Chapter 17 Maxim
MAXIM
“You ready?” Hollie stands in front of me with a wide smile on her face, nervously smoothing her hands down her blouse.
Ever since her lunch with her mother yesterday, she’s seemed on edge.
None of the security team I stationed outside the cafe reported anything unusual, and I didn’t want to press her too hard about what they talked about because I’m choosing to trust her.
It’s the only way something like this is going to work out long-term.
But something has definitely put her on edge. Resisting the urge to pry, I smile at her while hoping she’ll tell me of her own accord. A weak hope, given how she views me.
“I’m ready,” I reply. “It’s only decorating, right?”
As Hollie knocks on the door of her parents’ home, she gives me a tight smile. “Boy, you have no idea.”
She’s right, I really had no idea what I was in for. Christmas in my family is nothing more than an excuse to drink, make a few deals, and pay someone to spend the night with you. Christmas for Hollie and her family is like stepping into another world.
As soon as we’ve over the threshold, her father Martin thrusts an armful of Christmas lights into my arms and I’m ordered to detangle them.
Toto, who accompanies us, is in the middle of laughing at me when he’s dragged away to help Martin unfurl the Christmas tree.
Hollie is whisked away by her mother, Susan, to get another few boxes of decorations out of the attic, and the hectic day begins.
Unfurling Christmas lights is the easiest task I’m given.
As soon as I have them laid out in a straight line across the sofa and the coffee table, I’m ordered outside and up a ladder where I have to string the lights across the gutters and down the drain pipes.
It takes the better part of an hour, with Toto bracing the bottom of the ladder while also weaving together a couple of dozen ribbons into miniature wreaths under Susan’s guidance.
Once the lights are strung up, we’re painting snowflakes and rubbing Santa decals onto the windows, spraying fake snow over the flower boxes despite the flakes drifting down around us, and winding a second set of lights around the stone fence surrounding the front of the property.
My fingers are frozen numb by the time I’m back inside with a cup of hot chocolate to warm my soul.
Each sip of the divine sweetness warms my soul and burns my throat, but I drink greedily.
It’s my last moment of warmth before I’m back outside in the snow with Martin and a gigantic tree to set up in the front yard.
Through the freshly decorated window, I glimpse Toto covered in lights and tinsel as Susan and Hollie use him as a stand while decorating the tree inside.
“Hold that,” Martin barks at me, leaning the tree in my direction. “Need to dig a hole for the pot.”
“Do you want me to dig?” I ask, slightly concerned as Martin braces his lower back while sinking down to his knees.
“I can do it,” he says briskly. “I might be old, but I’m not incapable. That goes for a lot of things.” He glances up at me, his eyes narrowed with a quiet warning. “I’m a retired cop, not an invalid.”
“I don’t think your knees will care either way, but that’s fine. I’m just here to help.”
“Help,” Martin scoffs. “Is that what you call it?”
I tilt my head away from the branches and watch Martin brush snow away from the ground and grasp a flat handle buried in the grass. To my surprise, the handle pulls out a large circular chunk of dirt and the resulting gap is perfect for the trunk of the Christmas tree.
“I call it help, yes,” I say with a grunt, maneuvering the tree into the hole. It lands with a thunk that makes all the branches tremble. “Although if my being here is causing an issue, I’d hate to intrude.”
“Hate to intrude,” Martin mutters, grabbing onto the tree. He uses it as support to stand. “What exactly is it you do, Maxim?”
“For work?”
“Yes.”
“I’m an accountant.” The lie rolls off my tongue. “A private one, so I can’t disclose who I work for.”
“Sounds like you help the rich dodge their taxes.”
“I help them do whatever they pay me for.”
“Like a cockroach.” Martin brushes the snow from his clothes and fixes me with a cold look. “You might already have a ring on her finger, but that doesn’t mean I gotta like you.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agree. Glancing back inside, I glimpse Hollie doubled over laughing at how ridiculous Toto looks and a small smile creeps over my own face. “But I hope in time, you’ll see that I care for your daughter, and it will earn me some goodwill in your book.”
