Chapter 9
Daisy
Max
Can I come up?
I stood from the couch and scanned the apartment, forgetting for a moment that it was his apartment, along with almost everything in it.
Of course.
I winced as my response went through. Of course made it sound like he was welcome to just enter at whim. Like it didn’t matter if I was in the shower or walking around without clothes on.
For a second, I lingered in the thought, wondering just what Max would do if he walked in on me naked. Would he be the gentleman? Would he…not be?
“Hello?” he called from the stairwell.
“Yeah. Hi.” I set my phone on the coffee table and began to tidy all the MaineStems catalogs I’d brought up with me at the end of the day. I wanted to familiarize myself with their current arrangements and pick out which flowers I would need from each to create a complementary perfume.
“I wasn’t thinking…expecting to see you again today,” I said when I heard him enter the apartment, my hands moving to close the binders I’d stacked open one on top of another.
“I just wanted to check in after your first day,” he grunted.
“Do you do that for all your employees?” I asked, grateful that I wasn’t looking at him because I might not have had the courage otherwise.
His steps approached me slowly, inversely to the increasing beat of my heart. “Workday is over, Daze. I’m checking on a friend.”
Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. My heart pumped the word—the warning rather than a beat.
“Is that okay?” His low voice rumbled.
I grimaced and closed the final binder, stacking it neatly on top of the others.
Get over yourself, Daisy. Max is helping you.
He’s your friend, and he’s helping you. I needed to stop pushing Max away.
I hated that I was doing it, but I couldn’t stop.
It felt like instinct. Like self-preservation.
Like I didn’t know how I’d recover if he abandoned me too.
“Of course, it is,” I said as I finally straightened and turned, my chest pinching when I saw him.
Gone were his business casual clothes from earlier, replaced now with a pair of jeans that fit him just right and a plain gray tee that made it clear Max worked just as much on his physique as he did on his business.
My mouth slowly dried, my eyes roaming like they were my hands, down the column of his neck, along the stretch of his shoulders, over the muscled swells of his pecs.
Ache pooled in my stomach—unreasonable, second-trimester hormonal ache.
He was so close I could touch him. So close I could reach for him and pull him to me.
So close I could search for the look that was in his gaze earlier when he saw all my lingerie spilled on the bed.
I wonder how that look would change if he saw the lingerie on me.
I was about to apologize again when his warm gaze sank into mine, the weight of it like a stone rippling through everything I wanted to say.
“How are you? Was your day okay?”
“Yeah.” I found my voice. “It was good. Erica was great.” I folded my arms over myself, and his stare sank to my chest.
Without warning, my nipples pebbled, heat spilling into my veins. My breath caught. Did he know…could Max see how attracted I was to him? Would he think this was why Todd left me? My heart started to pound. Did he know—had Todd remembered?
No. My chin lowered, and I realized what had caught his attention. I had on a large MaineStems tee that I’d found.
“It was sitting on top of that box,” I explained, pointing to the cardboard box that was half open and filled with T-shirts.
“I hope it’s okay I borrowed it. I got some marinara on the shirt Frankie loaned me,” I said, not the least bit embarrassed for making a mess at lunch because the sandwich had been so good.
Thankfully, the maternity leggings had been spared.
“You’re welcome to anything up here, Daze. It’s all yours.”
It was when he said these things that I started to shut down—to shut him out. “Max—”
“I also got you these,” he interrupted, extending his hand, a large Target bag suspended from his fingers.
I stared at the bag for so long, Max gave up waiting for me to take it and instead set it on the ground. I didn’t need to look to know what was inside. While I’d been orienting, he’d gone out and bought me clothes this afternoon, even though I’d insisted…What? That I had lingerie that I could wear?
“Why?” I croaked, finally bringing my eyes to his.
“You have no clothes here, Daze. It’s just a few things, and if you really want, I’ll take it out of your first paycheck.”
He wouldn’t. I already knew it. He’d tell me he did, or he’d tell me he forgot, but the very last thing Max would do was ever take money from me for the things he’d just purchased.
“And if I ask you to take them back?” I wasn’t going to, but I wanted to know, on principle, just how far he was willing to take this.
