Chapter Three
Max, Now
We haven’t seen each other for eight years, but my mind and my heart tell me no time has passed. I don’t know if hugging is the right move here, though—it feels right, considering our history. But her brown eyes darken to the hue of coffee, and a crease forms in her brow.
“What are you doing here?” she blurts out. I think I know her well enough to recognize the snap in her voice and the angry flush flooding her cheeks.
I’d imagined us meeting over lunch or drinks, catching up like friends—because I still consider us friends—if people who didn’t talk for six years and then played voicemail tag for two more could be called that. After everything that happened in Dublin, I could really use a familiar face.
“Nice to see you, too.” Maybe I misinterpreted the ease in our messages, but she’s talking like I didn’t grow up here. “In case you forgot, my parents have a house right over the hill.”
She doesn’t crack a smile like I’d hoped. “Is this why you called?”
“Sort of.”
I’ve called her countless times before, but she must mean the most recent one.
Her face falls. “Is your family okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought…I don’t know, maybe there was an emergency or something.”
“Oh, no. Judy and Bill are fine.”
“Ava?”
“She’s good.”
Daisy rests a hand on her chest, eyes closed in silent relief, and my stomach drops. I didn’t want to put her in panic mode. She must have endured a living nightmare when her mom died.
“’Scuse me.” The manbro owner of the toy car wipes his sweat-soaked forehead. “It’s really fuckin’ hot out here. Any chance you can have your reunion later?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Daisy says, her demeanor flipping to something more upbeat. “It looks like you punctured the transmission pretty good. I can call a tow, and in the meantime, I’ll bring you over to the hotel and get you checked in.”
He gestures to his Tic Tac with wheels. “I’ve got a guy in LA, and he’s the only person allowed to touch this baby.”
“Of course.” Daisy rubs the remaining dust from her hands onto her lean, sun-kissed thighs, and her face stretches into a smile.
She remains the epitome of grace. “I’ll drive you to The Mirage, you can call your guy, and I’m sure by the time he’s done working on it, this will all be a minor inconvenience. ”
“You should let people know not to take this road,” he says, crossing his arms.
“I usually send an email at booking with all the details, and a follow-up seven days before the reservation…but those can be easy to miss.”
“And it’s on the website,” I chime in.
Daisy’s attention flickers to me, and I shrink. Nothing screams Yeah, I check in on my best friend and former crush from high school by reading the sporadic posts she makes to her business’s blog quite like that.
But I smell the entitlement on this guy. I’ve worked with artists who let fame and money launch their egos into another solar system. This man wants a vacation to one of the most inhospitable environments to go as smoothly as a resort stay in Cabo.
“Look,” he says, tipping his sunglasses halfway down his nose, “if you’re not—bare minimum—handling our rental car, then cancel the reservation. This is ridiculous.”
“Babe, no!” The woman interrupts her selfie with a cactus to join us. “We wanted remote, and this place is perfect.”
“There’s a billion other listings online, and cheaper, too.”
Daisy opens her mouth, but this guy must know what she’s going to say because he barrels over her.
“And whatever your cancellation policy is, I’ll call my credit card company and dispute the charge. I have an Amex.”
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste iron to keep from saying something I might regret to him.
“Please, Mr. and Mrs. Hollis.” Daisy picks at the cuticle around her thumb. “I’d love to host you at The Mirage.”
A stranger wouldn’t notice the strain behind her words, but I can—and it whips me to attention, like a Pavlovian dog craving a treat. Daisy needs help, and I want to be the one to help her. Less than twenty-four hours in my middle-of-nowhere hometown, and I’m back to my old habits.
“That’s why I’m here.” I step forward and put on a winning smile. Daisy’s eyes bulge as if she wants to ask me the same thing I’m asking myself. What are you doing?
“Who’re you?”
“Max Weber, private driver for The Mirage of Harlow.” Being the wiry art kid who everyone either ignored or bullied meant I learned how to win people over and pretend I belonged.
“Ohmygosh, I can’t believe it.” The woman slinks an elaborately manicured hand around the man’s biceps and squeezes. “That’s perfect.”
“That’s—Max.” Daisy looks at me. “That’s not necessary. I’ll take you two back to The Mirage myself, and we’ll get everything sorted out there. Privately.”
We all eye her beat-up Ford truck that she’s had since high school. She’d have to pay someone to steal it.
