Chapter 4 #2
“Great. We’ll take a bottle of that one,” Caroline interjected, once again cutting Max off.
Yeah, okay, this girl was rude as fuck.
Annie’s gaze flicked up from the menu, landing on Caroline with a stormy intensity—those centric golden bursts looking like lightning crackling across the summer sky—and Max couldn’t help but wonder what on earth the conversation the two of them were about to have entailed.
“I want a glass of the malbec you were describing. That sounded lovely,” Annie said defiantly, shooting daggers across the table.
Caroline conceded. “Fine, okay. I’ll take a glass of the riesling, but it better be a true dry riesling and none of that sickly sweet dessert wine.”
Max may have outwardly smiled, but the words die bitch looped through her mind as she responded. “Of course. I’ll be right back with those glasses for you ladies.” She nodded, catching Annie’s eye once more before quickly moving towards the bar.
By the time she approached the table again, glasses of malbec and riesling in hand, Caroline and Annie were carrying out a hushed argument that Max only managed to catch a snippet of.
“What do you mean you sold the townhouse? Why would you do that? Why are you back—”
“I have the malbec”—Max placed a delicate wine glass in front of Annie, noticing a pink tinge to her cheeks that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago—“and that riesling.” She placed the white in front of Caroline.
“I’ll, uh, swing by in a few to see how you two are enjoying things.
” She moved away from the women and headed to the kitchen to check on the food orders for her other tables.
After the food was dropped off at table seventeen and another bottle of wine was sold to table twenty-nine, Max once again found herself nearing the table tucked away by one of the front windows of the upscale dining room.
“A break. Are you fucking for real?” Annie’s voice was louder, carrying an anger that hadn’t been present moments ago. “You’re letting everyone believe we’re on a break when I broke up with you—”
“Are we all good here?” Max said awkwardly, not wanting to stand there too long eavesdropping.
Annie’s eyes locked with hers. “Great.” She dropped the anger that had laced her words only moments ago. “You were right. This is a delicious malbec. The plum and the pepper really come through.” She smiled sweetly, confusing Max even more.
She looked to Caroline. “And the riesling?”
“It’s acceptable,” Caroline said, taking a bite of the pomegranate broccoli salad in front of her.
Don’t do it. You need the tip, Max told herself, fighting back the urge to spit back an equally snarky retort. If there was one thing Max had never tolerated well, it was the blatant rudeness of others. “Glad to hear it. I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit.”
Max scurried off, ducking into the server’s station where Chloe and Erica gossiped in a huddle. She reached over Chloe, grabbed her water cup from the shelf, and took a long sip. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to find a sliver of solace amid the chaos of her shift.
“Spill, Max. Have you figured out what’s going on at table fifteen? The two girls fighting?” Chloe asked. “From what we’ve gathered, there was a pretty nasty breakup. But no one wants to linger too long near the table, you know?”
That very question had been consuming Max since she had realized it was Annie sitting at that table, because so far what she had observed was incongruent with the baseline assumptions she had made about her to begin with—starting with Annie being straight—and Max couldn’t get past that.
A commotion coming from the dining room drew the attention of all three of them.
They stepped out of the service station in time to see Annie reach for the glass of red wine on the table in front of her, thrusting the remaining contents into Caroline’s face, the dark, inky liquid spraying everywhere.
“What the—!” Caroline let out a screech as Annie popped to her feet.
“Get the mop and towels,” Max instructed Chloe. “And grab the big thing of salt,” she added to Erica, thinking of the combo of red wine and the cream colored cowl neck sweater Caroline was wearing that was surely now permanently stained.
“Get stuffed, Caroline. We are D-O-N-E done,” Annie shouted. “Don’t you dare reach out to me again.” She whipped around, panic written on her face as her gaze met Max’s across the room for one long moment before she peeled off in the other direction toward the pro shop.
“You two go clean that up. I’ll be back.” Max hurriedly fumbled with the strings of her apron, setting the garment on the service station counter before heading after Annie.
It didn’t take long to find her. Annie had slipped down a quiet hallway nestled between the pro shop and the unused banquet halls. She sat hunched over on a bench, her head in her hands.
“Uh, you okay?” Max asked, slowing to a stop next to Annie, cringing because obviously she wasn’t okay. What a stupid thing to ask.
Annie lifted her head, those gorgeous eyes even more intense as they contrasted against the puffy red rims that accompanied her tears. Even crying, Max couldn’t help but notice how absolutely stunning Annie looked.
“Mind if I sit?” she asked tentatively, testing the waters.
Annie sniffled, nodding and scooting over to make room for Max beside her.
“So that was pretty…”
“Hot-headed?” Annie offered with a sad laugh. “I tend to do that, unfortunately.”
Max grinned, leaning ever-so-slightly into Annie’s personal space bubble, inhaling the scent of jasmine that seemed to hang in the air around her as their shoulders bumped. “I was going to say epic.”
Annie turned with a long, exasperated sigh. “It wasn’t. I was being immature and made a scene.”
“I’m sure you had your reasons.”
More quiet followed as they sat, Max not pushing, curious to see what Annie would offer her if given the space.
After another long moment, she said, “I know I’m basically a stranger, but I’m a pretty good listener if you want to talk about it.
I know a thing or two about breaking up with women.
” She looked directly at Annie, making sure she understood what she was trying to reveal to her.
“And if it helps, I already hate Caroline on principle because I’ve known you longer. ”
Annie laughed. Like really laughed—with that adorable snort and everything, just like she had that day at Mae’s Tavern. “Are you trying to get me to tell you my secrets?”
“Secrets, secrets are no fun unless they are for everyone,” Max sing-songed the old rhyme her mom used to tell her when she was a kid.
“But really, me being a totally removed third party makes me the best candidate for secret keeper. Who am I going to tell? You’ve met my one and only friend already. ”
Annie looked at her, puzzled. “You only have one friend?”
“Ehh, okay, maybe I have four, but who needs more than that?” Max shrugged.
Annie reached up, tucking her hair behind her ear in thought.
“Okay,” she breathed, as if convincing herself that she could do this, that she had the strength to share whatever was on her mind.
“Caroline is my ex-girlfriend.” She put an added emphasis on ex, like she was trying to make herself fully believe it.
“We were supposed to move in together at the end of the summer until I stopped by her house one afternoon and found her getting dicked down by some other bitch in what was supposed to be our bed.” Annie’s words were crass, dripping with the anger and hurt she so clearly felt.
“Oh Annie, I’m—”
“Please don’t say you’re sorry for me. I don’t want you to be sorry for me.
I mean, my happily ever after never included being cheated on, so I ended things.
And I thought moving home, moving back here”—she waved her hand absently in front of her face to indicate their general position in time and space—“I thought it would help me start to heal, but I’m beginning to think that might have been a mistake. ”
Max’s grip curled around the edge of the bench, inches from Annie’s, and she fought the urge to scoot her left hand over a little bit, wanting to feel if Annie’s skin was indeed as soft as she thought it would be and—fuck, get it together.
“What feels like a mistake?” she asked.