Chapter 18
The next morning, Max woke me up by sprinkling kisses across my face before he left for work. I didn’t get up, since he was getting ready to leave. Instead, I buried myself back under the covers and let my mind wander.
After dinner, we’d turned on a really bad made for TV movie. Not that it mattered; we hadn’t watched much of the movie. At the end of what was our first date, he’d walked me to my bedroom door. The goodnight kiss wasn’t what I expected. He held both of my hands in his as he leaned down and placed one quick kiss on my lips. Then his hands slid away as he walked backward to his own room.
I smiled as I watched him go. I knew exactly what he was doing. Living together, it would be way too easy to get carried away. He’d told me he’d been waiting years for this and he wanted to take things slow. I told him that was fine, as long as he didn’t take things too slow. He had laughed at me as he shut his door.
When I finally pulled myself out of bed, I made the call I’d been putting off for too long.
My mother sighed in agitation when I told her my plan.
“I’m not particularly surprised,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I like it. You left so abruptly, we didn’t even get to say goodbye to you. First you said it was only for a few days. Then a few weeks. Now the rest of the summer?” Her tone was loaded with disapproval.
“I didn’t plan for it to happen that way,” I explained.
“I realize that. Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s a very good idea. I have told you, the way you ran off with Max, it looks questionable.”
My mother came from a generation when befriending the opposite sex just wasn’t something people did. So in all fairness, she’d always thought that everything Max and I had ever done together was questionable. This, though, I knew crossed every line she had ever set in her mind.
“Quite frankly,” I grated out, “I don’t care.” That wasn’t true. I did care. Because I realized that not only did it make me look bad, but it would make Max look bad as well. And he was completely innocent in the mess that Collin had made of my life. I contemplated telling her that Max and I had decided to try dating but that was a complication I didn’t need just then. “I can’t help how it looks. I can’t help it if Collin won’t take responsibility for what he’s done. It’s not my fault if your friends are being misled. I just hope that you’re trying to set them straight.”
She hesitated so long I was afraid of her answer. She finally sighed. “Yes, of course I am.”
“Thank you.” I was inclined to believe her because not only was my reputation at stake but by association, hers as well.
“However, it is causing quite a strain between Gwen and me.” Her tone was slightly accusatory.
“Mom,” I said, my voice was pleading.
“Don’t get me wrong. I do agree that Collin was entirely inappropriate.” I rolled my eyes at her word choice, glad she couldn’t see me. She would only reprimand me for my unladylike behavior. “But the way you ran out, to be honest, has made things a little difficult around here.”
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I shouldn’t have run out the way I did because I should’ve called the wedding off before it even got started. My mistake.”
“You can’t change the past, Holly.”
“I know that. But I can make my own choices for my future,” I pointed out.
“I just wish you would reconsider. There’s no reason you can’t come home and think about your future here. I don’t like having you so far away. And it’s so unlike you to run from your problems.” I could picture her, so prim and proper, probably standing ramrod straight, gazing out at her beautiful flowers. She was likely wishing I would stop acting nineteen and start acting like I was thirty.
“That’s not what this is about. I’m not running away from my problems. I’m trying to figure out my problems.” I didn’t know how to explain to her that it was simply about finding myself.
“You can do that here,” she firmly replied.
“No, actually I can’t.”
“What are we going to do with you,” she muttered.
“Mom,” I said with a little laugh, “I’m nineteen. You don’t have to do anything with me.”
“Ronald,” I heard my mother say, “I have tried talking some sense into this child of ours. Would you like to take a turn?”
I couldn’t make out my dad’s muffled reply but when he came on the line he sounded pretty chipper. “Hi, Pumpkin. I hear you’re not coming home quite yet.”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Are you doing okay? Are you having a good time? Are you out of money yet?” he asked.
“I’m doing fine. I’m having a great time. And I have plenty of money left,” I said with a laugh.
“I’m happy to hear that. You have your credit card with you if you get into a pinch, right?”
I smiled, relieved this conversation was so much different than the one I’d just had with my mom. “Yes. I have it. I haven’t had to use it yet.”
