Worth the Fall (20 page)

He set all his ingredients out in a straight row, organized and in some Max pre-approved order, and began chopping peppers. It gave me a moment to study him, and I finally noticed through the haze of receding pain that he’d changed and his hair was damp.

“Did you shower?”

“Yup.”

“That fast?”

“Yup.”

“Shut up, Max. You’re talking my ear off.”

He grinned.
 

I ignore the dimple.
 

“I figured I’d start to stink eventually if I didn’t. I did nine miles before carrying a sack of potatoes up three flights of stairs.”

“Nine miles? What’s with you people?” Maybe it was a cop thing with him. “Is it for your job?”

He shook his head and turned around to start the stove.
 

“I do feel more confident in my job if I’m fit, but I just like taking care of my body.”

Without my permission my eyes took in that very fit body, drifting down his shoulders to his butt.

“Is there something on my ass?”

Um, jeans? Very perfectly fitting jeans.

“I thought so.” I cleared my throat, hoping I’d stop squeaking. “But maybe it was just the light.”

Max looked up at the recess lighting, that darn dimple snuck out. “Yeah, crazy light in here.”

 
“So, nine miles. That’s not something you do every day, is it?”

“Nope. Just when I have a day off. I only do two miles each morning when I get up for work.”

“That’s a sickness.”

He laughed outright and it took me by surprise, the gut deep, rough sound of it.

“Yeah. I tried to get help. No one seemed to be able to break me of my don’t get fat, stay healthy addiction. Real shame.”

Well, when he put it like that I began to wonder what he and Hailey thought of me and my inability to do one day at the gym.

“Shawn was horrible.”

“Shawn?”

“The trainer guy.”

“Oh.” He turned back and started dicing chicken. “He was a jerk?”

“Um, no. He was just…” With my luck, Shawn was Max’s trainer too.
 

“Tough?”

“He made me run on a treadmill.”

“Did you tell him you weren’t a runner?”

“Um, so yeah. He told me to walk. But there were all these buttons.” I waved a hand dismissively, as if the buttons couldn’t be explained in the normal world.

“So, you just kept pressing buttons.”

“Well, I mean, it’s
walking.
I walk every day.”

“Today being the exception.”

“I walked today.”

“Okay, today being the exception of you walking well.” He winked at me and I tried to be annoyed with him, but it was slightly absurd. “So, you ran on a treadmill and that’s why you’re so sore?”

“Isn’t that what people in your field call a leading question?”

“Just answer the question, Tuesday.”

“Okay, so it wasn’t just the running. Those things are deadly.”

Max set the knife down and leaned toward me. “Please don’t try to tell me that this somehow has to do with your black eye.”

This conversation wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. Shocker.

“It
threw
me against its dashboard thing and then spit me out against the wall. Those walls are hard.”

“Cinderblocks usually are.”

“And then there were squats. With weights. And crunches. And these things on this ginmorous ball that I couldn’t stay on. And more weights. It felt like I was there for
hours.”

I saw the darn dimple come out as he turned his back to me and asked, “How long were you there?”

“I guess about forty-five minutes.”

“How much of that was on the attack treadmill.”

“Too much.”

“Mmm-hm.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I suspected it was his way of not having to say anything to avoid laughing at me. Which, was probably fairly nice considering.

Max started doing something in one of my pans that smelled like heaven and I gave up caring what he thought about my workout inabilities and more about what he was going to feed me and why nothing I cooked in that pan ever smelled as good.

Figures he cooked.

“Do you have wine glasses?”
 

Because the old cabinets were old, small built-ins, they weren’t tall enough for wine glasses, so I’d put those in the little space underneath my TV where other people probably stored movies and games. Ah, city living. After making my way across the room far more easily than earlier, I still had no interest in squatting down to get the glasses. Bending at the waist seemed like a far better option. I pulled out two glasses and made my way back to the stool where I probably should have asked for a cooking demonstration as he’d worked.
 

Max stood there, just shaking his head at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“You just look…comfortable.”

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Of course I looked comfortable. I was aiming for a night in on my couch. Just because Mr. I’m In Control had added himself to the agenda didn’t mean I was going to dress up.

After a moment, he added, “Yoga pants.”

“What? Do you have a thing for yoga pants?”

“Tuesday, all men have a thing for yoga pants. Especially when they fit like those.”

With that, he turned back to the stove and started dishing out things into serving bowls while I pondered the show I’d just given him in my yoga pants and little t-shirt.
 

Not that it mattered.
 

He set a plate of stir fry and couscous in front of me and poured each of us a glass of wine before coming around and joining me at the counter.

“I hope you like it.”

“It smells great. I’m sure I will.” And then I bit into heaven.
 

This was just not fair.
 

“So, tell me something.” I scooped more food into my mouth, not wanting to wait even knowing there were seconds waiting for me. “Tell me something you’re really bad at.”

“What?”

“Something you’re bad at.”

He set down his fork and turned his body to face me being all inscrutable again.
 

“Why?”