Martin grunts. “Hardly. She’s a reckless girl who makes reckless decisions.”
“You think I’m a reckless decision?” I meet Martin’s eyes.
There’s suspicion buried in their dark depths, likely born from his years on the force, and it’s dangerous for me to stand here and entertain him.
I’d prefer to keep him in the dark about who I am, but a man of his caliber will dig.
And he’ll keep digging until he learns exactly who I am and what I do.
When that day comes, there won’t be anything I can do to stop my father from taking care of it.
“I think you’re a stranger,” Martin says gruffly, sniffing against the cold. “I think my daughter disappeared and came back married, and I think there’s something wrong with her.”
“Is there something wrong with her?” I ask cautiously. “Or is she just happy and you’ve never seen that before?”
His lips part briefly, but whatever he plans to say next is silenced by Susan hurrying out of the house with two steaming mugs in her hand. “Boys! Here, drink this so you don’t catch your death out here.”
I clasp the cup of tea thrust into my grip with both hands and flash Susan a grateful smile. “Thank you. I like maintaining the use of my fingers.”
“If this snow gets any heavier, then I want you both inside, understand?” Susan’s sharp gaze darts between us. “None of this macho I can handle it crap.”
“Honey, I’ll be fine,” Martin replies tiredly. This must be a common discussion they have.
“Well, Maxim won’t be, and what kind of parents would we be if we let something happen to him on his first proper visit here, hmm?”
“He can take a little cold,” Martin replies.
“Maybe.” Susan lowers her voice. “But Hollie is here. Actually here, and not one of her usual fleeting visits. I want that to continue.”
“Does she not visit you a lot?” I ask over the top of my cup.
Susan’s cheek flush with embarrassment, and she shakes her head.
“She’s very busy in the city, I know that.
I try to bring her home for things, but I imagine you know how it goes.
She’s so hardworking, but I miss her. Lunch yesterday was so nice, even if it was only for an hour!
” Shaking her head, she waves me off. “I’m rambling.
I’m just happy she’s here. I suppose I have you to thank for that.
I don’t think she would have come by herself.
” With a laugh, Susan hurries back inside before the cold consumes her.
Interesting. I was under the impression that Hollie saw her parents a lot, which is why lunch yesterday was so important. A lunch that only lasted an hour while Hollie was gone for several.
Something shifts uncomfortably in my gut as I gaze through the window. Hollie stands with her back to me and her head bowed, focused on some decorations in her arms.
Did she lie to me?
The concern doesn’t shift for the rest of the day as I’m in the garden helping Martin decorate the giant lawn tree.
He keeps pressing me with questions about my work and my life, my family and intentions, but I dodge each one while sticking to the lie that I’m a simple private accountant.
Finance is easy to hide in these days. By the time we’re finished, the giant tree is covered in glittering lights, sparkling baubles, miles of tinsel, and more handmade decorations than I can ever count.
“Good job.” Martin’s hand suddenly lands on my shoulder, and it takes all my self-control not to draw away from him. “It looks pretty damn fine.”
His sudden change in attitude is alarming, but as he flashes me a smile and trudges toward the house, I get a distinct feeling that I’ve just taken part in some kind of invisible test with him.
Does his change in mood mean I passed?
Martin heads into the lounge and I hurry to the kitchen, sticking my hands under hot water to revive circulation and wash off lingering glitter and dirt from the tree. Footsteps behind me make my back twitch, but I relax upon seeing Hollie.
“You and my Dad were out there for ages,” she says, turning on the kettle and gathering mugs from the cabinet above her. “What did you talk about?”
“Are you nervous I told him the truth?”
She freezes and looks at me, tucking her red hair behind her ear. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Her eyes narrow. “You said you wouldn’t—”
“I have no intention of hurting them,” I interrupt her gently as I turn off the tap. “He asked me a lot of questions and I answered them the way I always do.”
“Which is?”
“I’m an accountant. And I work a lot. That’s all there is to me.”
