“I blew it, Hailey.”
“Not if he loves you. It doesn’t just disappear like that. He’s hurt, maybe even angry, but he’ll understand and he’ll still love you. But you have to let him.”
“I think you’re right about going home and going to bed.” She was so exhausted she could hardly think straight. Not that she wanted to. Not thinking would be preferable.
“Thank you.” She hugged Hailey again. “And thank Matt for me. It’s freezing out there. Hurry up and text him that it’s safe to come home.”
“Are you kidding? He and Bear live for this crap. Me? I’m going back to the couch. Call me tomorrow.”
Tori had to mop her eyes a couple of times, but this time she made it all the way home and into her bed before the tears came again.
*
Max went through the next few days on autopilot. He woke, worked, ate because it was a habit, and slept.
It didn’t dull the pain of losing Tori, but he didn’t think anything could. He just had to keep going through the motions until the routine became a comfort again and not a daily reminder that he’d almost had everything he wanted and blown it.
He’d run what had happened between them over and over in his mind until he’d almost driven himself mad. Every word. Every gesture. Every facial expression. Every moment of his last day with Tori was imprinted in his memory and he couldn’t shake it.
He also couldn’t figure out how to make it better.
Because he did nothing but work, he finished the Farmall tractor before he expected and sent an email to Josh that it was done. Josh responded that he’d swing by Thursday afternoon, and Max didn’t bother trying to nail him down to a specific time. It didn’t matter. He just told him to ring the doorbell instead of knocking, because it would chime in the basement.
When the doorbell sounded, a little after three, Max went upstairs and let Josh in. “Thanks for coming over. I would have delivered it, but I wasn’t sure who else knew about it and there was no way Rose was going to let me deliver a box without questioning me about the contents. And I think I’d crack pretty quickly.”
“I don’t mind stopping by. And we all crack eventually.”
Max led him down into the basement and went to the shelf where he’d set the Farmall. “I assume this is going to be on display, rather than played with, right?”
“It’ll probably be on a shelf, but there’s a good chance Sarah will get her hands on it at least once.”
“It’ll stand up to being run around the floor, but there’s a weak spot in the paint, so it’s best if it doesn’t go outside too often. I did my best to blend the new paint and the old, and I put a protective clear coat over the entire bottom, but I wanted to preserve this.”
Max took the tractor off the shelf and turned it upside down. When he pointed to the belly of the tractor, he watched Josh’s expression change from one of curiosity to something like awe. Crudely scratched in the old paint, probably with a small pocketknife, were the initials FK.
“My dad,” Josh said quietly. “Frank.”
“I was using a wire brush to clear some of the crud away and once the corner of the F started showing, I went to a brush with softer bristles so I wouldn’t damage the letters. By feathering out the edges of the old paint surrounding the initials, I was able to cover them with the new paint and then seal the whole thing, so it shouldn’t lift.”
He watched Josh run his thumb over his father’s initials and stopped talking. The guy didn’t care about the work process that had gone into it. He was thinking about a man he’d loved and lost.
After a minute, Josh blew out a breath and looked over the rest of the tractor. “This is amazing, Max. And not just the way you saved the initials. You do incredible work.”
“Thank you.”
“I bet it looked exactly like this when my dad played with it. It looks like a boy’s tractor, but not one that was forgotten in a barn for decades.”
“That’s my specialty.”
Josh pulled out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“That’s not enough, Max. I don’t know what you make doing this, since it’s not really my business, but all I have to do is look around and I know it’s more than fifty dollars. You’re an artist.”
“I’m charging you fifty dollars because this is a gift from you to your brother and that requires some investment on your part. But doing that tractor was special to me. You guys are my friends and being able to do this is also my gift to you.”
Josh pulled the money from his wallet and set it on the workbench, then tucked the wallet back in his pocket so he could shake Max’s hand. “I appreciate it.”