Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“For a really long time, since my mother passed, I tried to keep everything the same. You know, really honor her. And I haven’t done a whole redesign and turned all the rooms into that boring shit you’ll find in all the chains.
” Dawn had advised me to avoid cursing, but the delighted murmurs amongst the audience make me think they don’t mind.
“The Mirage is what it always has been: this perfect, tucked-away oasis where you can exist in this world, just you and what matters. A place where you can feel insignificant. And I know that’s probably not anything you’ll ever see on a travel brochure, but it is quite special. ”
I haven’t taken my eyes off the dark, blurry area where Max is. He’s the only person who matters, and the realization makes me want to run and hide. But I can’t anymore.
“Desert Daze is a wild child of an idea. So different from anything I’ve done before.
But somehow, it fits—as if it was supposed to have been here all along, and I just needed to be ready for it.
Now I am.” I refer to the note cards out of habit and realize I might as well just toss them because I’ve veered away from my original speech.
“What I’m trying to say is, what you’ll find at The Mirage is always gonna be there.
It’s my whole heart. And I hope you can love it, and love this museum, as much as I do. ”
Applause takes over the room, the sound tech brings back the music, and conversation fills the air again. My legs want to march me straight to the bar for the strongest drink possible, but I scan the crowd instead, looking for Max.
I spot him, smiling and handsome and perfect. But he’s not scouring the room for me in return—a gorgeous woman almost as tall as he is has glued herself to his side.
And all his attention is on her.
“Thank you for all your help.” I hug Dawn as other attendees trickle out of the restaurant, slipping on coats for the chilly evening.
Gwen and Bob left after my speech—the pregnancy has tapped Gwen’s energy—but Dawn wandered the floor with me, talking me up to elegant strangers and drumming up more interest in the silent auction.
“I did nothing,” Dawn says. “That speech was all you. The student has officially become the master. You should be proud of yourself.”
Dawn helped make tonight a success, and I force a smile for her.
I should be walking on air. I got through the speech—but more importantly, we exceeded our fundraising goal.
None of that money guarantees the museum will do well, but the funds cover most of the upfront pop-up expenses and allow us to pay off the loan for the renos.
Max and that tall, stylish woman haven’t stopped talking for most of the night. She’s even more gorgeous now that the lights are up.
Shrugging my bag over my shoulder, I say goodbye to Dawn and head outside.
I parked my truck on the top level of a multistory garage, underneath the golden gleam of a light post. Max catches up to me on the sixth floor right as I step out of the elevator, hustling to match my pace but not breathless from the flights of stairs he must have climbed.
There are only three other vehicles up here, and the evening breeze has accelerated to a steady gust.
“Great turnout tonight, huh?” he asks, an obvious pep in his step.
“Mmm.”
“I had some interesting conversations.”
“Looked like it.”
“You crushed your speech.”
“Surprised you noticed.” I search my bag for my keys, avoiding eye contact.
The entire night was full of big moments—some that I surely missed, too.
But my moment was more than the hotel or Desert Daze, and the only person I really wanted to share it with spent most of the evening chatting up a leggy blonde.
“Of course I noticed,” Max says.
“You and that woman were in deep conversation all night.”
“She was relentless.” He at least has the decency to sound irritated by her. “Couldn’t shake her. But she’s kind of the whole point of an event like this?”
“What, for you to get a pretty woman’s number?” I joke, glancing at Max to gauge his reaction.
“No.” He tilts his head in amused confusion. “She likes art and design, she’s got cash, and she wasn’t afraid to bid on items.”
As we approach my truck at the far end of the garage, Max follows me to the driver’s side, tugging on my arm to whip me toward him.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“We received more money than we can count for the pop-up, and you seem…I don’t know. Did I say something that upset you?”
I look into Max’s eyes, and I can’t hide. When he was living in Europe, it was easier to make a clean break and tell him what he needed to hear. But right now, with him in front of me, I can’t pretend that everything’s okay.
“Tonight was important—for The Mirage and for me and for our project—and you spent half the time flirting with someone.”
