Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
MAX
“What the—” I woke up to a wet, slobbery face. I opened my eyes and they were looking right into Titus’. He whined and ran in a circle and then barked. The noise level made my brain feel like it was being impaled by razor-sharp swords.
“What the hell happened, boy?” I asked as I sat up as best as I could and tried to get my bearings. My stomach felt like a pit of acid; I could taste the alcohol from the night before. “How much did I drink?”
Titus tilted his head and barked again.
“Quiet down.” I scrubbed my hands down my face and tried to get my head together.
Why am I on the couch?
My shoes and socks were under the coffee table and my shirt folded neatly on top of it.
What the fuck? Where’s Kari?
I looked around the room and spotted a note on the table. I reached over and picked it up.
Morning, Max!
You are gonna feel like shit this morning, but that’s because you drank a ton. Speaking of which, I tucked your bar tab receipt into your wallet and that was all you. Let me know you’re alright.
Sam
It all came crashing back to me like a tidal wave. Kari leaving, me not going after her but heading to Casaar’s instead. The Crown.
Sam being here.
I stood up, hesitantly at first, and then realized I felt better than I expected. I pulled on my shirt and wadded up the note. I let Titus out into the back yard and found my phone on the table by the door and looked for messages from Kari.
Nothing.
Damn it!
I went to the kitchen and downed a couple glasses of water, trying to get the fog out of my head. Everything slowly came back to me in detail.
I scrolled through my contacts and dialed Cane.
“Hello?” he asked.
“Hey. Is Kari around? She went to your place last night, right?”
The sound was muffled for a minute. “Yeah, but Jada said Kari got called into work.”
“So she went to the hospital today?”
“Yeah.” I heard a door open and close. Wind whipping across the speaker made it a little harder to hear. “Look, Max. Kari told me everything last night. She was a mess.”
I swallowed hard, guilt and uncertainty settling over me. I didn’t know how to fix this mess but I knew I had to get some resolution one way or the other. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I saved your ass. Just so you know.”
“How do ya figure that?”
“She’s worried that she’s being selfish by loving you and not being able to have kids. She thinks she’s cheating you outta life or something. So I explained to her that she’s wrong. That you love HER, not her ovaries.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re right.”
“I always am, my friend. I always am. But I think she believed me, which is the important part. So now you need to do your part and go to her. Reinforce what I said.”
“The irony of you doling out relationship advice is not lost on me.”
“I’m turning into the wise one. I always said you’d need me one day. Last night was your day. You’re welcome.”
I felt my spirits lift a little. “So she didn’t leave because she still loves Blaine?”
“I think she’d like to de-nut Blaine, if she could.” He snorted. “I’ve always liked Kari. But it’s you, my friend, she loves. She left last night because she loves you. Just like I think you let her leave because you love her.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as his words rang through my head. “Oh, how roles change...”
He laughed heartily into the phone. “Go get your girl. I’m running in to talk to my attorneys now.”
Kari
I refilled my coffee in the cafeteria. I needed the caffeine to keep me going. Thankfully, it was a slow day in the ER.
I hadn’t slept much the night before, replaying everything in my mind. I hoped to heavens Cane was right, but I couldn’t go to Max and ask him. I needed him to come to me.
It was the only way I’d know for sure that he was truly okay with everything.
My phone buzzed as I reached my table and I grabbed it. “Hello?”
“I’m surprised you answered.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m surprised you called me back, Blaine, after I told you to never call me anymore.”
“I’ve never done what I was supposed to,” he said softly. “Let me make that up to you.”
His words caused me to choke on the coffee I had just sipped. “Really? You think you can ever make it up to me that you left me while I was pregnant? You’re dumber than I thought.”
“We had something, Kari. I was young and dumb and I know I was wrong. But it’s weighed on my conscience ever since and.
..just give me the opportunity to make it right.
I loved you and I know you loved me. Now, when I look at you, I see that girl I once knew.
Let’s just see if there’s anything there. ”
I thought about what he said. I thought I had loved Blaine and I never thought I would get over that. I thought he had ruined me.
My phone beeped with an incoming call and when I looked at the screen, Max’s handsome smile was looking at me. A rush of butterflies tore through my stomach and my heart swelled.
“No, Blaine. Anything we might have ever had is in the past and I’m not sure what there was between us then. But I do know, without a doubt, that there’s nothing between us now. Everything I have belongs to someone else.”
“Sam said you’ve been fighting.”
“Sam can go to hell.”
He chuckled. “Did you ever think maybe Max doesn’t want you now that he knows the truth?”
My heart stilled in my chest, a sadness swooping over my soul. “Yeah, I have. And if that’s the case, so be it. But that doesn’t change my love for him.”
“I heard he was out with a bombshell yesterday afternoon.”
My hands shook. “Don’t call me again. I mean it. I want nothing to do with you.”
I ended the call but somehow managed to answer an incoming one at the same time. I saw Max’s name and I froze.
“Hello?” I asked nervously.
“Kari,” he said, his voice rough. “How are you?”
I forced a swallow. “Good. I’m good. How are you?”
I heard his truck start, the roar of the engine rumbling through the phone. “Heading home.”
I wonder where he’s been.
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
“Are you coming to our house after work?”
“Do you want me to?”
I heard him take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “I have one question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Do you love me? And don’t just say yes because you don’t want to hurt my feelings. If nothing else mattered—no medical conditions or ex-boyfriends—would you want to be with me.”
