18. Liam

18

LIAM

“ L isten, man,” Max says to me after we close on Monday night. I’m sitting in my office staring at my blank computer screen like it has the answer to all my troubles. It doesn’t.

He shuts the door behind him and approaches my desk, his hulking form dwarfing the entire room. “I don’t really know what’s going on but hiding in your office twenty-four-seven is not going to make it better.”

I collapse against the back of my chair and close my eyes. They feel dry and heavy from staring at the screen, from lack of sleep, from the guilt of kissing Marley and then disappearing like a toddler that stole a cookie. I can’t even decide which is worse.

I can hear Max settle into one of the chairs across from me. “Gus and Elliot both went home. It’s just you and me, so talk.”

With a heavy sigh, I open my eyes and shrug. “I kissed Marley.”

Max’s gaze doesn’t waver, and he just watches my every expression like a hawk—which is new. The old Max could only process his own emotions and I’m not sure I like being called on the carpet. “What’s the problem?” He asks after I don’t expound. “Was it a bad kiss? Was she not interested?”

“No,” I answer a little too quickly. “It was good,” I breathe, spearing a hand through my hair, trying to settle my spinning thoughts into a coherent explanation. “A little too good. And I think she thought so too. But…”

Max waits patiently, his meaty hands resting calmly in his lap. I wonder briefly at how quickly we changed places—how I was the calm serene one and he was the emotional hurricane and now it’s me with the thunder and lightning.

“And I don’t know,” I bluster, feeling angry at everything for no reason. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“What isn’t?”

“Going further, getting to know her more, trying a relationship, because it’s just going to end like all the rest.”

Max narrows his eyes. “And how did those end? You haven’t been particularly forthcoming with your relationship info.”

“Badly,” I mutter, sinking my elbows onto my desk and resting my face in my palms. I speak from that position. “Terribly. It’s like my idiosyncrasies are kind of fun and cute at first and then when they see the real me…”

Max waits for a moment to let me talk before following up. “What do you mean by the real you?”

I drop my hands on the desk. “Oh I don’t know, anal retentive, rigid, obsessive-compulsive, cold.”

“Cold?”

I cringe when Max picks up on the one word I should have kept to myself. “You clean a lot. Yes, you might be a little too obsessed with order, but you’ve never been cold.”

I don’t know how to tell him that the minute I start caring about someone, I freeze up. The thought of the absolute desolation and destruction on our father’s face when we lost our mom to cancer is something I can’t shake. I never told my brother, but when we got home from the hospital that night, I caught my dad destroying every inch of his office, weeping out of control. I held him for hours as he shuddered and shook and broke right there in front of me.

He was never the same after that I know I won’t survive it if it happened to me. I’m not half the man my father was.

“I don’t know,” I lie, even though I know I should probably talk it out. But it seems so silly to say it as if verbalizing it makes it smaller. “That’s what they all said.”

Max studies me and I can tell that he knows I’m not giving him the entire story. After a moment of careful thought—another thing that surprises me about the new Max—he leans forward. “I don’t know what happened in the past, but I do know that it doesn’t matter when it comes to Marley. If she’s the right woman, she’ll erase all of that. She’ll see past all that bullshit. I mean, it’s not magic—you still have to put work in, but what I’m trying to tell you is that the right person helps you past the shit and raises you above it. But you have to trust them in the process. And give yourself a chance.”

I consider his advice for a moment, letting myself imagine what it might be like to have Marley by my side like Max has Gus. I feel a lift in my chest, a thin breath of hope in my heart until I consider what it might do to me if I lost her.

Or if she didn’t turn out to be the one that could accept me as I am. How would I move on from that when just the thought of it feels like a donkey kick to the gut?

“And hey,” Max continues after a moment, “I feel like if Gus were here, she’d add that you need to consider Marley’s needs too. This isn’t just about you and what you want. She gets to decide if you’re worth her time. Not you.”

I swallow the baseball-sized lump in my throat and nod even though I’m not sure the message sunk in like it was supposed to.

“Anyway, go home. You need some sleep, you look like dog shit.”

I manage a dry laugh. “Thanks, appreciate that.”

He pushes out of the chair, “Can’t let you think I’ve matured all the way, can I?”

I nod.

“Now get up. Gus told me I can’t go home until you do, and I will carry you over there if I have to.”

Knowing he means what he says, I shake my head. “All right. I’m going.” I flip my laptop closed and stand for the first time in hours. I feel one hundred years old.

Max taps his watch. “Get a move on.”

I do as he says.