Chapter Forty-Nine
Max
The Berkshires in April are beautiful. Green and gold and stupidly, uselessly perfect.
The winery has rolling hills on every side and white chairs in rows and an arbor covered in expensive flowers.
It’s perfect in every way, just warm enough in the sun, and everyone who sits in the perfect white chairs looks equally perfect.
I sit up straight next to Nico and plaster a soft smile on my face.
And I hold it together during the ceremony.
And I hold it together during the cocktail hour, when three people from work ask how I’ve been. And I smile, say fine, and smile again, not letting the mask slip.
I hold it together as the champagne goes around for the toast. I take a glass and put my hand on the waiter’s elbow.
He eyes me questioningly, and I pour the entire glass of champagne down my throat in a gulp before grabbing another off his tray.
“Oh, ho, ho.” Nico grabs the glass out of my hand and nods to the waiter, sending him away. “Let’s slow down there, buddy.”
I roll my eyes as the bubbles fizz and my body warms from the inside out.
I hold it together and I hold it together and I hold it together.
Nico stays close. Not touching me. Not even once. He stays close the way you stay close to something you are trying to keep safe and fear might run away from you. But I don’t. I just sit at the table where the place cards say Simmons and Simmons Guest.
Nico makes small talk with the other people at our table, so I don’t have to, while simultaneously paying off the waiter with the champagne tray to stay away from me.
My positive, happy smile mask is starting to droop when I see Richard from across the room.
He frowns, but before he can make his way over to us, he gets intercepted. Perfectly intercepted.
Another conversation I don’t want to have avoided. At least temporarily.
“Max.”
Just to have to face the worst of all conversations.
Drat.
Patrick’s voice is warm, and careful.
I turn. He’s in a grey suit, tie slightly loose, and he looks happy. Genuinely happy.
Which is the right thing for the groom to be, I think, and yet it still manages to land strangely in my stomach with the champagne.
“Hi, Patrick,” I say with my fake smile. “Congratulations.”
He opens his mouth, glances over my shoulder at the back of Nico’s head beside me and something shifts in his expression before he rubs the back of his neck and looks down.
Recognition.
Relief?
“Callan, glad you could make it,” he says, and his voice has a forced genuine tone to it. “Means a lot.”
Silence.
The champagne turns in my stomach.
Nico turns to face Patrick fully before biting out, “The fuck you say to me?”
I whip my hand behind me and slap Nico in the chest.
Patrick’s face scrunches together and he takes a micro step backwards at the aggression in Nico’s voice, but also in clear shock and embarrassment.
“Oh—God. Sorry. I thought, God,” he says on a laugh, and smooths out his shirt. “From behind you look just like someone else we know. Sorry that was—”
“Ah.” Nico stands, buttons his suit jacket and extends his hand to Patrick in one fluid motion. “You’re Patty, then.”
Patrick shakes Nico’s hand with a grimace of pain, and instead of letting go after a few seconds, it looks like Nico grips harder. Patrick glances towards me, then back at Nico, forcing a smile on his face like a gracious host.
“You look so much like Callan Reed.” He laughs again. “It’s uncanny.”
“Nah.” Nico finally lets go of Patrick’s hand, resting it on the back of my chair. “He died.”
Just like that. Two words.
Clean and flat. Like he’s said them so many times that any possible feeling that might accompany them has burned out. Like he’s read them off a cue card. And I watch his eyes and I swear—I would almost swear—that he just barely rolls them. Then his face is neutral.
And I force myself to remember that different people cope in different ways. Nico’s way is humor.
The eye contact he continues to hold with Patrick is unnerving, like he’s waiting for a reaction that doesn’t come. Because Patrick’s face has gone white.
“He—w-what?” Patrick stutters and keeps looking from me to Nico then back to me.
When I don’t respond or laugh at what must be such a silly joke, Patrick looks at me—really looks at me—and I can see him understanding what he’s looking at.
He probably sees the dark circles under my eyes, because sleeping isn’t something that comes easy when you see an explosion behind your eyes every time you close them.
He probably sees the way my nails aren’t painted when I used to always paint them for events like this. But going out in public is harder when the last time you were in a café someone kidnapped you at gunpoint.
He probably sees the way my mask falls, the way my lips that have tilted up all night suddenly curve down.
