Max moves closer to me. Setting a hand on my jean-covered knee, he looks into my
eyes. “You don’t have to be strong, Bella. It’s okay to cry.”
I don’t want to cry.
If I start, I’m not sure I’ll stop.
“I want to keep my emotions in check, so when I do speak to Barrett, I can give him an earful.”
Max leans back and clucks his tongue. “Oh, man. Hot Boss is in the direct line of the Calvetti wrath.”
I try to suppress a laugh, but a giggle bubbles out of me.
“You’ve got this, Bella.” He taps my knee. “You’ve lived through a lot worse.”
He’s not talking about my break-up with Emil. He’s talking about the accident when I was a kid.
We were friends back then. Max remembers his mom crying when my mom called her with the news that I was in the hospital.
“I lived through the dinner you just cooked me,” I joke. “So far. We’ll see what the next few hours bring.”
“That chicken did smell off, didn’t it?” He plays along with me.
He knows full well that the dinner he prepared was delicious. I went straight home after work to shower the day away. I stood in the water until it ran cold. As I was toweling off, Max called to ask me to come to his place to help organize more of his family pictures. The lure was a dinner of maple glazed chicken and roasted sweet potatoes.
It was the first dish he ever cooked me when he moved into this apartment. I brought cheap wine that night. We got drunk and sang the songs we learned in grade school.
It was one of the best nights of my life.
“Why did I fall in love with him?” I ask in a voice too weary to be my own.
Once I’m home tonight in my bed, I’ll let emotion overcome me. I’ll cry myself to sleep wondering what could have been.
“Because he’s your person,” Max says matter-of-factly.
Confused, I glance at him. “If he were my person, he wouldn’t have left me.”
“Who says he left you?”
I take in his words, trying to make sense of them. “Ivan did. Barrett did without actually saying it to my face.”
Max shakes his head. “Ivan said he quit his job and cleared out the penthouse.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
“That means nothing for you other than the fact that you have another new boss to get used to.”
“It means he left Garent without telling me,” I point out, slightly annoyed that Max is taking Barrett’s side in this even though we have no clue what that is.
“You don’t know why he did that.” He leans back on his couch. “It may have everything to do with his dad or nothing to do with him.”
Tired of arguing the point, I bring up the man himself. “Barrett didn’t give me a warning, Max. He quit and moved without a word to me.”
“He did make some major moves without your input,” he acquiesces. “I think you need to consider the fact that he’s in love with you too and knows that you can’t take things to the next level if you’re both working at Garent.”
I huff out a laugh. “If he sacrificed the job he’s wanted for years for me, you would think he’d tell me that.”
“Love messes with a man’s brain.” He twirls a finger in front of his forehead. “Look at me.”