“I mean, you’re probably the most independent girl I’ve ever met,” he says. “Sometimes I’m not even sure that you need me.” He laughs, but his eyes are full of questions.
My pulse quickens. Had I made Max feel like I didn’t rely on him? I tighten my grip on his hand. “I do need you. More than you know,” I finish, a tear escaping from the corner of my eye as I think about the way he had been so willing to walk away from me.
Max wipes the tear from my cheek. “You know, you could have just asked me to come get you. And I didn’t mean anything by the independent thing. I was just saying that I knew you’d find a ride home. That’s all.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because, Max, I want you to know, you can tell me anything. Even if you think it will hurt me. Let’s get it all out into the open now, before the wedding.”
Max pauses and I can almost see the wheels in his head turning. I imagine him starting to feel the buds of something with Courtney, but he’s telling himself that it doesn’t mean anything. He shakes his head slowly at me, probably squelching the little tweak in his heart he feels when he’s with her, deciding it isn’t worth throwing everything we have away—yet.
“Maybe it will be good for us to get away to Big Bear this weekend?” I ask hopefully. The words I feel like I’m losing you sit at the tip of my tongue, but I’m too afraid to say them out loud. Here I am, sitting with the man I love, the one I’m supposed to marry, the rest of my life hanging in the balance, and I can’t say those simple words—too paralyzed by fear to ask Max how far he’s slipped from my grasp. To discover if he even wants me to try to pull him back up. Instead I bury my head deep in his neck, hoping he’ll hear the words in my heart that I can’t say out loud.
“Yes,” he finally says. “It will be good for us.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
While packing for our trip to Big Bear, I thumb the Lycra fabric of my sunflower-yellow bikini, my mind wandering back to the morning we left for Maui. Max had just returned home from his morning run and I’d just reopened my suitcase so I could pack this very swimsuit, along with a matching cover-up and oversized straw hat. He’d found me straddling the black and red Tumi wheeled bag, pressing my weight into it as I attempted to zip it closed. I’d looked up and he was leaning against the doorjamb, his cheeks ashen, not flushed like they normally were after completing a six-mile run.
“What’s wrong?” I’d jumped up from the bag and the top had sprung open, revealing the straw hat that was now smashed. I shook my head and pulled it out.
“Just watching you,” he’d said, taking a long drink from his bottle of water.
“Oh?” I’d said, still staring at his face, an unreadable look in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful, you know that? Inside and out.”
“Why thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Kate. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I’d said, confused by his solemn tone. I’d leaned in to kiss him, but missed his mouth because he’d grabbed me, enveloping me in a bearlike hug.
I’d squirmed out of his grasp, the sweat from his chest having created a large spot on my sundress. “What’s gotten into you—you know we’re going to be late if you don’t get in the shower. And now I have to change out of this!” I shook my head at him. “We have a five-and-a-half-hour flight to snuggle!”
He’d smiled and said, “You’re right, we do.”
But as I’d turned to attend to my bag, a pair of espadrilles having now spilled out from it, I caught Max’s expression from the corner of my eye—he looked sad.