Picking Up the Pieces (34 page)

“That’s because you’ve never
been
a bigger dick. Now go get your girl.” Amanda looked away from him, effectively dismissing him.

As Kyle strode off, I stared at Amanda in amazement.
Kyle had just jeopardized her marriage, and she still cared enough about him to want him to go after Kate. Underneath that scathingly sarcastic, brazen shell was a real softy.

Amanda looked over at me, sadness written all over her face. “W
ell, we’re off to a great start.”

I glanced around the nearly empty table at Steph, Danielle, and Mary.
Fuck . . . Mary!
Max had left her behind? He was almost as big of a dick as Kyle.

Mary cou
ld evidently read my face because she explained. “I told Max to go. The guys won’t be able to get into the club without him.”

I smiled at her, though I knew it was grim.
But it was all I had, so I hoped she took it for what it was worth. She was obviously a good person, way better than me. That was for sure.

Mary started to stand.
“I’ll just go up to my room.”

“No way,” I interjected abruptly.
“This is Amanda’s bachelorette party, and it’s going to be a fucking awesome one if I have to hire every hot, male stripper in A.C. to feed you caviar with his man-meat. Now let’s eat something small, and then go get our freak on.”

The girls all cheered except Amanda.
She simply sat there looking at us: her three best girlfriends and one virtual stranger, who were determined to give her the night of her life. “I’m probably going to regret this, but I’m in.” Her voice lacked the conviction I was used to, but still, I could work with it.

“Atta girl.”
I leaned in and hugged her before turning to locate Melody. “Melody,” I yelled to our server, who was currently about twenty-five feet away waiting on another table, “we’re going to need some pasta and a
lot
of alcohol.”

“I’m on it,” Melody called back.

I nodded firmly. “Now that everyone’s on board, let’s get this ho train moving.”

***

Two hours later, I was sitting beside a very drunk Amanda in a back booth at Swanky. We’d lost track of the other girls on the dance floor at some point. As soon as I saw the waterworks coming, I knew to get Amanda somewhere secluded. The only thing she hated more than crying was crying in front of people.

“He’s going to call it off, isn’t he, Lil?”

“No, Shane would never do that. He’s crazy about you.”

“But I lied to him.
He’ll never forgive me.”

“You didn’t lie to him.
You just didn’t tell him. They’re very different things.” I instantly recognized my logic. I’d used it on myself quite a few times. The aftertaste of the words was bitter as I remembered how untrue this advice actually was. A lie of omission was still a lie. But saying that to a completely obliterated Amanda wasn’t going to help her situation.

“No, I should’ve told him.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been upfront about it. But it looks fucked up that I didn’t, like we were trying to be sneaky about it.”

“You weren’t being sneaky.
You just didn’t want to dredge up awkward shit that had no bearing on your relationship. Shane will understand once the shock wears off. He’s a great guy.”

“He is, Lily.
He really is. And he fought so hard for me. All I did for so long was push him away and make him feel like he wasn’t good enough for me, when really it was the other way around.
He’s
the one who’s too good. I don’t deserve him. But the kicker is, he wants me anyway. After everything I’ve done to him—how bad I made him feel—he still wants me.” Her head dropped. “Now he’ll see. I’m not worth all of this bullshit. He could do so much better.”

My heart twisted at her words.
And as I tried to soothe her, I couldn’t stop my mind from internalizing what she’d said. Maybe that’s why seeing Mary with Max was so hard for me. He finally realized he could do better than me. And even though I had Adam—had declared that
he
was
my
version of doing better—the sinking feeling in my stomach left me hollow. I'd never even realized how much I liked the idea of Max fighting for me until now—when I realized he’d stopped.

Chapter 36: Max

I’d felt like a prick for leaving Mary with the girls after
Kyle’s epic fuck-up. She’d been all for a little girl-bonding when I’d mentioned the weekend to her, but I was pretty sure riding through a category four emotional meltdown was not what she’d envisioned. But still, when Shane had announced he was ready to leave, she’d leaned over to me and told me to go, knowing that it was my name on the VIP list.

             
So I’d whispered for her to call me if she needed me, given her a soft kiss on the cheek, and trailed after the boys. And as I’d cast one look over my shoulder back at the table before we exited the restaurant, I’d thought about what a great girl she was. And I wondered what the hell she was doing with
me
.

             
I’d arranged for a limo to take us where we wanted to go, mostly because I didn’t know how these guys partied and I didn’t want to get stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be. As we approached and I explained that the limo was for us, some of the excitement for the night stirred.
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

             
“Are there strippers inside? Tell me there are strippers,” Ben pleaded.