“Okay then,” he said. “I don’t see any problem with you staying right where you are. Max is behaving himself?”
I stuffed down a laugh, picturing Max slowly backing away to his own room. He was definitely behaving himself, even though I wouldn’t mind if he didn’t. “Yes, Daddy, Max is behaving himself.”
I knew his words had been meant as a joke. My parents liked Max but Dad just might change his mind about me living with Max if he knew the truth. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt over omitting this news. At the same time, it was all too new to delve into with them just yet.
“Good, good,” he said. “I will admit, your mother is sitting right here giving me the evil eye but I’m going to say what I have to say anyway. I think it’s good for kids your age to get out on their own for awhile.”
“Ronald!” I heard my mother hiss in the background. It didn’t deter him.
“Now, I’ve been married to this lovely woman who just swatted me with a newspaper since I was eighteen years old. And there is nothing wrong with that. However, in this day and age, I think it’s just fine to wait. Get out and see what the world has to offer you,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” I asked.
He laughed at me. “For one thing, you didn’t ask. For another, you wouldn’t have listened. Not to mention that your mother and Gwen wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. So I’m telling you now. I’ve got to get going but you keep in touch.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Call if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“See you in,” he hesitated, possibly looking at a calendar or maybe just ticking off the weeks in his head, “six weeks?”
“That sounds right.” Six weeks…it was going to go so fast. It was as if my dad knew exactly what I was thinking.
“The summer will be over before we know it. You enjoy yourself, Pumpkin.”
***
That evening, Max walked in the front door with a smile on his face. I could relate. He’d called me on his lunch break. It was something he’d never done before. I’d ended up smiling like a giddy preteen with a crush the rest of the afternoon.
“So we’re…dating,” he said as he crossed the kitchen.
I was sitting at the table, sorting through my beads. I was taking note of what I was running low on because I’d found a shop in town where I could buy new supplies.
“Yes, we’re dating,” I said with a nod. I was wondering where he was going with this.
“And we’re living together. I mean, we’ve been roommates all summer.”
“Yes?” I got up, tired of my sorting and went to lean on the kitchen counter.
“So that kind of complicates things.”
I frowned. “How so?”
“Does that mean I need to wait until we’re on a date before I can kiss you? Or is it okay to kiss my roommate any time I feel like it?” He had his head cocked to the side. I couldn’t tell if his inquisitive expression was genuine or a bit manufactured.
I smiled as I edged closer, hooked my thumbs into the belt loops of his khaki shorts, and pulled him in. I stood on my tiptoes so that his lips were only inches from mine. “It’s okay to kiss me whenever you want.”
“Really?” he wondered as he settled his hands loosely around my waist. “What if I want to kiss you all the time?”
“Then I’d have to say I’m one lucky girl. But just in case I’ve forgotten how lucky I am, you should probably kiss me right now to remind me.”
I met his gaze, noted again how the amber rings around his irises made them so unique. His eyes swept over my face. Even though he’d seen me almost every day the last few years, I felt like he was taking in the sight of me in a whole new way. His gaze traveled from my eyes, to my lips as his hands slid around my waist and cupped my backside. He was smiling slightly when he moved in to kiss me. My eyes fluttered closed and I could feel his breath on my cheek, funny because I felt like I wasn’t breathing at all. When his lips met mine he kissed me deeply and with insatiability. He kissed me until I was gasping indecently right there in the kitchen.
“We should probably stop this,” Max muttered.
“Do we have to?” I playfully pouted.
He smiled down at me. “Yes because we’re going out tonight.”
I pushed away from him, ready to get my shoes on. “Where are we going?”
He laughed as he followed me to the door. “You seem a little bit excited to get out of the house.”
“I am! Where are we going?” I repeated.
“There’s an art festival in town this weekend. I guess it’s a yearly thing. I’ve never been to it before but I thought maybe it was worth checking out.” He grinned at me. “A guy that came into the winery today told me they had cheese curds.”
“Ah,” I said. “That makes more sense than a sudden interest in art.”
