The Date (Single Wide Female in Love #1) (13 page)

In the back of my mind, as if I was determined to be as foolish as possible, I still hoped that he was just running late—running late after I’d made it clear to him that this was his last chance.

I tapped my fingers lightly on the back of my phone. I thought about calling Max or texting him. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to know that it had happened again. He was just one more way for me to fool myself into believing that I deserved love. For all of his pretty words about how much he cared about me and how beautiful he thought I was, he would never return my desire for him. Wasn’t he about the same as Blue in that way?
 

I glanced at the time on my phone. Ten minutes late. My heart ached. Why had I done this to myself again? I thought about Spence. Maybe I’d missed my chance. Maybe I should have let him have his fun with me. At least I would have gotten a little something out of that.

Then there was Ben. Ben, who wanted a big family and a logical marriage.

I closed my eyes. I wished that the entire restaurant would disappear, that somehow I was stuck in the middle of a nightmare. Instead, when I opened my eyes I saw what I thought must be a hallucination.

Chapter 30

Max was there, standing a few feet away from my table. He stared at me from where he stood and didn’t take a step closer. A few people looked in his direction. A waitress walked toward him. That let me know that he was actually there. But he didn’t look away from me. How had he known? Had he been outside watching?
 

“Max.” I smiled at him despite the pain that was consuming me.
 

“Sammy.” He avoided the waitress and walked toward my table.

All at once, I was relieved of the embarrassment of being stood up. The rest of the people in the restaurant had no idea that Max was not there as my date. He was there as my best friend and he didn’t want me to be alone. He sat down in the chair across from me. He hadn’t smiled yet.

I figured he was angry that Blue had stood me up again.
 

“It’s what I expected.” I shrugged.
 

“It is?” His lashes spread, revealing his beautiful eyes.
 

“Sure. I mean, I hoped that he would show, but I didn’t really expect him to.” I looked down at my hands, which I noticed were shaking a little. I folded them up to hide the tremor.
 

“But he did.” Max spoke in such a quiet voice that I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly.
 

“What do you mean?” I looked toward the window. “Did you see him out there?”
 

“Sammy.” Max shifted in his chair. He leaned forward and reached for my hand.

I drew back away from him. I didn’t want him to know that I was trembling in an attempt to hold back the grief that was brewing in me.
 

“He saw me and changed his mind—is that it?” I bit into my bottom lip.
 

“No, that’s not it. Sammy, please.” He reached for my hand again.

This time when I tried to dodge it, he grabbed my hand anyway. He tightened his grip when I tugged back.

I stared into his eyes with confusion. “I’m okay, Max. It’s okay. It’s what I expected. We should just go.”
 

“No.” He refused to let go of my hand.

I felt the electricity bolt through me in response to his touch. It was rather sadistic. Between the pain I was feeling over Blue’s rejection and the desire that Max was forcing me to feel, I was sure that I would lose my mind right there in the middle of the restaurant.

“Sammy, I need to tell you something, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough.”
 

I froze. I remembered that exact statement from an e-mail that Blue had written. As my mind began to react to that, Max looked into my eyes.
 

“Max, you know you can tell me anything. What’s wrong?”
 

He licked his lips and looked down at the table. He seemed very troubled by what he wanted to confess.
 

“Max, I love you.” I squeezed his hand. “Remember?”
 

“Do you?” He looked up at me.

When our eyes met, the spark that jolted through me stole my breath.

He continued, “I’ve done something—something I don’t know that you’re going to be able to forgive me for.”
 

The waitress seemed to sense that we needed a moment. My mind raced with what Max could have done. I couldn’t begin to imagine something that I’d not be able to forgive Max for.
 

“Just tell me.” I searched his eyes. My heart lurched. “Does it have to do with our friendship?” My eyes burned with a mist of tears, because I’d always feared that one day something would happen that would take that from me.
 

“Yes.”

