Without another word, she turned and strutted for the door. I blinked a few times. “Well, that was…interesting.”
“Who’s Aaron?”
“Her almost ex-husband.”
Max’s brows shot up. “She’s booty calling his lawyer, not her own?”
“Yep.” I shook my head. “There’s an old saying—Never go to bed angry; stay awake and plot revenge. Maggie rewrote it as, Never go to bed angry; stay awake and have revenge sex.”
Max laughed. “I like her. She seems like a no-bullshit type of person.”
“She is.”
“Plus…” He reached across the table and weaved his fingers with mine. “She got you to come here.”
“That she did. Though I feel like I was duped. The only reason she pushed for us to come out was because she planned to duck out like she just did. I don’t know how I didn’t see that all along.”
“Thank you for coming to the game tonight.” He squeezed my fingers and looked down at my shirt. “I really like you in my jersey.”
My stomach did that fluttery thing it did every time we were alone. The man was just too damn sexy for his own good. Who the hell looked that good at eleven o’clock at night after playing multiple hours of intense sports? Why couldn’t he have some bruises and oozing things on his face to be at least somewhat hideous?
I stared down at our joined hands. “I liked wearing it. But…I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other. You seem like a really nice guy, but things between Gabriel and me… I just don’t know where they’ll end up.”
“But you’re fine going on Tinder for a hookup or meeting a guy you knew wasn’t someone you’d be into…”
“Those just seemed less complicated, for some reason.”
Max looked back and forth between my eyes. “What if I told you I was moving at the end of the summer?”
An unexpected pang of disappointment squeezed my heart. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “It’s not public yet. My contract here is up. My agent hasn’t worked out all the details, but as of this morning, it looks like I’ll be going to the Blades, out in California. I’ll have better postseason playoff potential with them.”
“Oh wow. So when would you go?”
“Training camp won’t start until the first week in September. But I’d probably want to be settled in by the beginning of August, at the latest.”
Max watched me intently as I absorbed what that meant. It was almost the end of April, so he’d only be around for a little over three months. I bit down on my bottom lip. “I don’t know…”
“Enjoy the summer with me. I’m not looking for anything serious, and I can tell we’ll have fun. But we’ll also have an expiration date, which will keep things less—as you said—complicated.”
It was a seriously tempting offer. I did want to date. At first it might’ve been only because Gabriel was seeing other people. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized maybe I needed some life perspective, too. A year ago I’d had my entire life planned out. Maybe I needed to stop planning and analyzing and just live a little, play things by ear? Though that sounded great, it also made my palms sweat.
“Can I…think about it?”
Max smiled. “Of course. That’s a hell of a lot better answer than no.”
After that, we stayed at the bar talking for a few hours. Then Max hailed a cab, and we both got in. My apartment was on the way up to his, so he told the driver to drop me first. When we reached my building, he pulled out his billfold and offered cash over the seat to the driver.
“Give me a few minutes so I can walk her up.”
The driver took a look at the bill and nodded. “No problem, boss.”
Max and I walked side by side to the door to my building.
“I’m on the road the next four days—games in Seattle then Philadelphia. My schedule kind of blows until the season ends. But that’s soon. And I’m having some people over next Saturday, if you’d be up for it. No pressure…but it is my birthday.”
“Really?”
Max nodded. “You can bring Maggie or someone, if you want. That way you won’t feel like it’s a date, if you haven’t decided on us yet.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
He opened my apartment building door and walked me to the elevator.
“Thank you for drinks and the ride home,” I told him.
After I pressed the up button, Max reached out and took my hand. He stared down at our joined hands for a long while before his eyes worked their way up. They stopped at my mouth, and he shook his head. “This is the second time I’m leaving you, and each time it gets harder not to kiss you goodbye.” His eyes met mine. The intensity radiating from them took my breath away. “I want to kiss you so fucking bad.”