Chapter 11
Max
It was getting easier to hate my best friend the longer he wasn’t here to defend himself.
Who was I kidding? There was no defense for what he’d done to Daisy. Not when there were a million other ways to battle his demons. People he could’ve asked for help. Conversations he could’ve had. There was no defense for running. For leaving her to pick up every piece, pregnant and alone.
She wasn’t alone, but she might as well be for how hard she pushed back against every offer of help.
I understood because I knew her, because I’d been the one who’d listened to the stories and comments and pain that shaped her past, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to get through that barrier.
“One Blue Moon and one house Pinot.” The waitress doled out the drinks from her tray—the beer for me, the wine for my brother. “Know what you want to order?”
I motioned to Nox to go first.
“Lobster roll.”
“Same,” I said because I didn’t want to think about it.
As she walked away, I pulled the beer to my lips, turning away from Nox as I took a long drink.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, especially after dealing with Todd’s entry-level alcoholism over the last couple of years. A social glass of wine with investors or a beer with my brother or cousins was the extent of my enjoyment.
“Rough day?” Nox broached the silence, swirling the wine, and for a second seemed more interested in the wine glass than the dark contents. But only for a second before taking a sip.
It was almost comical to see him drink wine. Old Nox had never been a wine drinker. Always whiskey and cocktails. But that all changed when he got back from Murano. And it wasn’t the only thing.
“Something like that,” I muttered, taking another swig as I stared out the salt-stained window at the Rusty Scupper, the glass just as clouded as my thoughts had been since I’d dropped Daisy off an hour ago.
We’d finished the afternoon deliveries, just like she’d wanted, and I didn’t bring up a damn thing about what had happened.
I wanted to respect her space, but I also wanted to help her figure out a solution.
She’d kill me for thinking it was my fault, but it was.
All I’d been focused on was getting her a safe place to stay and something to do where I could keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay.
I hadn’t thought about fucking insurance. But now I was.
Now, I couldn’t stop thinking about it—how she was canceling doctor’s appointments.
Her desolate expression outside the van was burned into the backs of my eyelids, the sound of her chest heaving like she wanted to vomit again but wouldn’t let herself on repeated in my ears, and her eyes glazed like they’d been dammed up, prevented from crying for days.
Like she hadn’t let herself cry again since the night I’d brought her the bag of maternity clothes.
After our last stop, I’d suggested burgers and fries at this pub in Stonebar. It was nice and quiet, right on the way back and on the water. I figured we could talk there about what she was going to do and how I could help.
But she said no. She said she was tired and wanted to go back to the apartment. It was bullshit. A lie. She was reeling, and she didn’t want to let me in.
“Because you disappeared too, Max. For the last almost six months.”
That was the worst of it. It wasn’t watching her break down that killed me.
Don’t get me wrong. It hurt like hell, but it was this—it was hearing those words that was the fucking worst. When she looked at me like Atlas with the world on her shoulders, the weight of everything bringing her to her knees, she still didn’t feel safe enough to offload any of it.
“Because you disappeared too, Max.”
I hadn’t disappeared. I’d been fucking dying.
Propping up their relationship from the shadows, knowing I was digging my own grave.
But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t confess I’d been there the whole damn time.
I had to be okay with letting her think that because to call her out would mean calling attention to the lies I’d told her.
And the four years of secrets I wanted to keep.
So I dropped her off and texted Nox, someone who was as crotchety and acerbic as I felt right now, and asked if he wanted to meet for dinner and a drink.
We settled on the Rusty Scupper because it was a local watering hole far enough on the outskirts of Stonebar that the tourist crowd didn’t venture to it, and it was about halfway between town and Dad’s.
“What happened?” Nox asked, looking at me like I’d been staring off into space for some time now.
I took another swig of my beer, deciding whether I wanted to answer him or not. The or not won out. “Nothing,” I grumbled and chugged another sip.
Nox swirled the red wine in his glass and heaved a sigh. “Okay, let me try this again. What happened with Daisy that’s got your balls in a bunch?”
My bottle clanked on the table. “Nothing happened.” I’d asked him here to get minorly intoxicated, not be interrogated. “How’s the workshop coming along?”