And then he steps forward and does the unthinkable.
Patrick Ellison wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me up out of my chair.
His arms are holding me up to his height, my toes in these heels barely grazing the floor, and I rest my arms awkwardly on his shoulders. And then something inside of me…
Click.
It’s like the first turn of a jack-in-the-box.
I’m not sure how many clicks I have until I shatter.
But my body relaxes and Patrick is in my ear. “Max, God, I’m so, so sorry.”
His hand rubs circles into my shoulder and he’s the Patrick from before.
From before he started at Ellison. The one I fell in love with at twenty in a backyard with tequila and stars.
The one who showed up at the library with two coffees, just wanting to be in my company.
And I realize that person still exists inside of him.
He never went away; he just got buried under everything that came after.
And he’s probably that person for Brenda. And that’s so good for them.
I feel Nico shift behind me. It’s not dramatic or sudden. He doesn’t make a scene. Just takes a half-step forward and I feel taps. I look over my shoulder and see his middle finger tapping on Patrick’s arm wrapped around me the way someone taps on a watch and says time’s up.
Patrick pulls his arms away and my feet find the floor. Nico gently takes hold of my elbow and pulls me back a step with the efficiency of a man who has a very clear and personal reason for ending this embrace. Patrick steps back and accepts it because Patrick, whatever else he is, can read a room.
Nico laces his arm possessively around my waist.
Click.
“Thank you for coming,” Nico says to Patrick.
Which is technically backwards. But Patrick nods like it makes sense and Nico steers me away from the table.
We end up at the bar and Nico looks stressed.
“Fuck it,” he says it with an exaggerated sigh and reaches behind the bar.
He grabs two short glasses with one hand and a bottle with clear liquor with the other and sets a glass in front of me. He pours the tequila into both glasses and hands one to me.
He raises it in my direction and shoots it back.
“Let’s go finish this shit, Maxie.”
My chest feels like it might just cave in, but I feel a small smile touch my lips before it falls again. I take the shot and walk back with him to the table while the bride and groom share their first dance.
Click.
I hold it together for two more hours.
Through dinner and through the first dance and through speeches that last way too long.
I hold it together long enough for Nico to allow the waiter to bring me champagne while also forcing water into my system.
Click.
I hold it together enough to almost listen to the stories these strangers at our table are telling.
Click.
It’s dark outside but the pretty lights strung across the reception area cast an ethereal glow on all the guests.
A woman I don’t know across the table has just started telling us a riveting story about getting robbed while walking the streets of Rome last summer. She recounts that the man held her at gunpoint and took all her rings, purse, and her Chanel sunglasses.
“Then what did he do?” Nico leans forward, taking a sip of the whiskey he has been nursing all night since our tequila shots.
“What do you mean?” The woman laughs like Nico is being funny.
“What did he do after he made you give him your sh—stuff?” He catches the curse before it comes out.
“He ran off, of course.” She shakes her head and looks distraught at recalling the loss of her things.
“Well, that’s a lame ending,” Nico mumbles out the side of his mouth just for me. “Didn’t pistol whip her or anything.”
I choke on air and the laugh that comes out of my throat startles both Nico and me.
I slap my palm over my mouth and Nico smiles—the first one of the night. And if I had a few more tequila shots, I might be able to pretend he was his brother.
Click.
“I think that’s a wrap.”
Nico announces it like he’s the director on set, telling the actors they can leave for the night. He claps his hands once, stands and, with all the fanfare, throws his hand out to me and helps me up.
He twirls me once, catching me with both hands and dipping me.
Click.
I stand and he salutes the table. “Thanks for the story, Susan, lucky you didn’t run into me in that alley in Rome. Definitely don’t come to the east side of Providence anytime soon. Night, fellas.”
If I bite my bottom lip any harder to hold the laughter in, I might draw blood.
He ushers me up the path and we pass the table with an ornate guest book laid out.
Nico pauses, grabs a white pen and scrawls something quickly.
I don’t see what he writes but the lights are still glowing and the man with champagne walks past us towards the tables again. I lift my hand and he stops.
“Nope,” Nico says to the man, before reaching in his pocket to grab three one-hundred-dollar bills out of his gold money clip. “For you, though. Because fuck man, these people suck.”
