Chapter 9
LACEY
Idon’t like going to the doctor on a good day, but I’m not mad about being in Low Pines again. It’s impossibly cute, the kind of small town I assumed didn’t actually exist. It’s like finding out there are really people who live in Disneyland, or something. Unreal.
The shops up and down Main Street are all quaint, with hand-painted signs and the kind of storefronts that come to mind when you think of an idyllic small town.
People walk up and down the street, and when we leave the clinic, I even see a couple stop to talk to an older man, laughing and gesturing happily.
It’s not like that’s a conclusive study, but it definitely gives me the impression that people know each other here. Completely different from the impersonal commute in the city. The careful way you avoid making eye contact in an elevator with someone you don’t know.
“I’m surprised Shelly didn’t insist on you going into town to the real hospital,” Max says under his breath, and I laugh.
Shelly was my nurse, a twenty-something who gasped when we told her what happened, and who checked my heart at least three times, considered getting something called an EKG, then warned me several times to be more careful, while somehow managing to simultaneously flirt with Max.
She was nice, but the whole cute and young thing started to get to me by the end.
“Where are you going?” I ask when Max takes a sharp right, clearly planning on going back to his truck. He stops and turns, looking at me with a puzzled expression.
We stopped at his cabin before coming to town, and he changed into a less-beat-up pair of jeans and a flannel that hugs his shoulders and biceps.
Looking at him now, my mouth starts to water at the thought of him in a T-shirt, and I have to check myself.
Not only is he my neighbor and living in Montana, but he’s clearly not interested in me.
I’m still shocked that he offered to help me with the cabin.
But I’m not going to let him take it back.
I could always hire someone to do it, but there’s a part of me that feels like working on the cabin might bring me closer to Jasper.
That, as disappointed as he might be in the idea of a rental, he would be even more disappointed if I high-tailed it back to California without so much as wielding a hammer.
Plus, he told me to ask the neighbor for help. Maybe that’s why Max offered — as a favor to the man who was something of a friend. Or, at least, a neighbor.
“To the truck,” Max says now, drawing me out of my thoughts, and I shake my head.
“Let me treat you to a tea,” I say, jerking my thumb over my shoulder toward the shop at the end of the street.
“Don’t drink tea.”
“Okay, a coffee, then.”
“No thanks.”
I grit my teeth and glare at him. “Well, I’m going to the coffee shop. If there’s something there you want, I’ll treat you to it.”
With that, I turn on my heel and start walking in the direction of the cafe, thinking my mom would be proud of me for standing my ground.
When I reach the door, I glance over my shoulder, half expecting that Max will have gone back to the truck, but he’s there behind me, not looking happy about the diversion.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll take a coffee. But we should get back. We have a lot to get done.”
I nod at him, though I plan to spend a little more time in town. We’ll need to go to the hardware store to get paint and other supplies, anyway.
The coffee shop is just as cute inside as I thought it would be, with a whole array of early fall specials scrawled on a chalkboard above the counter.
It’s all sunflowers and apples, and I appreciate the commitment to the season, considering the menu for a minute before the barista bounces over, a teenager with a chipper attitude.
“Welcome to Affogato ’Bout It. What can I get for you?”
I snort at the name and feel Max shaking his head next to me, muttering, “Used to be called Low Pines Cafe.”
To the barista, I say, “I’ll take a large Sunflower Petals Latte, please. Iced, and can you do that with soy milk?’
“Of course,” she says, quickly scribbling on a cup. Setting it aside, she looks at Max. “And for you?”
He pauses, then says, “Just a small black coffee.”
“Any room?” she asks, pulling out another cup, Sharpie poised to write as she looks at him expectantly.
“No, thanks.”
A minute later, we both have our drinks, and I glare at him as we push back out onto the street, the bright sunshine streaming in.
“Are you doing that thing where you order black coffee because you think it’s the manly thing to do?”
He glances at me over the top of his cup, and though his face doesn’t show amusement, the corners of his mouth curl slightly. “I’m doing the thing where I don’t get something that costs eight dollars.”
“Lattes are good.”
“I can’t understand paying ten dollars for a drink.”
“You keep raising the price,” I say, pointing at him, and he rolls his eyes.
“I saw how much you tipped in there.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Baristas deserve tips.”
“Five dollars on a ten-dollar order is egregious.”
I open my mouth to retort, but I catch something across the street and my jaw drops.
“Oh my God,” I say, grabbing his arm and pointing to the general store. “Look at that — that set of tables and chairs. I need to get that. It would be perfect at the cabin. Think it would fit in your Jeep?”
“No,” he says, brushing my hand from his arm, then grabbing my wrist and pulling me in the other direction. “Come on.”
I want to argue with him about that furniture set.
I didn’t even know it would be possible to get something like that in Low Pines.
But we walk into the hardware store, and Liam is there to help us pick out and mix paint.
Max is still cold toward him, but Liam doesn’t seem to notice, laughing and joking the entire time.
