16. Chapter 16
sixteen
The amount of time I spend staring at my phone before sending a risky text could set a world record. Especially when the person I’d be texting was Max, whom I hadn’t seen much of for the past few days.
Good goose gizzard s, I was going through withdrawals already.
Of all the people who might have shown up to help in the wee hours of the morning for my final day running the bakery in Gale’s absence, the last person I expected was my own sister.
Lex had been a much grouchier helper than Max, since mornings and her were perpetual enemies.
Almost as much as her and kitchen appliances were, which was another reason I’d never in a million years expect her to take Max’s place of her own volition.
And yet, she’d been the one banging on my door Sunday morning telling me and my “gimpy leg” to hurry up because “we have a bakery to save” and she “didn’t wake up this inhumanely early just to wait.”
She was much more docile after her third cup of coffee.
Monday was the last morning Max gave me a ride to work, since I got my car back from the mechanic that afternoon—after paying an arm and leg, of course, and googling how much kidneys went for on the black market.
At that point, I could limp around a little faster.
Gale was back and Max had to return to his work schedule anyway.
Our knocks back and forth were the thing I looked forward to the most every day, oddly enough. In the evening before we went to sleep. In the morning before we left, when we’d walk out to our cars together like we had this morning. Or he’d walk and I’d limp, technically. Same thing.
I’d started assigning words to the knocks, depending on the time and how much I’d daydreamed about him during the day. Thus far the simple knock-knock had been translated to mean “good night,” “you there?,” and last night, when I’d finished a particularly swoony romance book, “miss you.”
Pathetic, I know. But if ever there were a poster child for being pathetic, I’d be it.
I turned my attention back to my phone, where the text messages between Max and me had been staring back at me for a good half hour.
“It’s just lasagna,” I reasoned aloud to myself, alone in my bedroom.
Like a normal person. “You’re not declaring your undying love for him.
You can do this. It’s one text. And if he says no , you can handle it like a big girl.
Even if you’ll feel like curling into a ball and faking your death like a possum. ”
Before I could make my thumbs move over the keyboard, a message from Max popped up on the screen.
Max: What do you think about this for my next hobby?
He’d attached a GIF of someone juggling knives.
Me: That depends. How attached are you to your fingers?
Max: Literally speaking, more attached now than I’ll be after attempting this?
I chuckled and sent a wave of crying-laughing emojis.
Me: Correct answer. What happened to pickleball?
The typing dots appeared in the text bubble, giving me an opportunity to at least pretend like I wasn’t waiting with bated breath for his next message. I didn’t even try.
Pathetic, remember?
Max: It felt insensitive to try a sport while you’re still hurt.
He’d included a winking, tongue-sticking-out emoji at the end.
I rolled my eyes, my smile still stupidly fixed in place.
Me: So your solution was to injure yourself, too?
Max: Of course. Neighborly solidarity, Dekker. It’s next to godliness.
I sent another four crying-laughing emojis.
Me: I’m 1000% positive that isn’t the phrase.
Max: That’s a lot of percents. Are you confident enough to bet on it?
If this was his way of spooking me away from a sure victory again, it wouldn’t work this time.
I sent a GIF of Kuzco from The Emperor’s New Groove saying “bring it on.”
A few moments passed before his typing bubble popped up again.
Max: Never mind. I don’t want to bet on it anymore.
I snorted and sent a chicken GIF.
Me: You googled it, didn’t you?
Max: I’m gonna plead the fifth on that one.
This earned him another wave of crying-laughing emojis.
Lex used to tease me about how many emojis I used while texting, but I stood by my choices.
Reading people was hard enough in person.
After taking away their facial expressions and tone of voice?
I’d misinterpreted too many texts to risk the recipients of mine doing the same. Besides, emojis were fun. So there.
Me: Invoking your constitutional rights over text? FBI agents, I swear.
This, I followed up with an egregious amount of winky faces.
He sent a GIF of a little girl smiling mischievously.
Me: Let me guess, you’re going to plead the fifth again?
Max: You know me so well.
His message, simple and innocent as it undoubtedly was, sent my heart pinging around my chest. I wanted to know him that well.
I wanted to know everything about him—the good, the bad, and the embarrassing.
