Chapter 7.5
January Thirtieth
Shianne
A tear rolled down her face, embarrassed over what happened through the weekend as she grabbed her lemonade. She sat thinking to herself and reviewed every decision she had made that included Wolfgang. Why didn't he just tell her instead of making her look dumb all these years? She began liking him when they became adults and his shoulders filled out and his voice deepened.
Shianne didn't want to seem obsessed about him all these years, she just wanted to know if he felt the same or see if anything would grow between them.
Now everyone thought she was crazy. She dabbed her napkin against her cheek as the waitress dropped off her plate. “Thank you.”
She didn’t look up but the door chimed next to her booth startled her and she watched Max from I.T. walk up to the hostess station. She overheard him, “I had an order to go.”
He looked over at her and she looked away, self conscience that she had been crying over being embarrassed. She felt like a mess.
She listened to him thank the waitress and the sound of his footsteps stopping. “Excuse me?”
Her breathing stilled to find him at her table. “Are you okay? Are you here by yourself?”
He looked around the table for another's belongings.
Shianne Nodded. “Yes, I'm fine.”
She ignored her feelings of shame and disconnection and finally cut her feelings of Wolfgang. He was never hers and it was clear that he was just being nice, too nice.
“Do you mind if I sit with you?”
His hand gripped his box.
“That's fine.”
Her dewy cheeks pushed up and she was surprised that a man was giving her attention.
Max sat across from her in the booth. “Shianne right?”
“Yes and you're Max.”
She began picking apart his appearance in her mind. Not in a bad way, but she noticed his blue eyes and short, curly blonde hair. He was clean shaven and she could see how straight his teeth were. Max was large but solid. He was nothing like wolfgang and maybe that's what she needed. She didn't want somebody who led her on. She didn't want somebody who would make her think there was a possibility and observed as he opened his container, biscuits and gravy.
She looked down at her plate filled with eggs, bacon and toast, this wouldn’t be weird if it wasn’t seven o’ clock at night. Shianne loved breakfast foods though and wondered if Max did too.
Stopping her thoughts, she realized she was getting ahead of herself. She knew Max worked with Wolfgang and lived with him. “So,”
He caught her off guard. “Your friends couldn’t make it?”
“I-”
She paused thinking of what to say and nothing came to mind. “I don’t have any friends anymore.”
“Anymore? A pretty girl like you?”
She blushed as her heart fluttered, “I was mean to them after they lied to me and I moved out.”
“Where are you now?”
“With my aunt, Margaret. She has a room for me until she finds something permanent.”
Shianne nibbled her toast, turning away any thoughts of him liking her. He was just being kind and maybe giving her pity, she reminded herself. “Why are you being nice to me?”
Her eyes met Max’s bright blue eyes officially for the first time and Shianne’s shoulders softened while her face lifted with a tingle in her cheeks.
“No one should have to eat alone. I do it too often to know what that’s like.”
“Oh, you like breakfast foods?”
He pressed his fork into his cut off biscuit, “ I love breakfast foods.”
“Me too.”
She decided before things went further, she would drop it all, “But you know I had a crush on Wolfgang and you even let me into his apartment and-”
Max set his fork down and leaned into the table, “I know but the truth is when you walked into my apartment, I thought you were the prettiest thing to grace my presence and never understood why Wolfgang would turn you down. I couldn’t leave you here alone and crying.”
Her mouth closed and her chin slightly quivered. He knew all of that and still wanted to sit with her. So she smiled back at him. “Shianne, what are you doing this Saturday?”