When we leave the hardware store, another man is coming in. He’s tall, with a mop of golden curls and an outfit that looks more like it belongs in San Francisco than in this town.
And he knows Max.
“Hey, Maxwell!” he says meaningfully, his gaze swinging between me and Max, who lets out a noise like he’d rather be anywhere else. I’m starting to realize that’s his approach to most situations.
“Hey,” Max says, trying to usher me to the truck. “We were just—”
“Given any more thought to the—”
Max cuts him off. “Oh, I didn’t introduce you! Warren, this is Lacey. Lacey, Warren.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking his hand. “I didn’t realize Max had friends.”
That makes Warren laugh, which makes me laugh, which makes Max scowl.
“That’s okay,” Warren says, sticking his hands in his pockets and giving me a conspiratorial look. “Pretty sure he doesn’t realize it, either.”
“Great. All right. Well, now you both know,” Max says, managing to get me back into the truck. As we pull away and drive past the general store again — and I catch another glimpse of the beautiful set outside — I can’t shake the feeling there’s something about Max that I’m missing.
The moment we get back to the cabin, Max turns into a foreman.
While we were in town, he talked to an electrician about coming in and taking a look at the wire when we finished with it, but now — with the power still turned off — he snips it back past where I nicked it and runs new wire, doing his best not to open up all the walls in order to get to it.
Mid-morning turns to afternoon turns to evening, and Max moves from one project to the next with a focused intensity. I do my best to keep up and insist more than once that he shows me how to do something rather than just doing it while I watch.
The last thing I want is for Max to do most of the work here. More than once, I catch myself staring at his arms, watching in awe at the strength he displays when lifting Jasper’s cobbled-together desk to move it to the other side of the room.
“This place has great bones,” Max says, shooting me a look, “other than the wiring you messed with. It really will be all aesthetic.”
“And some new appliances,” I add, still not understanding how Jasper didn’t think to install a washer and dryer up here. Hand-washing my laundry doesn’t even seem possible, let alone sanitary.
When we’ve already fixed some trim and completely cleaned out two of the rooms, including the cobwebs in the corner, Max starts to answer some of my questions and prompts for conversation, telling me about when Jasper showed up and how Max helped set him up with a plumber and electrician.
While Jasper knew enough from his years of construction work, he still needed approval from officials.
Max admits that this is the first time he’s really seen the place.
“You should have just come up,” I say, as we work together to paint the study, washing the walls in a beige I think will be good for renters. Our hands brush when we reach for more paint, and I ignore the sparks it sends skittering up my arm. “Jasper loved company.”
Max shrugs. “Didn’t figure he did. You don’t move to the mountains for the party scene.”
After that, I open up to him about Jasper, telling him about what it was like to grow up the way I did. Maybe it’s just how quiet Max is, or he’s actually a good listener, but I find myself telling him more and more about myself. About my job and the promotion I’ve been going for.
“Seriously?” I blurt when he tells me he’s never played a video game before. “Never?”
“Never,” he says, giving me an amused look.
I shake my head, turning back to the wall and rolling more paint over it. “I don’t know how you went through the entire process of being a teenage boy without playing a single video game. It’s like… unfathomable to me.”
“My foster parents didn’t even have a TV,” he says, and I try not to let my surprise at this admission show. Foster parents. I always knew our situation was hard, with just me, mom, and Jasper, but I know foster kids have to deal with a whole different can of worms.
I don’t push for more information, and Max doesn’t offer more. When we’re finished with the first coat, I offer him a cold can of soup for dinner.
Astounded, he turns it over in his hand, raising his eyes to me. “This is all you have?”
“Someone has been a real asshole about me going to the general store,” I say, crossing my arms and giving him a look. “So, yeah, all I have is the stuff in the pantry. Besides, it’s not like I know how to cook, anyway. Though warm soup would be nice.”
Max eyes me for a moment, then reaches over, fiddling with the wood stove. “Warm soup tonight,” he says, his back to me. “Tomorrow, you’re coming to my place for dinner.”
My cheeks flush, even though this obviously isn’t him asking me on a date. Like with everything else, he’s probably worried that I can’t take care of myself. That I’m going to starve or get scurvy without him making something for me.
“Okay,” I agree, hating how breathy my voice comes out.
My mom would probably say Max is way too handsome to even consider dating. She has a very specific set of qualifications when looking for a man, and says that when they’re too good-looking, it goes to their heads.
“A man needs to unequivocally know that he’s lucky to be with you,” she said to me once, twirling her wine in her glass. “Not thinking that he could do better.”
Thinking of her reminds me that we haven’t had our daily calls, and there’s a lot to tell her. I make a note to call her the next time we go back to town, and to ask Max about what I can do to get internet here.
“Soup’s ready,” he says, turning to me with the food in bowls, nodding his head toward the porch. There’s no dining table in here to sit at, so we instead balance the bowls on our laps, eating together in companionable silence on the porch.
Not for the first time, I think I really get why Jasper loved coming up here so much.