“Yes,” I said automatically. The line grew quiet and it made me nervous. “Max?”
“I’m here,” he said, chuckling. “I’m just getting into some traffic now so I need to go. I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”
“I’ll call you when I’m off and we can talk about it,” I replied, not sure what to say.
He laughed. “Okay. See you soon.”
I tossed my phone into my purse, my heart pounding in my ears.
I was trying not to smile, trying not to read too much hope into what he had said, but damn it if I didn’t want to jump up and down a little.
I wanted Max, I ached for Max...I loved Max Quinn.
People said love could conquer anything and I’d always laughed that off.
But what if they were right?
I made my way back upstairs to the nurse’s station, hoping that my shift would end quickly. I had been so lethargic during the first half of my shift, but now I had a spring in my step. I set my things down and turned to check a few charts.
“How’s your day going? Pardon my bluntness, but you look like hell.” Dr. Manning walked beside me and grabbed a chart. His blue eyes looked as tired as mine felt.
“I didn’t know you were back. How’s your mother?”
He flipped through the paperwork. “She’s tenacious, I’ll say that for her.”
“Better than not, right?”
“I suppose. So what’s up with you?”
I smiled nervously. “You know how it goes.”
“Problems with the boyfriend, I’m assuming?”
I nodded.
“Guys mess up a lot. It’s our calling card.”
“This one doesn’t mess up much. That’s the bad part.”
He grinned. “How’s that bad?”
“Because he’s so perfect and I’m so...not. I just keep thinking he’ll wake up one day and realize it, too.”
“I’m going out on a limb here and saying that he thinks you’re pretty perfect. And I’m giving you my professional opinion that he’s right.”
I couldn’t help the red that crept across my face, yet I rolled my eyes. “You’re full of shit.”
“Probably. But I’m also right,” he smirked. “I know you like to control everything, keep everything in order. But what he thinks about you isn’t your decision. You can’t control that, Ms. Stanley.”
“He’s just...” My voice trailed off as my eyes met a pair of green ones coming around the nurse’s station. His smile, so sweet and shy, made me melt into a little puddle on the floor.
“What?” Dr. Manning asked.
“Max,” I whispered.
Dr. Manning turned around and saw Max standing at the counter. He looked to the doctor and then to me. I could tell he didn’t know what to think and the fact that he seemed jealous made me happy.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Max asked, his voice full of caution.
“No,” I said softly, ignoring the looks from the other nurses shuffling around. I was standing between two of the best looking guys I’d ever seen—it wasn’t a bad place to be. “You okay today?”
“Yeah.” He looked from me back to the doctor again.
“Max, this is Dr. Connor Manning. Dr. Manning, this is Max Quinn.”
Connor extended his hand to Max and they shook firmly. Connor had a coy smile on his face and Max looked apprehensive, his jaw tensing.
“I was just telling Kari here that you can’t make decisions for people. You have to let everyone decide what’s best for them. Would you agree?” Connor asked him.
A slow smile spread across Max’s face as he realized what Connor was getting at. “I do, actually.”
Connor shot me a wink and started towards the hall. “Nice to meet you, Max.”
“You, too, Dr. Manning. If you don’t mind me asking, have we met before?”
He stopped in the hallway and turned around. “Unless you’ve been in here with a gunshot or pneumonia, probably not.”
“Dr. Manning? There’s a Kellie Manning on the phone for you. She said she’s your mother,” Chanda said from the front of the station.
“I need to grab that. Nice to meet you again.”
I looked back to the beautiful, dark-haired man in front of me. His eyes were on me. As he realized I wasn’t going to throw him out of the station, his dimple popped.
“I thought you were going home?” I asked with a huge smile.
“I did.” He leaned against the counter, a slow smile spreading across his lips. “You’re my home.”
I tried not to swoon in the middle of the hospital, but I couldn’t help the ridiculously huge grin on my face.
“I brought you something,” Max said softly. He reached into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out 4 little envelopes. He handed them to me.
I turned them over in my hands. “You brought me flower seed packets?” I laughed. “I don’t get it.”
“I was going to stop and buy you flowers to tell you I’m sorry.
I should’ve come to you or at least called you last night.
But in my defense, I needed to make sure you wanted to be with me.
I needed to know that I wasn’t forcing you or pressuring you.
But now I see I was wrong. I should’ve went to Cane’s and told you to make sure you were home in the morning.
That I wanted you there because you belong with me.
And my heart belongs to you. We both know it. ”
“So I was going to buy you flowers, but they die,” he went on.
“In a week, two tops, they’re done. Forgotten.
So I bought you seed packets. You can plant those at our house and then in the spring, we can watch them grow until it gets cold again.
” He shrugged. “It’s my way of telling you that I expect you to still be in my life, at our house, this time next year. ”
“Oh, Max,” I said, rounding the corner and letting him envelop me in a hug. Everything about being in his arms, surrounded by his scent, his lips on the top of my head, was right.
It was home.
“I love ya, Kari. I woke up this morning without you beside me and I never want to do that again. It really hit me not having you there.”
I squeezed him tighter.
“I’m not letting you leave me. If you still love Blaine—”
“I never loved Blaine,” I interrupted, looking into his eyes. “I thought I did, but then I fell in love with you and I realized that what I felt for Blaine was nothing in comparison.”
“So you’ll come home?”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “I’m pretty sure I’m there right now.”