He blatantly ignored me. “So you’re telling me this silent, snappy version of you is just the standard progression of your world record?”
“My what?”
“Your Guinness Book of World Records’ longest stretch of blue balls known to man.”
If I were holding a can, I might’ve tossed it at his head for being rude—and being right. The only reason I didn’t throw the glass bottle was because it wasn’t empty…and I doubted it would make a dent in that hard head of his anyway.
Two weeks of eight-to-ten-hour stretches spent one-on-one with Daisy, and I wondered what version of idiot I had to be to think that would be anything other than torture.
Like a movie trailer for the life I could’ve had if things had been different.
If I’d spoken up for myself rather than falling in line behind Todd.
If I’d let him flounder and fail rather than swooping in and counseling him to be better for her.
If I’d just been the better man for her.
Fuck.
“I’m starting to think I liked you better when you were in Italy,” I returned with only a fake shred of sincerity and a flat stare.
“Yeah, I bet.” My brother’s lopsided grin appeared for a brief second. “So you going to tell me, or do I have to start guessing?”
“No—”
“Is it the daily torture of spending all your time with your dream girl?”
Dammit.
“Nox—”
“Or is it the fact she’s staying in your apartment?”
“Enough—”
“Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones. I’ve heard the second trimester can make them want to bang anything—”
“Health insurance,” I choked out furiously and then coughed to keep him quiet when the waitress returned to take my empty bottle. I shook my head so she wouldn’t bring me another. “Christ, Nox.”
He shrugged, not giving a shit what he said or who heard. “Health insurance?”
“Daisy doesn’t have it, and she obviously needs it.” My hands flexed into fists in my lap. “And I can’t give it to her through the business because she hasn’t been working for me long enough.”
“She could buy it for herself, right?”
My jaw flexed. “She could.”
But that was expensive, and even with the few hundred bucks I was taking out of her paycheck for rent, the job she was doing wasn’t paying that much.
I couldn’t give her a raise or even a cost-of-living adjustment without doing the same for the rest of my team.
And to just give her the money or offer to pay for it…
I’d already played out that losing argument in my head.
“If she won’t accept your help, you can’t beat yourself up over it, Max.
You’ve already done a ton for her—and a ton she has no idea about it.
” Nox drained another sip of wine, letting what sounded like an accusation settle in my gut.
“Just let her figure it out. Plus, you never know. Todd could show up with his tail between his legs tomorrow and marry her, and voilà, problem solved.”
My stomach hollowed. Problem solved.
“That’s a shit reason to marry the man who left her and their baby at the altar.”
“Well, it’s better than marrying some rando for the same result.”
I stilled, his flippant comment like a hard slap across my face. Todd wasn’t the only man who could marry her and put her on his health insurance plan.
No.
NO.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said gruffly, leaping off that train of thought before I crashed somewhere I didn’t belong. “So what about you? Still looking for a place of your own?”
“I’m not buying your house, if that’s what you’re trying to get at.” He chuckled.
“No, it’s not.” We paused then as the waitress delivered our dinners. This place had the best lobster rolls on the coast, and I’d bet every local in Stonebar would be willing to fight for that claim. “So…are you?” I pressed as Nox dove into his sandwich.
“Thinking about it,” he replied once he finished his bite. “It’s easy living at home right now. Plus, I’m at the barn most of the day, so I doubt I’m too much of an inconvenience to Dad. Maybe in the next few months, once I get things up and running.”
We ate for a few minutes in silence, the last of the tables in the restaurant filling with customers.
“Are you going to call Aria?”
Nox looked at me. “No,” he answered quickly.
“Why not?”
I couldn’t tell if he hesitated or not. “Because I don’t need a realtor to find an apartment,” he said, shrugging off the question.
“I know, but she’s just getting started, and she’s Andre’s sister. It would be good experience for her.”
Nox shoved the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth and then licked his fingers clean. “I’ll think about it,” he finally said begrudgingly, like we were talking about a stranger and not his good friend’s little sister.
“All right, boys.” The waitress returned then, taking away our empty plates. “Thoughts on dessert? We’ve got some blueberry cobbler made with blueberries from your dad’s farm.”
Shit.
“How can we say no to that?” Nox grinned at her. “Two, please.”