“Or,” I say, “you could be the first to experience the, uh, our exclusive private driver service, free of cost. Clean, comfortable, and it puts Harlow at your fingertips.” I channel complete confidence, my hand sweeping to the new off-road vehicle my parents bought for all the weekend trips they never take.
“We soft-launched today, and it would be an honor to drive you two lovebirds around.”
“Remember what our therapist says.” The woman tucks her phone into her hoodie pocket and grabs her husband’s hands. “I cannot control what happens to me. I can—C’mon.” She stomps her foot, and he halfheartedly joins in on some kind of mantra, mumbling under his breath.
I don’t want or need to witness this bizarre, private moment between them, so I look at Daisy.
She’s putting her fiery hair up, leaving a few curling tendrils that frame her face and some stray bits in the back.
One of her arms is tan and bare, but the other has a full sleeve of tattoos, like a colorful scrapbook, including a postage stamp with a desert landscape and a vintage-style woman holding a cat.
Daisy’s more than I remember—more tattooed, more freckled, more poised.
“Okay, we’d love to take you up on your offer.” Mrs. Hollis squeals and claps her hands, breaking me out of the spell.
“Brilliant,” I say, not missing a beat. “Let’s get you two settled in the vehicle, and Daisy and I will load your luggage into the trunk.”
Once our delightful guests are out of earshot, Daisy turns to me. “What the hell are you doing?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just goes for the small duffel crammed in the back.
“How about ‘Hey Max, thanks for helping me out’?”
“I don’t need help.”
“I…” Although I had good intentions, I shouldn’t have butted in. “Okay. I’ll let them know I rescind the offer.”
“You can’t take it back now.”
“Daze, someone like that will settle for nothing less than the gold-standard experience.”
“And I couldn’t do that on my own?” she scoffs.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“The Mirage isn’t fancy, but I’m the owner, and I am perfectly capable. I would have figured something out.”
Her stubbornness checks out, but it’s jarring to hear her say she runs the place.
“That guy’s an impossible prick who—”
“He is a guest,” she hisses, looking at my parents’ car as if the couple might hear. “And they’re staying all weekend.” She watches as I pull out a heavy rolling suitcase, her gaze trailing from the luggage up to my face. “Don’t you have anything better to do than play chauffeur?”
“I don’t mind.” Actually, I like the excuse to get out of the house—to stay out of the house.
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Needed a break.”
Her eyes narrow, and for a moment, I fear she’ll press further. “I’m surprised you got time off from work.”
“Managed it.”
I don’t want to tell her how my job went spectacularly up in flames.
My visa would have granted me a few more months, but I’d burn through my savings looking for curator jobs no one would hire me for.
Although I couldn’t stand the smug look on my parents’ faces when I showed up at their doorstep, I had to distance myself—literally—from my old job and make a plan to get my life back on track.
I always wanted to leave a legacy, but this wasn’t it.
“You staying with your folks?” she asks.
“For now.”
“Is that…okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, shrugging off her concern.
She spent too much of her childhood worried about how my parents treated me.
“Hey, at least they’ve given me access to one of their fancy cars.
” I load in the luggage, luxuriating for a few moments in the blast of AC.
I’m not built for this kind of sweltering heat anymore.
“What room should I bring these to, boss?”
“Four. And don’t call me that. We’re not colleagues. This was your idea, so just make them feel super special for their anniversary.”
“Daisy.” I rest a palm on her shoulder, and the contact zips through me. I pull my hand back since the gesture was too close, too familiar. “They’ll get star treatment, and I promise to make The Mirage proud.”
“Thanks.” She stares at me and opens her mouth to say something else, but stops herself with a shake of the head.
“What?”
“Nothing. When do you go back?”
“Soon.” I don’t have an honest answer for that, but I’ll spare her the details. “Didn’t buy a return flight yet.”
Rapid tapping sounds on the car window.
“Well, let me know before you leave. Uh, you can take them to the hotel for now,” Daisy instructs. She said she’s not my boss, but she sounds like one. Formal and matter-of-fact. “I should call the insurance company before you go anywhere else with them.”
I had thought—hoped, maybe—that our messages would mean we could fall back into our old friendship in person.
Our relationship isn’t what we had in high school, and that’s a good thing, I guess.
That would only make my eventual departure tougher.
All the more reason for me to figure out my life and get the hell out of Harlow as quickly as I can.