted me to stay over at his place so that she didn’t ‘feel lonely.’”
“Does he know that you’re—”
She didn’t let me finish. “Yes! He should know that I’m allergic to cats!” Her allergy was the only reason I didn’t currently have a menagerie of animals. “When I made the huge mistake of dating him, I had to take a Benadryl every day just to go over to his place and I was still miserable with my red eyes, stuffed-up nose, and scratchy skin. The fact that he can’t even remember the most basic of details about me is why I broke up with him in the first place.”
“I thought it was because you caught him cheating.”
She rolled her eyes so hard I was surprised she didn’t sprain them. “Obviously, that too. I just broke up with him again for conduct unbecoming a boyfriend.”
“I still can’t believe you left with him.”
“Am I perfect? No. But more importantly, am I trying to make better choices? Also no.”
I laughed and she devoured another chunk of cookie dough.
“How long was that?” I asked. “An hour? Is that a new record for your shortest relationship ever?”
“Possibly.” She nodded.
“I’m glad it’s over. I was worried that if you did start things up with him again, it would end up as a special Dateline episode where I’d have to tell the world that I saw this coming.”
“Enough about the train wreck that is my life. What happened with you and David?”
“His name is Max,” I reminded her.
“Oh, I’m aware. I said David meaning he looks like Michelangelo personally sculpted him.”
“Yeah, I noticed that you thought he was attractive.” She’d been so unlike herself when she’d met him.
“No argument from me. And he’s not even my type.”
“Gorgeous isn’t your type?” I asked skeptically.
“He seems too ... clean cut and nice ,” she said with distaste before taking a quick bite.
“Yes, heaven forbid someone treats you well,” I teased.
“Nobody wants that,” she agreed.
I smiled at her. “You’re right, though. He was very nice.”
She waited a moment, chewing her cookie dough. With a mouthful of food, she said, “And?”
My smile got even bigger as I thought about him. “He walked me home because some guy at the bar was weird and creepy.”
“Look at you grinning like a fourteen-year-old girl who just met her favorite pop star.”
And here I was trying to downplay my attraction to him.
She went on, “I haven’t seen you this giddy about a boy since Lumpy.”
“Who?”
“I already told you that’s what I’m calling Adrian Stone because he’s unformed and not worth your time, especially since he’s older than twenty-five and his frontal lobe is fully developed, so there is no excuse.”
I didn’t even bother correcting her this time. Vella was welcome to her opinion. “Hanging out with Max? It’s probably the best date I’ve ever been on and it wasn’t even a date.”
“How do you know he didn’t feel the same?”
“Uh, because when he left, he didn’t even bother to offer up any of those token fake promises to text me soon or that we should do it again sometime.”
Vella blinked slowly at me. “I’m not understanding the problem here. You thought he was cute, he obviously thought you were cute, you’re sickeningly nice, he probably is, too. Seems like a good situation with possibilities.”
“He’s not attracted to me. He felt bad for me because he saw me crying.” Even saying it out loud made me feel deflated. “I would have done the same thing if the situation had been reversed.”
“So?”
How was I supposed to make her understand? If I didn’t, she was going to badger me. No one was supposed to offer their opinion on her life, but Vella had long ago decided that she was going to loudly share with others what she thought about their choices and decisions. If I didn’t make her see reason, she was going to be relentless.
“I saw his phone. He has an actual army of women texting him. While I’m flattered that he would even consider inviting me to join his harem, I’m not interested. I told you about how my dad cheated on my mom constantly. Even if Max did want to date me, which he does not, I couldn’t be with someone like that.” I was a relationship kind of girl.
“When did you see who was texting him?” she asked.
“Your evil plan worked and he lent me his coat when he walked me home.”
“My evil plan was for you to go back to his place, so no, it didn’t work.”
Ignoring her, I said, “I forgot to give his coat back to him, and he must have put his phone in his coat pocket without realizing it.”
I hoped she wouldn’t point out that I’d invaded his privacy, although I had been telling myself it had been innocent, given that I didn’t read any of the texts. Not that I hadn’t been tempted, but that was a step too far.
“He likes you,” she said with a triumphant smile.