“Everything you do you seem to be good at. Are you good at everything or do you just not do things you’re bad at?”

Max shifted back around and rested an elbow on the counter, looking off through my wall to who knows where and downed half a glass of wine.

“Apparently, I was horrible at being a boyfriend.”

Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.
 

“What makes you say that?”

“Probably that my girlfriend slept with one of my coworkers.”

I froze, the fork halfway to my mouth, at a loss of what to say. Sure, Jason had turned out to be a jackass, but I was pretty sure that while I dated him, he was one-hundred percent my jackass. Lucky me.

“Um…”

“Yeah. Pretty much the normal response.”

He went back at his food with a new focus, but I couldn’t let it go. He obviously hadn’t. That bothered me more than I could say. That this guy I was pretty sure was a pain in the butt, but a completely honorable one, would feel bad about the actions of someone else.

“Were you mean to her?”

“What? No.” He slammed the fork back down. “Of course not.”
 

 
“You didn’t cheat on her, I assume.”

He didn’t even bother to reply to that. Just gave me a look that answered that question and what he thought of it.

“Did you break promises?”

“Sometimes I was late because of work, but I always texted to let her know.”

“Did you flirt with other women?”

He looked appalled, as if men didn’t come on to women who weren’t their girlfriends all the time.
 

“Why would I commit to someone if I wanted to be with other women?”

“If you could answer that question, we could solve half of the first world problems.”

He pushed his food around his plate, slouching a bit in his chair which worried me more than the scowling. “She said we never talked and I didn’t listen to her.”

I sat there, trying to piece together this mystery that was Max. Obviously he wasn’t a man who spoke a lot, but he did seem to listen, even if he barreled through and did what he wanted to anyway.

“Yeah, see. I can see that. You’re agreeing with her.” He shifted back around and picked up the bottle of wine, refilling his glass a bit more than the one before it.

“I’m not
agreeing
with her. But you do have a habit of just doing what you think is right whether people want you to or not.”

“Oh, really? And you know this after only a week?” He crossed his arms and added, “Give me one example.”

I raised an eyebrow at him and he mirrored it back, waiting for me to come up with
just
one example.

I pointed at my meal.

“Dinner? I made you dinner and that’s your example of not listening to you?”

“You didn’t say,
Hey. Kasey. I know you’re in pain, how would you like me to throw together a little something?
You just started cooking in my kitchen even after I told you all I wanted was a bath and a movie.”

“But you’re getting a bath and a movie.”

“On your terms.”

“Sometimes people need to be taken care of.”

The muscle at his jaw ticked and the fingers on my wine glass tightened.

“Yes,” I answered, not sure of what else to say.

“And, sometimes it’s nice to just do things for people. Especially if you’re dating her.”

“That’s true.”

“And you would assume that if two people were dating, making a meal one night when one person wasn’t feeling well would be a good thing.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that, except…

“We’re not dating.”

“I didn’t say we were.” He flashed me a grin, more cocky looking than before. “Are you hinting at something, Tuesday?”

Incorrigible. That’s really all I could say about him.

“Nope.”

“I’m just saying that,” he went on innocently enough, “I need to be able to take care of people I care about. If she had a problem with it, she could have told me instead of inviting my friend over and greeting him at the door in her bra and underwear.”

That was…Who does that? Who purposefully sets out to hurt someone that badly just because he was a little too much with the being-in-charge thing?
 

“I can’t argue with that.” Because, what sane person could?

“Thank you.”

That was probably the best place to leave this conversation. I let Max put the dishes in the sink but told him he couldn’t wash them. I could see the hesitation on his face, but he nodded and left them there. It was probably going to kill him before the night was over. But, in light of our earlier conversation, I was really impressed he allowed me to leave my own dirty dishes in my sink.

I wandered over to the small living room set Ben had left in my care and curled up in the corner. Max continued to make himself at home putting the movie in and walking around adjusting lights. It was hard to fault him when I was filled with great food and exactly where I wanted to be.

I expected him to take the chair in the corner. Instead he plopped down on the other end, grabbing the remote and hitting play as if we did this every weekend.

The movie flickered on and I got sucked into the world of good and evil and what would my super power be.
 

I was pretty sure Max really would be a super hero if they existed. Him and his keeping people safe, always being there thing.

I tried to stretch my legs out without kicking him, but failed miserably when my heel took him in the side.

“Kasey, just stretch out.”

I felt odd putting my legs across him and looked at his lap as if it might be radioactive. Instead, I shifted to try to put them on the coffee table at his end.

“Unless…” He glanced at the blanket I was tucked under, lifting the edge and pretended to peer under. “Is it because your feet are naked? If it makes you feel more comfortable, I could get my feet naked too.”

My gaze drifted over to where Max’s sock covered feet were propped up on the table. He probably had really strong, not hairy, perfectly shaped feet. The kind of feet you see on the movie posters walking down the beach next to a set of dainty lady feet.

There was seriously something wrong with me.
 

“No. No, need to get your feet naked.” I cleared my throat. “I just, you know, feel like it’s weird to be using you as a footrest.”