Chapter 13 Lacey
LACEY
What the hell was that?
Max goes back to working on the spot under the windowsill like nothing happened, like he didn’t react to my proposal like I’d said we should light his head on fire. I blink at him for a second, gears turning in my head, trying to figure out what that response was about.
It’s beyond being shy — it was immediate and unwavering. Like I’d challenged some deeply held belief of his.
For a second, as I slowly pick up the roller and start painting again, I run through the wildest possibilities. That Max is some sort of fugitive, and he doesn’t want to make videos or have a website for his furniture because he’s got to keep the cops from finding him.
Or maybe he’s a foreign diplomat, running from an unfair government. Or in witness protection — maybe he’s a valuable asset to a case taking down a drug lord.
But my gut is telling me it’s none of those. Why would he get himself involved with me if he had something to hide? If it was important that he kept completely to himself, he would have turned around and left me on the side of the road that first day when I stopped to ask for directions.
For the next hour, we paint in silence, despite the fact that I’m dying to say something, to dig into this.
I want to ask him what happened to make him so afraid of putting his stuff out there.
I want to talk to Warren — who must be selling his things at the general store — to learn more about what people are paying, and how he’s marketing them.
I feel like my mother must feel about me. That Max has so much potential, and all I want is for him to share it with the world.
Even though he wants nothing to do with that.
“Looks good to me,” he says, and I jump, realizing I’ve been painting over the same spot for the past ten minutes, running through the thoughts in my head.
I’m the kind of person who hates not knowing, and as I turn to face him, I have to fight the urge not to ask him right now what that whole thing was about.
It’s like when I first got here and put together the list of things I’d need to fix in the cabin.
Jumping into the first task — putting up that light — is what nearly got me electrocuted.
I could have hurt myself or started a fire, all because I tend to give in to the swing first, ask questions later mindset.
That approach helped me a lot in the early moments of my career.
I got a lot done with that hyper-focused, singular vision sort of mode.
But while it helped me climb the ranks at Gaia, it’s also part of the reason I lost time with Jasper.
It’s what made me push my own projects to the side, repeatedly say no to my friends, and work nights and weekends.
It occurs to me, not for the first time since arriving in this state, and on this mountain range, that slowing down might help me avoid making so many mistakes. It might help me get back some of the things I care most about in life.
The look on Max’s face — wary, even slightly hurt — stops me from asking, or pushing. I realize, maybe for the first time in my life, that I want him to want to tell me, rather than just beating the truth out of him.
This time, I’m not going to swing first. This time, I’ll take it slow. One day at a time. Let things happen as they happen.
The concept feels foreign in my head, but also welcome.
“Yeah,” I say, instead of jumping into questions.
I take a step back and survey the paint job in the room.
For a rental, it looks great. If I was going to live here, I’d want it to be a little more lively.
Maybe add a mural. I’ve always dreamed about my home office having a Mario-esque scroller mural featuring all my favorite video game characters.
But for the rental, this will do. It’s not going to be a study, anyway, despite the fact that Jasper’s desk is in the middle of the room, covered with a tarp. This is going to be another bedroom, and I’ll have to decide what to do with his big, clunky desk.
I could bring it back to San Francisco with me, but it doesn’t fit with the furniture in my apartment. And, if I’m being honest, after seeing Max’s handiwork, Jasper’s furniture looks even shoddier in comparison.
He might have been great at construction, but putting together a desk both functional and beautiful clearly wasn’t in his wheelhouse.
Clapping, I turn and draw my thoughts away from Jasper, recognizing the familiar swell of grief rising up in the back of my throat. “Well, if you think that one looks good, wait until we do the next one!”
Max laughs when we walk into the next room and I reveal the paint I got during our last hardware visit — three cans of a soft pink.
“Oh,” he says, pushing up his sleeves, “so you’ve been planning this for a while. This isn’t what I was thinking when you said pink.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Uh, more like a hot pink, maybe?” He laughs, and I shake my head.