Max’s answer was so clear that it felt like a sword to my gut. He didn’t even hesitate. It made me think that he’d been waiting to tell me this for some time. Why would he pick this moment of all moments, when I’d already been stood up by Blue, to talk about this with me? I tried to pull my hand away again, but he held it just as tight. A swirl of fury, hurt, and grief threatened to make me scream.

“I can’t be friends with you any more, Sammy. I’ve tried. God, have I tried. I know that’s what you want, but I just can’t sit back and watch you dating these men. It makes me crazy and I—” His voice caught in his throat.

Chapter 31

In the cloud of all of my emotions, I could barely comprehend what he was saying. I could only stare at the tension in his expression. Maybe I understood perfectly. Maybe I was just too afraid to believe that it could be true.
 

“I thought that if you had the chance to get to know me—to see me as someone other than your buddy Max—I thought it might change how you feel. It seemed like every time I tried to get you to look at me in a different way, you would pull even further back. Blue could tell you the truth and you drew closer instead. But I let it get out of hand. I never meant to hurt you, Sammy. I’m so sorry that I did that. It broke my heart to see you with tears in your eyes. I was just so scared it would ruin everything if I told you the truth and I’d let things go on too long and I just didn’t know how to fix it.” He spoke so fast that I could barely keep up.
 

“Max, what are you saying?” I wondered for a moment if my mind had broken and I was hearing words that he wasn’t actually speaking. It was the only explanation that made sense to me. “I don’t understand.”

I was starting to, but I still held my breath. I wanted to believe that it was true, but how could everything that I’d hoped for, for so long, suddenly be happening?
 

He clenched his jaw. He closed his eyes. Then I watched those beautiful lips part.
 

“Blue didn’t stand you up tonight. He was just a little late. I’m right here.” He opened his eyes and looked into mine. “I’m Blue.”

My sight grew sharp. It was as if a veil had been lifted and I could see clearly for the first time. That swirl of Blue that I’d experienced in my meditation settled right into Max. I realized that how I felt about Blue was nearly identical to how I’d always felt about Max. Max, the true love that I never thought could be mine.
 

“Max.” I breathed his name as if I was saying it for the first time. My world felt as if it had been flipped upside down in the most magical way. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” I stared with disbelief across the table at him. “Didn’t you know that I would do anything to hear you say that you wanted more than friendship? You had to have known.”

I thought about all of the times that I’d come so close to kissing him, to telling him the truth about how I felt. All of those moments I’d let pass me by, because I was sure he could never feel that way about me.
 

“I did know.” Max settled his hands in his lap. “For a while I knew. I knew, but I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I wanted fun, not commitment. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted things to stay the same—until I was ready to change them. I was so selfish.”
 

I nodded a little, but I didn’t speak. I didn’t want him to stop talking.
 

“Then suddenly it seemed like you changed. Like you were done with me in that way. I thought I’d missed my chance. I dropped hints, but you kept ignoring them or pushing me away. It was like I couldn’t get you to see me as anything other than your friend any more. When I saw that you started a blog, I thought it might be my chance to communicate with you, to let you see who I really am. Not just this shallow womanizer, like you seemed to think, but that there was more to me.” He shook his head. “It was only supposed to be for a little while, then I was going to tell you the truth. But the more I got to hear your thoughts, the more I shared mine with you and the more afraid I became that I would lose that connection with you if I told you the truth.”

“How did I not know?” I stared at him with no expectation of an answer. I knew there wasn’t one.
 

Max held my gaze. “I was careful.”
 

“But why? Once you knew how I felt, why didn’t you just tell me?”
 

“Because I was in too deep by then. I was afraid if I told you the truth you would never trust me again. I know how important that is to you.”
 

“You know that, but you still did all of this.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I couldn’t get anything to make sense. Amid all of my confusion, was pure bliss. Could it really be true?
 

“I just wanted you to know me—to know who I really am.
 

“Sammy, say something.” I opened my eyes and looked at him intently. “Anything.”
 

