Chapter 27 #2
When Bill gave me a kiss on the cheek, coloring my face a deep crimson, Gia was smitten.
After he disappeared into the back, she began her new life’s mission: Getting them to adopt us.
“Gia, your parents are very much alive and really cool.”
She waved off my concern. “I know, I know. That’s why they’ll understand as soon as they meet Bill and Diane.”
I laughed, smiling ear to ear by the time Diane came back with our shakes. She took a seat beside Gia, who welcomed her in with open arms, and smiled at me from across the table, looking as happy as I suddenly felt.
“So, is our Max fellow off and up to no good?”
I shook my head as I sipped my milkshake. “All the guys had to set up for our Bonding Day tomorrow. It’s part of the fraternity thing he told you about. Since the girls got a day off, Gia picked me up and brought me here.”
“Well, you’re welcome anytime, of course. With or without Max. Although we so loved seeing the two of you together on the days you came to visit. Max is…” She waved her hand, as if pushing away what she’d been about to say.
“No, please tell me,” I urged her. “I love hearing your stories about him.”
Her smile widened. “He’s got such a big heart, that boy.
When he first came into the diner, he’d been an angry teenager.
Mad at the world and everyone around him.
He was polite, of course. But so…guarded.
” Her saddened tone gripped my heart. “Bill didn’t come from the best home, so he recognized the signs.
We let Max come in and sit here whenever he wanted, and it took time, but he slowly opened up to us. ”
“Did he ever tell you what was going on at home?”
She shook her head sadly. “Not specifically, no. He had a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Then everything with his mother happened, and he disappeared for a little while. But eventually, he came back. Right around the time Bill went to the hospital.”
I put a mental pin in what she’d said about his mother. “Max mentioned Bill had surgery on his leg?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh boy!” She laughed, leaning back in her seat. “He gave you the abridged version then. It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“It was?”
With a bittersweet smile on her face, she nodded. “He probably wanted to spare you all the hard parts, but Bill had a massive heart attack. We almost lost him.”
“Oh my gosh, Diane, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
She glanced toward the kitchen, her eyes falling on a spot in the back I couldn’t see from here.
“It was terrible. He collapsed on a slow day. The three of us had been in the kitchen together. Bill and I were prepping things for the dinner rush while Max chatted about school. He always offered to help, but back then Bill wouldn’t let him. ”
I pictured the three of them in there, smiling at the image that formed in my mind. “He still picked up skills in the kitchen thanks to Bill.”
Diane smiled again. “Yes, he was a quick learner. And thankfully, so. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him while Bill was recovering. Or that day.”
“What happened?”
“Bill was laughing at something Max had shared, and then he clutched his heart and jerked forward onto the prep table.” Her smile wavered, her eyes tracking back to the kitchen.
“When he lost consciousness, his legs gave out. He would’ve knocked his head on the counter if Max hadn’t acted so quickly. ”
I imagined what that must’ve been like for him, especially after everything he’d been through with his family. And knowing what it felt like, when the family you had left was at risk, it hurt to think about it.
Diane pulled a napkin from the dispenser, folding it in her shaking hands. “The two of us started CPR, and we did our best, but we had no idea what we were doing. When the first responders arrived, they took over. And—”
I reached across the table for her hand and squeezed it.
She forced a watery smile. “There wasn’t much hope. At one point, I really thought I might lose him.”
“Oh, Diane…” The three of us looked over at Bill, who’d walked into the kitchen from the back and stood whistling as he made our lunch. “That must’ve been awful.”
“It all worked out in the end. My Bill’s a fighter.
Just like Max.” She smiled at her husband before returning her gaze to mine.
“It’s often the quiet ones who are. I think that’s what Bill recognized in Max early on.
And later, I think it’s what Max recognized in Bill. What finally let him open up to us.”
She smiled at the memory, even as tears bloomed in the corners of her eyes. Dabbing with the napkin, she shook her head while lost in thought.
Then she lifted her eyes to mine again.