“Seriously?” He scoffs and shakes his head. “I’m not sure what to tell you, Daze.” He pauses, his dark eyes grazing over me. “If you thought I was flirting with her, then you haven’t been paying attention at all this summer.”
My skin tingles. The lights of the city around us glow and fade into the midnight blue above, sprinkled with sparkling stars.
“What’s going on? Be honest, Daze.”
“You…” I push down the lump forming in my throat. “You abandoned me tonight. I did exactly what you told me to do and talked to the one person who matters.” I pause, giving him the chance to put the pieces together. “Then the lights came up, and I looked for you, and I…I was alone.”
He doesn’t move, and I feel silly for caring so much.
“I’m…” He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I watched you every second you were on stage. You were incredible.” Then, more quietly, he adds, “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”
“I kissed you. Yesterday, at the school.”
“Because you said you wanted to. Kiss, bam, that was it. You’ve otherwise been very clear about what you do and don’t want from me, so what am I supposed to think? And even if…even if I feel the same, what could I have done, knowing you’re just gonna push me away?”
Humiliation makes me want to call a rideshare for him so we don’t have to be in the same vehicle for the ride home. I should have told him that seeing him embrace Harlow and bring in students for the pop-up felt almost like a love letter addressed to me. I should have told him everything.
“Why did you shut me out after high school?” he asks, and the question is a dagger to my chest. Things have been good between us since he got back, but I was naive to think this wouldn’t come up.
“We needed to focus.” I recall the text message I sent him, the reasoning I gave. “I had classes and an internship. You had college, your friends—your life. I didn’t want to give you any reason to feel you shouldn’t have listened to your calling.”
“Don’t act like you did that for me. You were a part of my life. You always have been.”
“The last thing either of us needed was to be coordinating FaceTime calls with someone in another country.”
“What I needed was you.”
I did too, I think. But I knew I couldn’t have him and also encourage him to chase his dreams thousands of miles away.
“It was shitty,” he goes on. “There are always imbalances in relationships—a person who cares more. But it sucks to know for certain you’ve been this secondary character in someone else’s life. When you realize they don’t think about you as much as you think about them.”
I shake my head because he couldn’t be more wrong. “I thought about you a lot.” My voice breaks, my vision blurs, and I blink up at the sky to prevent frustrated, hot tears from falling. He’s always been the one that matters the most, and that terrifies me.
“Not the way I thought about you,” he says. “I don’t believe in the friend zone or dumb shit like that, but how I felt about you and going from…from what we had to not even getting a text back, it was awful. I was barely myself freshman year.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t know what to do with all the things I felt for you. When I got that first voicemail from you, I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear your voice until I actually heard it.”
“But you didn’t really want to talk? You never called when I was awake.” The anguish in his tone grips me. “And I’d call on Mondays or Tuesdays when you’d be less busy. I tested different times of day. You never picked up.”
“I don’t know, they just…the voicemails felt safe.
” Like I could keep my feelings buried and not impede on Max’s life, but we could still talk in our own way.
“Hearing you, like really hearing you on the phone would only make me wish you were here. And you going to Dublin was always the right thing, but being apart was…I never stopped thinking about you.” I sniffle, then wipe my nose with the back of my hand.
“Did you stop thinking about me? Wait, that’s stupid,” I say, backpedaling from my question.
“You had your life and friends and everything there.”
“Daisy, I thought about you an annoying amount. For someone who made it clear they didn’t want to hear from me for months—then years—you were always around.
When your favorite sunset colors splashed across the Dublin sky.
Burnt orange and pastel pink. Whenever someone said they wanted coffee, black.
Anytime I ate Thai food.” He stands at the passenger door, his hair windswept and wild. “I thought about you all the time.”
“And now?”
He shifts his weight and slips his hands into his pockets. “Why does it matter?”
“It just does.”
“What makes you think anything’s changed?”
I’m tired of pretending we can ignore how we feel about each other, because we can’t. At least I can’t. I don’t want to.
So I reach out, grab his jacket, and pull his mouth to mine.