We spend the next hour dissecting my relationship with Max, finally concluding there was no way even Jules’ spiritual adviser, Jordan, could have seen this one coming.
“I have to admit, Max is the last person I thought would do this.” Liam kicks his feet up on the coffee table, revealing a sock with a hole in its toe. “You guys seemed way too predictable for something crazy like this to happen.”
I wave a spoonful of ice cream at him. “Is that your way of saying we’re boring?”
“Not boring.” He backtracks, keeping an eye on the clump of chocolate that threatens to fall from my spoon onto his jeans. “But you never seemed to have any problems.”
“And that’s a bad thing why?” I ask, but don’t wait for his answer and look over at Jules, who hides her eyes behind her cup. “I know you find your own dating situations humdrum if a day goes by without drama, but newsflash, Liam: in most relationships, it’s a good thing for the two people involved to get along.”
“No—I didn’t mean that. . . . Jules, help me out here. . . .”
She throws her arms in the air. “You’re on your own with this one, buddy.”
“What I’m trying to say is you guys seemed like you had already been married thirty years.” He laughs awkwardly, and Jules shakes her head at him. “Okay, I’m going to stop talking now,” he declares before taking a long swig from his flask.
The truth was, Max and I were a predictable couple. We had always gotten along well for the most part—our biggest fight had happened after I backed his new car into a pole and tried to get it fixed without telling him.
My past relationships would usually start out full throttle and fizzle out slowly, like a soda that had been accidentally left out on the counter. My boyfriend before Max had been so moody he once picked a fight over my restaurant choice (he’d wanted dim sum, not Japanese) and stormed out, leaving me with the check and a pit the size of a crater in my stomach. I’d told myself I was done bickering over petty things—I wanted someone who wasn’t constantly looking for an argument. And then Max had shown up, just when I’d mentally thrown in the towel, Jules squealing about some therapist on Oprah who said that’s always when you find the one, when you’re not looking. Our relationship built slowly and grew stronger with such ease I had initially questioned it, wondering if it was too good to be true, but Jules assured me I had paid my dues with the other assholes I had dated, that Max was my reward for being patient. And I had believed her, convincing myself that I had finally earned that happy ending that had eluded me thus far.
For months during that period when people’s guards are supposed to drop and their “bad” sides start to come out, everything with Max was still so easy—looking back, maybe too easy—that I’d been constantly waiting for the big reveal that Max was just another jerk masquerading as a nice guy. Not that I wanted a cantankerous man like the last one, but I had expected there to be some terse tones or maybe even an eye roll.
When I’d finally asked Max point-blank why he was so mellow, he’d assured me that was who he really was, that he wasn’t a closet misogynist like I’d jokingly speculated. He’d said that because he spent his days as an attorney, arguing over tiny details buried in lengthy contracts, if I wanted antibiotic-free milk or to watch a reality show instead of Monday Night Football, then so be it. That he didn’t want to waste time worrying about the little things. And the system had always worked for us. Or so I’d thought. Now I wonder, did the little things he was trying to ignore pile up so high that they ultimately toppled our relationship, causing it to crash like the falling pieces of a Jenga game?
“So, Max asked me to tell you something,” Jules says delicately, her lips turning down slightly as she notices the engagement ring still on my finger. I twist the diamond so it’s on the inside of my hand and turn away. I’d ceremoniously removed it in Maui, but kept it close—in a pocket or my purse—until this morning, when something had pushed me to put it back on before I’d left the house. I wasn’t sure if it was the fear of my naked ring finger being exposed to the world, or if it was denial or maybe a little bit of both. Hadn’t I noticed the barista at Starbucks eyeing it as if she knew it wasn’t supposed to be there?
“What does he want me to know?” I finally ask.
“I told him I’d pass it along, but if you’re not ready to hear it—”