Chapter 17
LACEY
I’m a mess.
There’s a joke Vanessa likes to make about being a bunch of possums in a trench coat, and right now, I’m just a bunch of emotions in a trench coat.
Delight at waking up with Max.
Confusion about the promotion.
Anger at him for leaving.
Surprise at finding Warren at his place and then pleasure at having a conversation with Max’s friend, feeling like I was getting another glimpse into his life.
And now, when the door shuts behind Warren, I feel a rush of unbridled lust at being alone with Max. I turn to face him, and though I know we should talk about what happened last night — and the fact that I just got offered my dream job — the only thing I want to do is jump his bones.
“I really like it here,” I say instead, because jumping his bones is probably the wrong move. And also, I can’t pinpoint the moment when I started using the phrase jump his bones.
His face shifts, and I wish Max was one of those people who wore his emotions on his sleeve, rather than being so damn hard to read.
I go on, “I really like it here, and I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“Okay,” Max says, but it sounds like I don’t know what that means, Lacey.
Well, I don’t know what it means, either.
I want to tell him that I’m scared. That I’ve spent the past few years dedicating all my time and energy to this career, and now two weeks in Montana have made me question everything. I want to tell him that the entire bedrock of my life has cracked, and I feel unsteady.
That if I don’t have my relentless passion about Gaia and Citadale, I don’t really know who I am.
Instead, I say, “The fall festival is today.”
The reminder popped up on my phone when I was rushing out the door, looking for his Jeep, realizing he had taken off and really left me nothing but a little scribbled note about feeding Dona.
That he’d obviously been bothered by me taking that work call, and that he might even have heard what happened on it. And if he didn’t, I need to come clean to him about the promotion. About how appealing it is to me, and how impossible it feels to turn it down.
And how, despite everything, I’m thinking about doing exactly that.
“I think I’m going,” I go on, and I don’t even have to mention Liam, because Max’s face is already darkening at the memory of the hardware store owner saying he would take me.
“We’ll go together,” Max says, and a shiver runs down my spine at the sound of the possessiveness in his voice. At the definitive way he said it.
Like always, he’s managed to say a lot with a few words. That he doesn’t want me spending time with Liam, or maybe even that Max wants my time all for himself.
“Okay,” I say, grinning. “But you’re going to have to give me a ride back up to my place. Someone ran out before I could even get dressed this morning.”
The fall festival in Low Pines is exactly as cute as you’d think it would be.
Kids laugh and run around us, their faces painted, parents calling after them, telling them to be careful and stay close.
The air hangs sweet and rich with the scent of cinnamon and cloves, roasting nuts and sharp, steaming apple cider.
The main road is a patchwork of orange and red — pumpkins and apples and an array of fake and real fall foliage littering the storefronts.
“I can’t believe you haven’t said oh my God or even an unreal yet,” Max says, and when I look up at him, he’s smiling down at me, those dark eyebrows high on his forehead.
A few years ago, right after I got back from Tokyo, Jasper took me to a concert in Santa Rosa.
Afterward, a bad storm came through, and we ended up stranded in a motel.
That night, we watched a lot of TV, and in one of the episodes, someone was talking about the idea of taking mental pictures.
Jasper made me promise that I would stop to take mental pictures of the good times in my life, even with how excited I was for my career.
I didn’t keep that promise to him. Over the years, as work got more and more hectic and time felt scarcer and scarcer, the idea slipped almost completely from my head.
And now, standing on this street with Max, I’ve remembered it.
Feeling goofy, I lift my hands up to my face and pretend to take a picture.
“What was that?” he asks, laughing, his eyes shining in the bright sun as he looks at me.
Max is always handsome, but he’s especially so at this moment.
His wardrobe is perfect for a fall festival — all flannels and rough jeans.
Some of the tourists turn to look at him as he walks by, and I can’t figure out if it’s because of how handsome he is, or if they’re trying to determine if he’s an attraction.
Take a picture with the rugged Montana man. Good with his hands… in more ways than one.
I laugh at my own joke and say, in response to his question about the mental picture, “That was way better than an oh my God.”
Then, surprising myself, I reach out and take his hand. It’s slightly cool and dry in mine, large and rough, and I feel him tense up for a moment.
He clearly wasn’t expecting it. We still haven’t really talked through that call or what it means for us. Or if there is an us. But I want to hold his hand, and as much as I’ve been trying to slow myself down, I’m not going to deny myself this small luxury.
Max might, though. Sleeping with me is one thing. Holding my hand, publicly, in the middle of town, that’s another.
But then, Max relaxes and adjusts his hold, lacing his fingers through mine. It makes my heart turn completely over in my chest, and to distract myself from the feeling of it, I tug him down the street and toward more of the good smells.
The road is closed to cars and lined with booths, different townspeople offering various fall goodies. We look through one booth selling essential oils and another with crocheted critters holding leaves, baskets of produce, or pumpkins.
When we stop by Warren’s store, which is packed full of tourists, he spots us and says, “Well, this day is getting better and better.”
We try apple cider, shoot some Red Delicious from a cannon, and take pictures in the cut-outs, even though Max resists, shaking his head until I finally get him to smile through the hole.
“You’re having fun,” I insist when he scans the crowd, clearly not pleased with the number of people here.
“I’m happy that I’m with you,” he says, and I ignore the way my heart jumps at that.
Back in San Francisco, the problem was always guys who didn’t want to commit. Wouldn’t go official or stop dating other people. Vanessa went through her fair share of finding other girls in a guy’s phone.
But here, I have a guy holding my hand, doing all this dumb stuff with me.
A guy who lives in Montana, and who won’t be looking to move to California any time soon.
I know, in the back of my mind, that it’s a problem. That I can’t ignore the obvious conflict here. But this day is gorgeous, and Max is smiling at me, and I decide that I can at least take this time to enjoy myself before dealing with the reality of our situation.