“That must have really hurt. To have someone betray you like that,” I say, wondering if she hears the irony in my words.
“Not really—I hadn’t known him very long. He did me a favor actually—I’m done going out with guys I meet at the gym or at a bar or”—she wrinkles her nose—“on Match.com. They’re all the same. I’ve decided that I’m just going to focus on work. Don’t they say the right guy comes along when you least expect it?” She giggles.
I swallow the words at the base of my throat—the ones I wish I could scream at her—at them.
Max is not the right guy for you. He’s the right guy for me.
But before I can so much as shake my head, she leans in and asks Max about an acquisition his device company has been feverishly working on. I suddenly feel like a third wheel as I listen to him tell her about the stent they are attempting to license from a small German company. Courtney nods her head vigorously as Max explains that this small mesh device, used to treat narrowed arteries, has the potential to revolutionize angioplasties and shows great promise in its phase 3 trials.
“This could be huge for us,” he says, before taking another drink. “Send the stock prices through the roof!”
Last time we’d all met for happy hour, I vaguely remember the details, having tuned out around the time he walked us through the step-by-step process of how arterial plaque forms in the artery, instead turning my attention to my Instagram account. But this time I forced my eyes open with interest, ignoring the buzzing of my cell phone, trying to keep pace with Courtney, who to my dismay looked genuinely interested.
It wasn’t that I didn’t find Max’s work compelling, I did. His analytical mind is one of the things that had drawn me to him from the beginning. But there was only so much clinical information I could handle, Max often joking that he knew I was far more interested in discussing whether the basketball players should’ve U-turned the divorcées on The Amazing Race. Had I made him feel like his work wasn’t important? That his stories were no longer interesting? Was that where I’d gone wrong?
The rest of the night feels like a boxing match, Courtney and me in the ring, each trying to win a round of “who can hold Max’s attention longer?” And if there had been a referee, I think he would’ve called it for Courtney. By the time we get the check two hours later, I’m so exhausted that it feels like I’ve run up and down all 170 steps of the Santa Monica Stairs a dozen times. I fall into bed the second we get home, the three mojitos I consumed sending me into a quick, but restless sleep.
I wake up a few hours later, one question still nagging at me. Were they already in love? I couldn’t tell if I was imagining things at dinner based on what I knew, or if the subtle nuances I’d noticed were real. I eye Max’s cell phone resting on the edge of the dresser next to his wallet and car keys. I could check it—just to find out if they’d been texting or emailing about more than Hootie and the Blowfish’s latest album.
Sliding out of bed, I tiptoe over and grab the phone, freezing when Max turns over on his side. Finally, when I’m sure he’s still asleep, I shut the bathroom door silently behind me, shaking.
I warily slide his phone across the countertop. Before this all happened, I’d never so much as glanced at one line of an email that he’d left open on his computer, and now I was about to look through his phone. This wasn’t me. But considering what I now knew, talking myself out of it was harder than convincing myself not to rip the plastic off that second row of Thin Mints. Just as I’m about to give in to temptation, a woman Liam dated briefly last year comes to mind—one with serious jealously issues who constantly accused him of seeing other women behind her back. (He had been, but in his defense, he’d never told her they were exclusive.) Whenever he talked about her, he’d make the sounds from the shower scene in Psycho. When I’d prodded him about why he stayed with her, he’d claimed the sex was great, but that he was also glad he didn’t own any bunnies for her to boil.
The relationship had come to a crashing halt when she’d gotten ahold of his phone. Although he’d been diligent about deleting everything, even texts between Jules and me, she’d used the search feature to access texts from the trash. Liam had told us the story over drinks one night, describing how she accused him of having threesomes with us—something we had all found both horribly disgusting and incredibly hilarious.
I sigh and lean back against the bathroom door. I should just put the phone back where I found it and figure this thing out the old-school way—by using my instincts instead of going all Fatal Attraction on him. But I only knew how this story ended—I didn’t know which chapter we were on. Before I can change my mind, I pull down the search box and type in Courtney’s name. The only text exchange I find is from after we’d left the restaurant.
Courtney
You okay? You seemed a little off tonight.
Max
I’m fine.