“I’m not a psychopath.”
“Well, this color looks like baby pink. For a nursery.”
That hangs in the air for a moment, and I think about my reflections the other day, watching the ducklings in the pond. Maybe, when I get back to San Francisco, I should take my mom’s advice and cool down on my career. Spend more time looking for a husband before my biological clock times out.
I shrug, giddy as we push the furniture around and throw tarps over it. Once again, the mere fact of being in a room with Max — a room with a bed, more specifically — is making my heart beat double time.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to leave a little bit of myself behind here, do you?”
Max catches my eye as we cover the bed with the plastic tarp, and we hold the gaze for longer than necessary. Finally, I’m the one to look away, kneeling down to open the paint can.
A beat later, from his place behind me, Max forces out a slightly choked, “No. I don’t.”
“Okay, good to know you’re not dead.”
“Do you ever answer the phone with hello?” I ask, shaking my head at my best friend.
“No,” Vanessa says. “I try not to waste time. So first, why the hell haven’t you been answering my texts? And second, these mock-ups are incredible. Have you done any dev work on it?”
“I was working with Max. I just have my laptop,” I say, tracing my finger over the edge of the chair I’m sitting in. “My desktop has the software on it. So, no. But you like the mock-ups?”
When I’d first gotten the internet hooked up, I shot some of my character sketches over to Vanessa, along with an explanation about the service and my newly installed connection to the outside world.
Then, because of my focus on the renovation and the time I’ve been spending with Max, I completely forgot to check to see if she’d responded.
“Okay, wait, actually. I mean, yes, they’re fucking amazing and it’s honestly kind of annoying that you’re even pretending to be modest about this, but you were spending more time with Max?”
“He’s just helping me.”
“Oh my God, Lace, you’re literally doing the city girl moves to the small town and becomes a trad wife thing.”
“That’s way too long to be a thing,” I counter, “and also, I’m not doing that. He’s just helping me with the renovations.”
“Yeah, and you want to bone him. And have his babies.”
A jolt rocks through me at the thought of that — me holding a baby while Max leans down to kiss her on the head. Him picking up a toddler and putting her on his shoulders.
That’s it! These mountains make people crazy. Highly creative, and strangely at peace, but also crazy. No way have I known a man for such a short amount of time and I’m already thinking about what it would be like to have his babies.
Max and I haven’t even kissed.
Which makes me think he really doesn’t want to kiss me. That he meant what he said about doing all this to protect his peace.
“Okay. I’m totally taking that silence as a yes.”
“Yeah, maybe he’s hot,” I admit, my face flushing, like I’m a teenage girl kicking her feet, on the phone with her bestie about a crush. “But he’s also not interested in me.”
“Is he gay?”
My mind flashes to that day in his workshop, the dark look in his eyes, the way his throat had bobbed and his hands tightened into fists, like he was holding himself back.
“No,” I croak. “I don’t think so.”
“Then he’s interested. Why the hell else would he be spending so much time with you? I’m shocked he hasn’t made a move, honestly.”
“We have a deal that I won’t rent out to any college kids.”
“For being so insanely brilliant, you are also incredibly dense sometimes,” Vanessa deadpans. “And also, if you don’t sleep with the hot mountain man during this adventure, I’m going to be pissed.”
I laugh, and my shoulders loosen slightly. “I would never want to suffer such wrath.”
“Also,” Vanessa says, moving from one subject to another with ease, like she always does. “I’m sending these files to Greenie. He’s going to flip.”
Pressing my lips together, I try to keep from smiling as Vanessa talks about what it would be like for us to actually follow through with it. Actually make a game together, like we’ve been talking about for ages.
And, for the first time in a long time, I don’t write it off as being impossible, or something I’ll get to focus on later.
Right now, I find myself wondering about how hard it would be to get the parts to build myself a PC here in the cabin.