The waiter’s face brightens and he chuckles with an agreeable nod, but Nico doesn’t wait for a response. He tucks my hand into the crook of his arm and for the first time, I notice his ring.
Click. Click.
It’s gold, with a horn carved into the side with filigree lines encircling his finger. It’s the same as the one his brother wore.
Click. Click. Click.
We make it to the valet stand.
I hold it together.
The car pulls up and Nico tips the young valet, grabbing the door handle before the kid can and staring at him until he walks off.
Nico opens the passenger side door, my hand slipping from his arm. I grab the door and place my other hand on the leather of the passenger seat.
I stand in silence, the clicks in my chest come faster, louder, the jack that’s in the box getting closer and closer to—
A sob crawls up my throat, but I swallow it.
“Nic—” I start, but the word won’t come out.
“I’ve got you, Maxie.”
His hands come under my arms, and he lifts me gently into the seat. I feel something wet on my hands and realize tears are streaming down my face. My hands feel numb as they sit in my lap.
Nico reaches around me, fastening my seatbelt and I can feel his stare.
One beat. Two. He steps back and watches me unravel.
I hear a ragged breath leave him, like he might unravel, too, before he turns and shuts the door.
When he gets in, I don’t look at him. And he doesn’t say anything.
But he doesn’t drive either.
The pressure builds in my chest and the sobs become audible.
“It should be him here with you tonight.”
His voice is angry.
I tilt my head toward him, but my tears blur and it’s dark in the car. I can’t see his face, but I hear him hit the steering wheel.
“Even at something as stupid as this dumb fucking wedding. He shouldn’t have put you through this.”
Like if he could change it he would.
Like if his brother could be here, he would.
But Nico couldn’t make the decision. He was in the alley with me. He couldn’t save his brother.
His brother… who ran into that restaurant to save me.
Suddenly it’s not just overwhelming grief—it’s guilt, too.
My whole body is shaking. But I feel the car start moving.
I stare forward and focus on the time as it passes. After forty-five minutes, the tears have dried up, the sobs slowed.
“You know…” My voice comes out tattered from crying. “You’re a ghost of a ghost. Patrick thought you were him and I keep glancing over at you and then—you’re you.”
He’s gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles are white, just like the night of the explosion.
I think I’m laughing now.
In fact, I know I am, but it sounds like maniacal laughter, not normal laughter.
“Also, this is twice now—” The words come out between what must be hysteria.
“This is twice now that I’ve had a complete breakdown in front of you.
The bathroom floor apparently wasn’t enough because now it’s a car in the Berkshires.
I think you might just be—” I wipe my face with the back of my hand, a few stray tears clinging to me.
“—statistically responsible for all my breakdowns at this point.”
He looks at me.
His face does something I have never seen Nico do. He looks like he might break.
“I would make them all stop if I could,” he whispers, and pauses for too long.
“Short of going back in time—”
“Max.”
I swallow.
“I need you to hear me. If I had a choice in any of this—” his voice cracks. “I’d make it all stop.”
“It’s not your fault, Nico.”
He doesn’t say anything else. So, I don’t either.
I don’t make it through the apartment door.
Well, not alone. Because my legs refuse to work when the car stops outside our apartment, either from the tequila and champagne or grief or all of the above.
Nico carries me to the door bridal style—fitting for a wedding—and stands me up. Then the door opens and my legs give out again. Becca is standing there and I see her face and everything inside of me wants to crawl in a hole and stay there.
But Nico scoops me back up. The way you scoop up a child. And he carries me inside to the couch and I let him because I have nothing left.
I hear Becca say something as he sets me down. I hear him respond. I feel the couch under me and a blanket around me and I close my eyes.
I hear footsteps towards the door; Nico leaving.
And then I hear Becca clearly, “What the fuck did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Nico’s voice is tired and sincere.
“Right.” Becca’s voice is the opposite, with an edge that says she isn’t going to argue but thinks he’s full of it. “Just like you’re always doing nothing to me at work? Try the opposite of nothing.”
A pause.
“Is that right?” Nico’s voice perks up a little and shifts into something lower, more deliberate. “Would you like to find out what the opposite of nothing looks like with me, Becca? Again?”
Another pause. Longer.
Then Becca, again: “You’re a moron. Get out.”
And the door closes. And so does my ability to stay awake.