“Seeing the way he was when you were here? It meant the world to us. No matter what happens with you two. We’re so grateful you got to spend those few days here together.”
“It meant a lot to me, too. Seeing him with you both.”
She squeezed my hand. “I know he’s not ours. Not really. But he feels like it. And we want him to be happy. After everything he’s been through and lost, he deserves it, but…he struggles to believe that.”
“He doesn’t think he’s enough. He doesn’t see he’s so much more than that.”
She nodded. “That’s the battle he’s fighting all the time, just like my Bill was when I met him. He’s trying to believe it. And, for the first time, it looked like…” She gave a little shrug. “Maybe he did.”
Emotion lodged in my throat, and I dropped my gaze to the table. “You saw all that? Even on the days he was brooding and surly?”
“Especially on those days.”
I lifted my eyes to meet hers again.
“Those were the days he was fighting the hardest.”
My brow dipped, and I frowned, unsure how I’d missed it.
Diane smiled. “I’m not surprised you didn’t see it, honestly.”
“Why?”
She covered our joined hands with her free one, patting softly.
“It was in the way he stared at you. Every time he was sure you weren’t looking.
” Giving my hand a gentle squeeze, she winked at me.
“He was very careful to do it when he was sure you couldn’t see him. So, he didn’t realize that I did.”
We stayed at the diner with Bill and Diane for almost an hour after we finished our lunch, and they gave us both big hugs before we left. As we drove back to our apartment to get my things, I thought about everything Diane had said.
Driving under the trees, with the canopy of leaves overhead, brought back memories of my drives with Max, but it was an overcast day, and less light filtered through than it had when we were together.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I swiped them away.
Gia noticed anyway. “Talk to me, babe. What’s going on?”
I tugged my lower lip between my teeth, not wanting to admit it but unable to hide from her.
“I don’t know.” Ignoring the pressure building in my chest, I shrugged. “I really liked how that felt. Diane and Bill hugging me like that. Excited to see me. But what if I’m wrong, Gia? What if everything going on with Max is real, and I have been grasping at straws because…”
Gia’s eyes softened as I hid my face, and she reached over to grab my hand. “Because you included them in the image you were building in your head. Didn’t you? One of the future you want—something you haven’t done in a really long time.”
My voice broke. “Not really.”
“So, now, the thought of losing it scares you?”
Tears pricked my eyes.
“No,” I lied, swiping at my cheeks and sniffling. “Geez, you’re usually so much better at reading me than this.”
She laughed, and it drew one from me even as more tears slid down my cheeks. Squeezing my hand as we turned off the highway, she let go and reached into her purse to pull something out of it.
When she handed over a small stack of diner napkins, the memory of Max that day, writing out my list of Skills and Assets, came sharply to mind.
I’d slipped it into my pocket and saved it, thinking it’d be another reminder of how Max Dread had wooed and fooled me.
Back when I’d been lying to myself about who he was, and what I felt for him.
Back before he’d forced me to face the truth.
But, deep down, it was the first moment I considered the possibility that he truly saw me.
That we could be more than a fantasy. A what if.
Or a road not traveled.
“Sometimes, it seems ridiculous. Feeling the way I do about them. Especially so quickly. But, other times, it’s like—”
“What?”
“Like they were waiting at Camelot Court for me to find them. And I was waiting for them, too. Or that we were just four lonely people who ended up in the same place at the right time, and saw something in each other that made us feel less alone.” I shrugged.
“Maybe that’s not enough to build a future on, but…
I wanted to try. I don’t want their world to dig its claws into them and pull them away from me.
Not before we decide for ourselves what this is or isn’t. ”
“That all sounds really fair, and reasonable.” Gia gave me a smile, pulling up to our apartment and shutting off the car.
“And I would’ve accepted if you were a petty bitch who didn’t want the other girl to win, so.
” She flipped her hair off her shoulder, turning to face me in her seat.
“We’ll get your man. All of them. Don’t worry.
It’s been a little like herding cats to start, but you’ll get that chance. I know it.”
“I hope so.”