“What makes you say that?”
“Max did a leave behind. It’s more serious than you realize.”
“A what?”
“It’s when you leave something behind intentionally so the person you were with has to see you again so you can get your stuff back.”
“I don’t think it was intentional.” It had happened because every time I looked at Max, my brain felt like it was having a heart attack and I couldn’t think straight or remember to do stuff like returning things that had been lent to me.
Why hadn’t he asked for it back, though?
“Does it actually work?” I asked, wanting to distract myself and not think about things that couldn’t possibly be.
“One time I accidentally left my favorite pair of earrings at a guy’s place and wanted them back. It took me almost four weeks because he decided that I’d done it deliberately and was obsessed with him. He thought I was trying to mark my territory to warn off other women and attempted to ghost me.”
“Did you get your earrings back?”
“Only after I sarcastically told him that if I’d wanted to mark my territory, I would just pee in his ficus and leave my droppings on the floor. Why do men think a random scrunchie or scarf is some power play?”
Sometimes people just forgot things. It wasn’t their fault if unreasonably attractive people distracted them.
When I didn’t answer her rhetorical question, she asked, “Does he pass that test?”
“Test?”
“The one your moomah or whatever told you about.”
“Meemaw,” I corrected, trying to recall what Vella was talking about. “Oh! The two-drinks-and-a-puppy test?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
My grandmother had found an article about how to divide up potential friends and mates and had taught it to me like gospel. She said that men were easy to put into categories. The first question to ask was whether or not you would have two drinks with him. The second was if you would let them babysit your puppy for a couple of days.
A man who was no to both was a person to stay completely away from.
Someone who was a yes and a no might be good for a fun time, but you should probably steer clear, as you didn’t need people you couldn’t trust in your life.
A no and a yes was someone who wasn’t very fun and, while responsible, probably wouldn’t make for a good long-term relationship.
I was supposed to be searching for a man who was a yes to both questions. Someone I could talk to, someone I would trust, someone who was a lot of fun but who took their responsibilities and me seriously.
Max was someone I would want to get two drinks with, and I would leave a puppy with him for any length of time.
Vella didn’t ask me how I rated him on that scale. Given the smug look on her face, it seemed like she could already tell what my answer was.
She let me off the hook, though, and instead asked, “Did you google him yet?”
“No. Why would I?”
Her mouth went wide in disbelief. “I looked up my barista this morning and the UPS guy who delivered packages today at the office because you never know. And I’m not interested in dating either one of them. What’s Max’s last name?”
I probably shouldn’t have told her, but I said, “Colby.”
She got her phone out and started furiously typing. “I’m ... not finding anything. As far as I can tell, he has no social media presence whatsoever. I am both impressed and disturbed.”
That was weird. Not a picture or anything?
I got my own phone out and tried spelling Colby several different ways, just to make sure. She was right. Nothing.
“Maybe he just really values his privacy?” But even as I said it, I knew that couldn’t be the case, given that his phone didn’t have any security on it. I briefly considered the option that he might be an international spy or something and had to hide his true identity, but again, his phone would have had a password.
She asked, “You said he dated around a lot? Shouldn’t one of those women have posted a picture of him? What about a more serious relationship? A girlfriend?”
“He said he had a serious girlfriend for a long time but that she cheated on him,” I responded. “Which implies that there is a man out there hotter than Max Colby, and I’m not sure I can accept such a mythological thing as being a possibility.”
“Max is a mythological creature,” she said as she finished off the last of her cookie dough. “I don’t know what to tell you. You should definitely ask him about it, though, because I would like to get totally off the grid, too. Anyway, I’m going to bed. Have fun with your unicorn when he calls you.”
She padded off, stopping in the kitchen to throw away the wrapper before going to her room.
I thought about what she’d said—that Max had done this deliberately because he wanted to see me again. And I just couldn’t reconcile that with how the evening had gone. Wouldn’t he have said something if that were true?
Then a truly horrible thought occurred to me.
If Vella was wrong and his actions hadn’t been intentional ... when he got back to his apartment and realized that I had his coat and his phone, what if he thought I’d done it deliberately?
That I had kept his things on purpose so I could see him again?