He looks at me with wide eyes, like he’s been lost, wandering for ages and just stumbled upon the compass he didn’t know he was missing. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” he says, suddenly repentant. “It’s just…”
My chest squeezes as his unfinished thought fades into the music, but I push the feeling down, away. Self-preservation says Max doesn’t deserve my compassion—not today.
I reach for the door handle. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
He cuts the ignition. “I’ll walk you.”
I want to be away from him, far, far away, but I’m too rattled to protest.
It’s a quiet twenty-yard trip across the parking lot. When we reach the shop door, I toe the pavement with my shoe, frustratingly reluctant to tell him good-bye. He stands very still, watching me, ratcheting my pulse up, up, up. Then, before I have a chance to deflect him, he steps forward and folds me into his arms.
It’s startling, yet immediately comforting, like home.
I bury my face in the softness of his sweatshirt and his arms tighten around me, the heat of his body sheltering me from the frosty air. He sighs deeply, contentedly, and an idea arrives so suddenly and with such precision, I can’t force it away.…
My body fits perfectly against Max Holden’s.
His lips touch my hair, and even though it’s the middle of the day and we’re both sober, it feels strangely, wonderfully right.
He whispers, “You smell like coffee.”
I pull away and stagger backward, before I fall too far into him. “I’ve got to go,” I say, shoving the shop door open. I hurry into the building, leaving Max outside in the cold.
It’s not until later, after Kyle’s talked himself hoarse trying to console me, that I realize I left my Coke in the truck.
13
THE DAY AFTER SCHOOL LETS OUT FOR winter break, I work an opening shift at True Brew with Kyle and then, when I get home, I get comfortable with my laptop so I can research scholarships that might help me attend the International Culinary Institute after all. While the ferocity of my initial anger has dulled, my craving for New York’s as strong as ever. Empty account or not, I’m not ready to give up.
The school itself offers a few options, and there are private scholarships, too, but the choices aren’t as plentiful as I’d hoped. Two thousand dollars here, five thousand there … discouraging. Tuition for the nine month Professional Pastry Arts program is close to thirty-five grand, and that doesn’t include housing and other living expenses. Still, I bookmark the money I might qualify for, to be more carefully considered this summer, after school’s out, after the leech baby’s born, after things at home have calmed down.
Hopefully.
While I’m poking around online, I hear Dad return from another morning at the office. Meredith requests his help with changing table assembly in the nursery, but apparently an unexpected errand comes up, because not ten minutes after they get started, he calls down the hall to my room, “Jillian, get your coat. We’re going out.”
We’re still not talking much, Dad and me, but there’s been no more yelling. It seems he’s let the whole drunk-at-Bunco thing go, aside from my ongoing grounding, and I’m done hurling accusations because, yeah, Meredith and the baby are important, and debt sucks, and who am I to dictate how my father spends money?
Hesitantly optimistic, I head down the hall to see where he needs to go, and find him standing by the front door in a pair of pressed jeans and a heavy jacket, holding his key ring.
“What’s up?” I ask, eyeing the beat-up boots he’s chosen, the ones he wears when he’s doing yard work.
“Marcy called. The Holdens don’t have a Christmas tree yet, and she’s worried about how they’ll get one.” He looks at the floor, giving his keys a restless jingle. “That was Bill’s job, of course, so…”
“So you offered to pick one up?”
He nods. “I thought you could help.”
“Sure,” I say, willing to do just about anything to improve the Holdens’ first Christmas since Bill’s stroke. “Let me grab some shoes.”
I meet him in the driveway a few minutes later, my feet in a pair of lined boots, my hands burrowed in the pockets of my fleece, feeling hopeful about this one-on-one time with my dad. It might be what we need to start correcting what’s gone awry.
As soon as I’m buckled up, he backs into the street. He’s shifting his Durango into drive when Marcy Holden comes flying out her front door, waving a hand in the air. Dad brakes as she hustles down the slope of her driveway and over to his window. He lowers it.
“Jake,” she says, slightly out of breath. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this. I’m sure the tree farm is the last place you feel like spending your afternoon.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dad says, reaching through the window to squeeze her shoulder. “I’ve told you—don’t hesitate to ask anytime you need something.”
Marcy smiles. “In that case, I need something—in addition to the Christmas tree.”
“Anything.”
She hesitates. “Take Max with you?”
A deafening silence engulfs the Durango.
“Please?” Marcy says after a beat. “He’s been impossible. He’s always helped Bill with the tree, plus he’s been fighting with his girlfriend. He needs to get out of the house. Would you mind terribly if he tags along?”
Dad heaves a sigh, but I have a sinking feeling he’ll let Max join us. He’s known Marcy too long to deny such a desperate request, and besides, it’s not like she hasn’t helped him with me over the years. Still, I will my dad to decline.
He says, “Send him out.”
God. This is happening.… Dad, Max, and me, on a merry trip to the tree farm. I’ve half a mind to leap from the Durango, but preservation of my dad’s sanity and Max’s life sway me into staying put.
Marcy hurries into her house to retrieve Max, and then, sure enough, he’s ambling through the door in a sweatshirt, puffy vest, and knit cap.
“Max,” Dad says as he climbs into the backseat, a stiff greeting.
“Jake,” Max returns. Excruciating pause … “Hey, Jilly.”
An incredibly disturbing impulse to cry overtakes me, hearing him use my nickname smooth as melted chocolate. We haven’t spoken since that awful morning at True Brew, mostly because I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid him, even while Kyle rolls his eyes at what he calls my refusal to face reality. I blink, swallowing the sadness that’s ascending my throat.
What is wrong with me?