Friends were allowed to want that about each other, right?
It wouldn’t be breaking his dating sabbatical to spend time together just because we were opposite sexes, and I was attracted to him.
I could keep my disobedient thoughts and eager lips to myself, easy breezy lemon squeezy.
I took a deep breath, my pulse ratcheting out of control as I typed out a variation of the original risky text I’d planned. Following his last text, it felt even riskier somehow. But before I could overthink it and reread it for the fourth time, I pressed send.
Me: Oh yeah? Then am I right to assume you haven’t eaten dinner yet?
Logically, it shouldn’t be risky at all, right? It was barely past five o’clock. Unless he had a meal in a slow cooker or picked something up on his way home from work, the chances were slim to none that he’d already eaten.
And yet, my thoughts still raced with all the possibilities of how this could go wrong.
What if he thought I was about to ask him on a date?
What if he found it creepy or weird that I even asked?
What if he saw right through me into the forbidden feelings threatening to grow for him now that I knew he didn’t hate me?
For someone so risk-averse, I sure lived my life in extremes.
Straight from he hates me to since he doesn’t hate me, I’m going to latch onto him like a mollusk.
No in-between. And maybe that was why I assumed people hated me as a default.
It was safer than coming on too strong and scaring them off, than letting all my weird out only for them to change their minds once they knew all of me.
His reply came moments later, with an emoji of two eyes looking to the side preceding it.
Max: Are you offering? Because either way, the answer is yes.
I smiled in relief. He’d understood, and he didn’t seem to find it creepy at all. Halle-pancake-flippin’-lujah.
Me: In that case, I have a lasagna calling your name.
Max: Which name—Maxwell or Maximus?
I sent a few eye-rolling emojis. He’d never let me forget that, would he?
Me: You’re hilarious. See you soon?
A saluting emoji preceded his reply.
Max: Yes, Chef.
I leapt out of bed as well as my still-tender ankle allowed, giddy with excitement.
An hour of frantic tidying and shoving half-emptied moving boxes into my room later, the tantalizing aroma of Italian sausage, tomato sauce, and garlic saturated the apartment.
ABBA’s I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do sang out quietly from my Bluetooth speaker while I tossed the salad Hattie had included with the lasagna and garlic bread.
Normally, I would’ve chalked up her going above and beyond with repaying me to the fact that she felt guilty that I’d injured myself in the process.
But based on the significant look she’d cast toward Max’s apartment and the scheming smile on her face before she’d left, I’d bet my dino chicken nugget throw pillow that she’d hoped I’d invite him all along.
And, like the enamored guppy I was, I swam right into her trap.
Worse—I’d do it again if given the chance.
I’d barely set the salad in the middle of the apartment’s tiny excuse for a dining table when two crisp knocks came from the door. My heart hiccupped in excitement. I smiled and attempted to pat down my unruly curls on my way to let Max in.
I’d decided—after discussing the pros and cons aloud to myself in great detail, of course—not to put makeup on for dinner.
Taking my hair out of its bun in lieu of attempting to style it in a half-up style and changing out of my pajamas was already pushing it.
I couldn’t claim this was a purely friendly invitation and then treat it like a date, now, could I?
I could. I totally could.
But that would be setting myself up for heartache, and, despite how the events of the past few weeks might make it appear, I was only two-thirds idiot. So there.
“Hey, Chef.” Max greeted me with his characteristic grin as I opened the door, though I could’ve sworn his eyes lingered on my hair and my exposed shoulders under my flowy tank top. But that was probably the delusion talking.
He’d changed before coming over, based on his casual T-shirt and the jeans hugging his thighs in the most delicious way. Doing the whole world a favor, those pants. Sweet honey lemon drops , who knew denim could love someone so. much.
God really must pick favorites.
I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth, where it had decided to harbor like a fugitive. “Hey, Max. Come on in.”
He entered, giving me a heavenly whiff of his cologne as he passed.
“Sweet summer sausages,” I muttered, desperately fighting the urge to close my eyes against the aroma. And here I’d thought it impossible for anything to tempt me away from the smell of fresh pasta and garlic-covered carbs.
“Is that a chicken nugget pillow?” he asked, standing in front of my decrepit couch.