Her attention returns to the cups and she starts spooning in heaps of coffee into each mug. “Is he going to be in trouble for asking questions?”
She’s taken my threat on her family seriously, which is promising, but that strange weight on my chest increases slightly.
After drying my hands, I massage my chest. “No. He’s just a father looking out for his daughter, and I can’t fault that.
And your mother seemed to have a really good time at lunch yesterday. ”
“Yeah.” Hollie nods while the kettle boils. “It was really good.”
“What did you two get up to?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “We just ate and talked.”
“For five hours?”
“Mhm.” Hollie doesn’t look up. “My Mom can talk and talk.”
She’s lying to me. Right to my face. Her mother claimed she was only there for an hour and now Hollie says she was there for longer.
I could press the issue. I could scare the truth out of her. For all I know, this is part of some huge ruse to trick or trap me and she’s told her parents everything. Just as my suspicions rise, she turns to me with a small smile.
“Mom wants you to stay for dinner.”
“What?”
“She’s ordering takeout but she wants us to go through the old cards and pick which ones to hang around the wreath on the front door.”
“And she wants me to be a part of that?”
Hollie presses a hot cup of coffee into my hand and nods. “She does.”
With careful balance, she picks up the other three mugs and leaves me in the kitchen in silence.
Confused emotions clash together in my chest. She lied to me but her family are working to include me. Those aren’t the actions of people who know the truth. So what was Hollie really up to, and why is she keeping it a secret?
I stare down at the coffee, mapping out a couple of bubbles that remain floating on the top, and then I slowly walk through to the lounge.
Hollie is perched on the couch laughing over her mother’s shoulder at a card clutched in her hand. Martin is on the couch opposite them with another card, holding it out to Toto, who snorts in amusement.
“I had a dog like that once,” Toto remarks with a grin. “Poor thing outlived all my family and then one day just—” He makes a soft death sound. “She was like ninety.”
“They’re a good breed,” Martin agrees. “I had two when I was a kid. My favorite kind.”
“Look at his face!” Hollie giggles. “God, I wonder what he looks like now?”
“He shaved all his hair off, didn’t you get the newsletter?” Susan swivels around to face her daughter.
“He sends a newsletter?” Hollie gapes at her mother.
“Yes! Every six months. I can’t believe you never got one.”
“I might have thought it was spam.”
The room is warm and full of life. An array of colors gleams from the tree they all worked hard on, glittering streamers hug the ceiling, festive boots and baubles decorate the walls around a jolly Santa, and a full set of reindeer dance around the window.
Outside, the tree Martin and I decorated gleams tall in the dusk, slowly disappearing under the snow.
This is family.
I feel like I’m watching through a portal at an advert for everything that makes Christmas joyful, a far cry from the cold rooms, sharp alcohol, and irritable father I’m used to. Suddenly, Hollie stands and grabs my hand. She pulls me into the lounge with a bright smile.
“Come in, silly. You need to pick the card you like the best!”
Before I can protest, she’s shoved me down onto the couch and dumped a shoebox filled with Christmas cards onto my lap.
“It can be for any reason,” Susan explains from nearby on the floor. “Maybe it looks goofy or makes you laugh, or makes you feel wistful. Whichever you like.”
Hollie sits next to me and starts going through the box on my lap.
This close, I can smell the eucalyptus she’s been using and it tingles my nose.
She’s only this close for appearances’ sake, but I can’t take my eyes off her.
With rosy cheeks, a soft smile, and eyes reflecting all the lights from the tree as she offers me a card with a cat on the front dressed up as Santa, my heart skips a beat.
She’s beautiful.
“What about this one?” Hollie asks, completely unaware of my inner turmoil.
“I like it,” I say, unable to take my eyes off her. This day, this evening, this moment… it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced in my life, and yet for this family, it’s normal. This is love. This is warmth.
“You sure?” Hollie’s eyes briefly meet mine and I nod slowly, not once looking at the card.
“Yeah… I think I like it a lot.”
I’m fucked.