“They have several different food booths,” he said. “See, I figured you can look at the artsy stuff. I can check out the food. We’ll both be happy.”
He opened the door and led the way. Once we were in his car, he turned to me with a teasing grin. “I’ve been thinking about something,” he said.
His cocky smile and the mischievous glint in his eye made me groan. “What?”
“Did you mean it when you said you’ve been thinking about me for awhile?”
That question was easy. “Yes.”
“But even more so after Mike left?”
Again, easy question but I wasn’t sure where he was going with it. My answer came out sounding like a question as well. “Yes?”
He sliced a look my way and then back to the road. He had a smug smile on his face.
“So, the night of the storm, when we were all cozy on the couch, you were enjoying it as much as I was?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, but I drug it out. I definitely had enjoyed being settled on his lap and later, tucked into his side while the movie was playing. I knew better, I really did. But I couldn’t stop from saying, “Why are you asking me that?”
“I’m not complaining about waking up with you in my bed that night. But I have to wonder,” he said as he gave me a cocky grin, “did you set out to seduce me?”
My mouth flopped open and closed a few times. “Seduce is such a strong word,” I pointed out.
He burst out laughing and I knew he was teasing me.
But still!
“No,” I told him, completely indignant. Had I? I groaned. Heat flooded into my cheeks and I pressed the palms of my hands over my eyes as I thought about that night. That hadn’t been my initial intent. It just happened. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Then I found myself tiptoeing into his room and sliding in next to him. He always smelled so good and he was so warm and… “Okay, maybe just a little.”
“Awesome,” Max said, though he was still chuckling quietly to himself.
“Oh, look at all those booths!” I said in a pitiful effort to distract him. I pointed to the vast field the festival was being held in. There were tents and wooden booths and enormous display areas scattered everywhere.
“Yeah,” he laughed, knowing exactly what I was doing. “Just look at that.”
As it turned out, there were a lot of booths. We wandered around, hand in hand, checking everything out. Max was particularly interested in the food booths, as predicted. He got his cheese curds and something funky on a stick. We both got malts and we explored our way through the mazes. Some of the artwork was abstract, some of it craftier than artsy. What I was most drawn to were the booths that displayed jewelry.
A few carried items similar to what I did make, or could make. It was interesting to look around and compare what I’d come up with to what other people had come up with. What I liked most were the items completely out of my realm of capability.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time circling a booth that was filled with blown glass. While some of the bigger items were amazing, it was, of course, the jewelry that caught my eye.
“What do you have there?” Max asked as he peeked over my shoulder.
I had a piece of jewelry in the palm of my hand and I held it up to him. It was a quarter sized pendant on a silver chain.
“That’s cool. You like that?” he asked.
“I love it,” I said as I pulled my hand back so I could inspect it again. I glanced at the others hanging on the display. They were all one of a kind and while several caught my eye, the one in my hand was still my favorite. It was pink and at the risk of sounding like a generic girly-girl, I loved pink. I looked down at it again. The back of it was white. The front was pale pink in a honeycomb pattern. I wasn’t familiar with blown glass and I hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was so dainty and unique and…I wanted it.
“It’s yours,” Max whispered in my ear.
I glanced up at him. “What?”
“It’s yours,” he said, louder this time. “I just paid for it.”
He plucked it out of my hand. “Turn around,” he said.
I did as he asked and he placed it around my neck. My fingers flew up, rubbing the smooth surface of it. “You didn’t have to do that. But thank you. I love it.” I couldn’t stop smiling and he just smiled back, shaking his head.
“Are you done here?” he wondered. “Because there’s a booth over there I really want to check out.”
“The one with artwork made out of hubcaps?” I guessed. I realized I had sort of been monopolizing the evening, looking at the booths I’d wanted to look at. It hadn’t occurred to me that Max was there for anything other than the food. But I decided there were a few things I thought might hold his interest.
His head snapped up. “Hubcap art? Where did you see that?”
I pointed and his eyes followed. A smile lit up his face. “Yeah, I want to check out that one too. But first, let’s go look at the one that has sculptures made out of old tires.”