             
“Sorry to disappoint ya, buddy.” I grinned as I would at a four-year-old, clapping him on the shoulder for added support.
This guy was a fucking frat boy reject.

             
I wasn’t quite sure how Ben and Shane had emerged from the same parents. Granted, they looked similar, but that’s where the commonalities ended. Ben made
me
look mature. And that was really fucking saying something.

             
The rest of the guys murmured their gratitude as they climbed inside. Shane was the last one to the car, and he stuck his hand out as he reached me.

             
“Thanks, man. For everything. This is all . . .” he gestured to the limo, “incredible. And I’m sorry the night started out so awkwardly. You think your girl’s gonna be okay with them?” He threw his head back toward the hotel, even though his meaning was clear without the gesture.

             
“Yeah, she’ll be fine. Mary’s impossible not to like, and Lily’ll watch out for her.”

             
“Lily? The same Lily who was staring daggers at you about ten minutes ago?” Shane looked skeptical.

             
“Yeah, that’s the one.”

             
“I don’t know, dude. She didn’t seem in the friendliest mood.”

             
“Lily’s only capable of being genuinely rude to me.” I laughed, as though I were joking. We both knew I wasn’t. “I know that girl better than I know anyone else in the world. She’ll pull through for me.”

             
Shane raised his eyebrows at me. “If you say so,” he shrugged and joined his friends in the limo.

             
And as I lifted one leg into the car, I took another second to look back at the hotel. It surprised me that Shane doubted that Lily would include Mary in their evening. I briefly wondered if maybe I was wrong. But as I sat in the limousine and shut the door, I knew I wasn’t.

***

The Last Out was new to Atlantic City, though its New York City counterpart had been open for five years. It had been founded by a few former Major League Baseball players and catered to a wealthier crowd. It was a nice diversion from the throng of twenty-somethings thrashing around to techno music that most of the other clubs attracted. This one, while definitely a nightclub that encouraged drinking and dancing, did so in a way that made you feel like you didn’t have to keep touching your back pocket to make sure your wallet hadn’t been stolen.

             
We’d been there for about two and a half hours, and the throbbing of the bass was starting to make my head pulse with it. The three Gospel writers, as Lily had called them, were much wilder than their namesakes. And teamed up with Ben, they were like kids strung out on Pop Rocks trying to attract girls by being as vulgar as possible.

             
“You wanna place a bet on which one gets slapped first?” Shane twisted his head toward me so that I could hear him over the music.

             
“They’re your friends. You have me at a disadvantage on that one.”

             
“Sometimes I have a hard time believing that I used to be out there with them.”

             
I raised my eyebrows at him, which caused him to bark out a laugh.

             
“Okay, well maybe I was never quite on the level they’re currently operating on, but I was still in the general vicinity.”

             
I smiled as I toyed with the beer bottle in my hands.

             
“I just . . . I dunno, man. One day I looked at Amanda and everything changed for me. I didn’t want to be
that
guy anymore.” Shane gestured toward his friends.

             
“You didn’t want to be a skank magnet anymore?” I smirked.

             
“Exactly,” he grinned, the first full smile I’d seen on him since we’d left the hotel.

             
“I get that, man. Wanting to change for a girl. Wanting to be better. I had a similar conversion not too long ago.”

             
“Oh, I bet ya did. Mary seems like the kind of woman who would make any guy wanna get his shit together.”

             
I huffed out a small laugh before responding seriously. “Yeah, Mary.” I took a drink of my beer. “Straightened me right out.” I didn’t bother to correct him. To tell him that Mary hadn’t caused my conversion. That there was only one woman who held that kind of power in my life.              “I can’t say Amanda straightened me out, but she caused me to . . . I dunno, want to be a better person, I guess. God, I had to fight so hard for her to give me the fucking time of day. Every time I felt like I’d made some progress with her, she’d shut me out. And just when I thought I didn’t have an ounce of fight left in me—that I was
better off just letting her go and moving on—I decided to give it one last shot.” As he looked over at me, his face lit up like the strip of casinos outside. “And she shut me out again.” He started laughing at the memory like it was one of his childhood favorites.

             
I was about to ask him how much he’d had to drink because there was no way getting rejected should ever be remembered quite this fondly. But before I got the words out, he returned his focus to me, his face growing serious.

             
“I got to lay it all out though. That last time, I told her exactly what I wanted, what I knew we could be together. She was honking her horn like a lunatic outside of my gym less than twenty four hours later.” He smiled again at the memory, but it was softer this time. More emotional. “I almost didn’t go to her that night. Thought of a million and a half reasons why I should just leave her be. But then I finally thought of a reason to go. And that was the only reason that mattered.”

I looked at him expectantly, needing him to finish
the story he’d started.