I parted my lips, but I couldn’t form any words. My brain was still trying to catch up with my emotions.
 

“Sammy, I love you. I’m in love with you.” He held my gaze as he spoke. “Tell me I’m not too late.”
 

A ripple of pure euphoria carried through me. I still felt like I was in a dream—or worse, a psychotic break of some kind. I didn’t really think any of it could be real.

Then all at once it struck me that it was real.
 

“Maybe I should go. Give you time to think.”
 

He stood up from the table.
 

“No. Max, wait.” I stood up and took his hand in mine. “Max, is this a dream?”

I almost didn’t want him to answer. I didn’t want there to even be a chance that this was all some cruel trick of my subconscious.
 

“It’s real. I can prove it.” He curled his fingers around my hand and pulled me close.

I could see him leaning close. I could feel the warmth of his lips as they neared mine. But I didn’t believe it until I felt the tentative kiss. My heart leaped. My body quivered with the power of the electricity between us. He drew back some and looked into my eyes, as if waiting for my approval. I stared back at him, still too stunned to notice that we had the attention of everyone in the restaurant.
 

“Sammy?” Max squeezed my hand. “Is it too late? I’ll understand if it is. I won’t like it, but I’ll understand.”
 

I almost laughed at the absurdity of his words. How could it ever be too late for Max? I was about to tell him just that, when I felt a deep urge to do something that I hadn’t thought I’d ever do.

Chapter 32

I couldn’t resist it. I didn’t want to put it off any longer.
 

“Wait. Wait, there’s something I have to do!” I tugged my hand free of Max’s and reached into my purse. He looked at me with tightened lips and narrowed eyes. It seemed as if he was bracing himself for my rejection.
 

“Just one moment,” I mumbled and continued to dig until I felt the well-worn paper against my fingertips. It was so familiar to me that I didn’t even have to see it to know that it was the right piece of paper.

Max watched as I pulled out my bucket list. He smiled as he recognized the paper with all of the different-colored ink, the doodles, and the marked-off items. One very important one, surrounded by kissy lips and tiny hearts, was waiting to be marked off. I fumbled in my purse for a pen. In order to get to it I managed to toss everything from lip gloss to receipts all over the floor. At any second I expected the hostess to walk over with a grim frown. Finally, I found the pen at the very bottom and I drew a careful line through the most important item on my list—Kiss Max.
 

“I can cross this off!” I grinned.
 

Max laughed as he watched me attack the paper with the pen. “It was an honor to be on the list.”
 

I didn’t mention that he’d always been on the list. I thought I’d fill him in on that later. I remembered adding the item again, and thinking that it was just a fool’s dream.

Now it was my reality. It was done. It was my greatest accomplishment. Even as I marked it off, I still had a hard time believing it. I tucked the list back into my now empty purse and looked back at Max.

“It’s not too late.” I took his hand again. “It’s exactly the right time.”

I looked into his eyes. I saw our future unfolding. I didn’t see a certain place or a certain timeline. Instead, I saw his hand remaining in mine.

A smattering of applause alerted me to the fact that several diners had been listening in. Normally I would have been mortified to have so much attention focused on me. But with Max’s eyes locked to mine, I didn’t even notice.

“I love you, Sammy.”
 

“I love you too, Max.”
 

We’d said those words to one another so many times, but this was the first time that we were honest about what they really meant.

Every single thought I’d ever had about kissing Max flooded my mind. I didn’t wait for him to kiss me again. Instead, my body filled with sparks as my lips approached his.

I expected him to pull away, I expected the restaurant to explode, I expected the ceiling to cave in on top of us. What I didn’t expect was the tantalizing silk of his lips welcoming mine. Even in my wildest dreams, kissing Max had seemed impossible. But there in the restaurant where I’d been close to shedding tears over Blue’s absence, I found my true love—my one and only love that had been by my side through thick and thin. My true love who was also my best friend.