The angle of his jaw tightened. “I’d ask if you plan on doing the deliveries in your lingerie.”
My brow arched. “Why? Would you plan on charging more?”
“No.” His voice lowered, his eyes piercing. “I’d need to plan on who is going to bail me out of jail for blinding customers.”
Air sealed into my lungs, hot and buzzing inside my chest. I’d never had someone be protective of me like this before.
Or was it possessive? My heart lurched. Whatever it was, I craved the dark heat of it wrapping over my skin.
I craved this look in his eyes that settled low in my stomach and sent ripples of longing out over my skin.
Todd was never the jealous type. Maybe it was because he knew I wasn’t that kind of person, but also, he wasn’t that kind of person.
He liked it when other guys looked at me.
When his friends or his parents’ friends’ eyes lingered just a little too long, he liked knowing they wanted something that was his.
I didn’t. I liked this. I craved this, even though it felt reckless and unreasonable for someone whose relationship—whose planned future—turned to ashes a week ago.
For someone who was pregnant with another man’s baby.
The tension stretching between us snapped like a hot rubber band, making me flinch. What was I thinking, looking at him like that? Thinking of him…My gaze sank to the bag of new clothes.
“Do you want me to take them back?” He asked roughly. “Because I will if you really want.”
My breath fired through my lips, guilt clawing at my throat. At my chest. In my stomach. Somehow, I’d managed to make him feel like an asshole. For the second time today.
“No. I’m sorry. I—thank you,” I said, my voice cracking under the weight of it all.
Don’t fall apart, Daisy, I coached. Not now.
Not in front of him. Pull yourself together.
That time, it was Mom’s voice in my mind, her calloused thumbs quickly wiping away my tears so no one else would see.
Head tall. Let the tears drain back where no one will see.
When I was little, I imagined the tears running back and dripping down the inside of my spine, filling me up from the inside. I remembered wondering just how full of tears Mom was. How full I would be when I was her age.
“You really didn’t have to do this, Max, but I’m grateful,” I said slowly and drew the bag closer.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. If he were Todd, that would be a different story. Todd struggled to notice a tear unless it stained his shirt.
Reaching inside, I started pulling out the clothes. Maybe they wouldn’t even be the right size, and I’d have to return them. Who was I kidding? Anything in the vicinity of large worked right now when my body felt completely different every morning.
I pulled out whatever sat on top—a lavender shirt—and held it up in front of me. Most people would’ve been blocked from view, but not Max. He was too tall. Those warm eyes found mine over the edge of the fabric. Protective and penetrating.
A row of flowers rose up from the bottom of the shirt, the words “Little sprout coming soon” scripted in the center.
The words felt like a punch to the inside of my chest. Unexpected, and knocking the wind, and everything else, right out of me.
“I thought since you’re helping with deliveries, it was fitting—”
My sob cut off whatever he was about to say.
A sudden, ugly sob that fired from the hollow in my chest. My little sprout was coming soon, and we had no home.
No nursery. And currently, no father. A whole week I’d gone without crying, and then a silly garden pun was all it took to send me careening over the edge.
I didn’t even know what I did or said or sobbed. All I knew next was Max.
“Shit, Daze,” he muttered. His curse reached me as he did, his big arms pulling me tight to his chest. I didn’t have the strength to stop him. Nor the desire.
All week, I thought I’d been paddling myself to shore. Bringing myself to something stable and steady and out of the storm. As it turned out, I was only bailing water from my sinking heart, and tonight, it got to be too much.
“I’m sorry,” Max said against the top of my head, and I only sobbed harder.
He shouldn’t be sorry. This wasn’t his fault. None of this was. Not even my tears. And yet he took it all—took them all. They soaked his shirt. They soaked his palm where it cupped my cheek. I couldn’t stop them.
“It’s all right, Daze. I’ve got you,” Max murmured over and over again, holding me, rocking me in the middle of the living room.
It wasn’t all right, though. Nothing was all right.
I was alone and pregnant with only temporary solutions.
Where were we going to go? What was I going to do?
How was I going to do this by myself? Suddenly, all the insecurities I’d fended off for a week attacked with full force, feeding off my hormones, off my stress, off my fears.
And I would’ve collapsed in on myself if it weren’t for him.