“I loved her.
And that was more than enough reason for me to risk my pride, my sanity, everything. There’s no happiness for me without her. Because she’s the only thing that makes me truly happy.” He sat there for a moment, contemplative. Finally, he pulled out his phone and started texting wildly.

I didn’t need to ask who he was writing to.
After a few minutes, he stood. “Hey, umm, this is going to be a total dick move, but I gotta go.”

I shook my head and slapped him on the shoulder.
“I get it, man. Go get your girl.”

“Thanks, Max.
Tell the guys I’ll catch up with all of you tomorrow.”

I nodded.
He made it three feet from me before I called out to him. “Shane!”

He turned and looked at me, his entire stature lighter than it had been in hours.

“The love? It got you past all the bullshit? Made enduring all of that . . . worth it?”

His grin widened.
“For the right one, it’ll always be worth it.”

I slunk back into my seat and nodded at him.
Watching him race out of the club, on his way to the one person, the only person, who could make him happy, I wondered:
what the hell do I do now?

***

I had been up for over an hour, just staring at her. She had already been in bed asleep when I got back to the room, and she had barely moved a muscle all night. She was gorgeous, even rumpled from a long night and a deep sleep. I knew that Mary would do everything in her power to make me happy. That together we’d try to carve out a life that we could be proud of.

We hadn’t been dating long, but I saw her and our future with an acuity that was unparalleled
—definitely different from the murky image I had when I tried to envision a future with Lily. Mary was all white picket fence and flower gardens. She was comfort and stability. She was willing to build a life with me.

But as I got out of bed and pulled some clothes out of my suitcase, I knew that, no matter how long I sat and stared at her and pictured our future together, it would never be the future I’d want.

***

I caught Lily coming out of the girls’ hotel room twenty minutes later. It had been difficult to pass off the meeting as a coincidence, but she seemed to buy it. And when she said she was going down to get breakfast, I quickly said that that had been my destination as well and invited myself along.

We were silent as we walked down the hallway toward the elevator.
Lily pushed the down button and we waited . . . in more silence. Finally, the doors opened and we climbed aboard, each settling against opposing walls.

We hadn’t descended much when Lily cleared her throat.
“Mary said she’d heard a lot about me. What exactly did she hear?”

I inwardly smiled at her question.
So she
does
care
what I have to say about her.
But this really wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have. “She was just being nice,” I replied with a wink.

“Whatever,” Lily huffed and threw
some of her hair behind her shoulder.

She’s such a damn child sometimes.
“Do you talk to Adam about me?” I knew the answer to this, but I wanted to prove my point. Why should I stroke her ego when she pushed me to the deepest recesses of her mind on a daily basis?

“I don’t need to talk about you.
Adam already knows you.”

I lifted off the wall and took a large step toward her before I had even processed the movement.
“He doesn’t know the first
thing
about me.” My voice was tight, trying to mask the anger that simmered beneath it.

We stared
at each other for what seemed an interminable amount of time. Then the doors slid open and Lily bolted off the elevator. “I’m gonna go for a walk instead.”

I watched her rush away from me
before my brain remembered its mission.
Pride doesn’t have a place here, Max. This is your last shot.
I caught her around the arm just before she reached the sliding doors that led onto the boardwalk. “I told her you helped me. That you were a great friend when I needed one the most. But that our friendship was just . . .” I let out a sigh, “too difficult to maintain.”

She looked at me for a moment before she changed course and began walking toward the hotel restaurants.
I fell into step beside her.

“She seems great.
Fun and smart. Perfect for you.”

I looked over at her to see her peering up at me shyly.
“Yeah, she’s really amazing.” We made our way to the hotel’s buffet and were shown a table. After placing our drink orders, we tackled the buffet separately.

I returned to the table to find Lily already there, a bowl of fruit and a bowl of cereal spread out in front of her.

“That’s all you’re eating?”

“It was kind of a rough night.
I don’t want to go too hard on my stomach.”

I nodded my understanding and started in on my plate that was overflowing with waffles, bacon, and countless other breakfast favorites.

“Hungry, fella?” Lily asked sarcastically, though I could see the amusement in her eyes.

"Yeah, well,
I tried that horrendous Paleo diet Shane's always going on about. I've never been so hungry in my life. I'm still trying to reclaim all of the carbs I lost."

"How long were you on it?
" she asked as she lifted a spoonful of cereal to her mouth.

"About five hours," I replied casually.

Lily burst out laughing and the sound was like a punch to the gut. I hadn’t heard the sound in months, and I knew that, after today, I may never hear it again.

We ate and chatted about what we’d been up to.
I finally told her about my job and she gushed just as I knew she would.