CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“More coffee?” Maximus asked me, about to pour from the French press. Funny how life goes. Now I was eating breakfast with him, chatting over how much the Crescent City had changed over the years, while Perry was nowhere to be found.
Well, that wasn’t true. She had stopped by Maximus’s room in the morning before I woke up and told him she was going out on her own during the day and would text him later if he wanted to shoot a few scenes or do some voice-over work. The fact that she didn’t speak to me at all, that she was out there avoiding me, that she was struggling with all the horrible shit I said to her last night, reopened that wound, rubbing salt right in it.
I nudged the coffee cup over to him, trying to bury my feelings deep down. The last thing I wanted was Maximus feeling sorry for me. I hated the fact that he knew what was going on, that he was the one who initiated it. You’d think that would have made me want to relate to him more, but all it did was make me resent him.
Of course, the situation between him and Rose was devastating as anything, but as the terrors of the night faded away, I was left with my own hurt, my own hole I’d begun to dug, and someone else’s sob story wasn’t going to make me feel any better about myself. Besides, I kept thinking that if Maximus had truly loved her, he would have found a way to keep her. Didn’t love truly conquer all? Although it certainly wasn’t conquering shit for me.
I was just about to push my plate away and head back upstairs to the room when Rose appeared in the breakfast room doorway.
I smiled at her and gestured to Maximus. “He’s almost done. He sure does eat a lot.”
She didn’t smile (not that I expected her to). “Actually, Dex, I’m here to see you. Do you mind coming for a walk with me?”
Maximus and I exchanged a quick look. I didn’t know what Rose wanted, but if it was a private talk between the two of us, it couldn’t be good. Private talks were bad news these days. I had a feeling she wanted to rip me a new one over the way I treated Perry, and as much as I deserved it, I really wasn’t in the mood to feel worse about the situation.
“I’m not going to bite,” she added, and then she smiled. I didn’t trust her at all.
I looked down at Maximus. “If I’m not back in an hour…”
He rolled his eyes and went back to finishing his toast.
I tried to give Rose a carefree grin but failed. I was inexplicably nervous and followed her out of the B&B and onto Royal Street.
It was warm out, not as humid as yesterday, and the sun was just starting to push aside the low clouds. The air smelt damp and slightly like hot garbage, something I’d gotten used to.
I looked up and down the street. “Well, where to?”
“Wanna get the best Bloody Marys in town?” she asked.
“Is the Pope Catholic, and does he wear a funny hat and drive around in a Popemobile and live in Vatican City and—”
She raised her hand. “I get it, Dex.”
We walked down Royal Street for a bit in silence.
“I hope you’re not taking me to your bar, because I’m sorry, you don’t put enough horseradish in your Bloody Marys. Ever try a Caesar? Now that’s something you guys should be doing.”
“No, it’s not my bar,” she said, and we took a left down a street until we ended up near a bustling restaurant by the river where a three-piece band was lazily playing in the shade.
We placed our order with the waiter and I asked her how Ambrosia was doing.
“She’s fine,” she said. “She got some shots for some diseases even though she was telling the doctor that she could concoct her own herbal solution. But you know western medicine. If you can’t buy it from a pharmaceutical company, it doesn’t work.”
I nodded politely, waiting for her to jump on me about how horrible a person I was.
She cleared her throat. “Max called me this morning. He told me everything.”
I winced, the sun coming out in full-strength and blinding me. “I see.”
“I am so sorry,” she told me, leaning forward. Even with the sun’s glare in my eyes, I could see the sadness in her face, her grey-blue eyes mirroring my own. She really was a very pretty girl, her delicate doll-like features could have snared any man. I could see why Maximus had been so crazy about her, even more so when I remembered that she hadn’t always been so hard.
“It’s okay,” I told her, smiling at the waiter when he brought us the Bloody Marys.
“It’s not okay,” she said with quiet anger. “How could it be okay? I can see how much you two love each other.”
Oh, fucking ouch. That was an arrow to the chest. I tried to regain my breath and said, “I love her. She doesn’t know how she feels about me.”
“She loves you,” she said simply. “Even if she won’t admit it to herself, she does.”
“And she told you this?”
“No, she hasn’t. She doesn’t have to. I just know.”
“Well, Maximus never told me you were psychic,” I said, and took a sip of the Bloody Mary. Salty, spicy, sweet—it was perfect. “Wow, that has been the best one so far.”
Rose ignored me. “You’re pretending like you can’t do anything about it.”
I looked at her sharply. “I can’t do anything about it. Don’t you fucking think I would if I could?”
She sat back in the seat and crossed her arms, examining her fingernails. “You’re taking the easy road out. You’re just giving up.”
“I am not!” I yelled and pounded my fist on the table. The cutlery jumped. People turned and looked. I tried to rein it in.
She looked at me carefully. “Dex. I was stupid. I gave up. I thought I couldn’t live a life with Max because he’d remind me that I wasn’t normal. Then I lived a life without Max and realized it was much, much worse. Max kept me normal. He kept me sane. He loved me. And I loved him just as much. I fooled myself into thinking I was being noble and making a sacrifice so that I could have a better life. It didn’t work that way. I should have held on to him. I should have compromised. I should have made it work. The alternative has torn me apart.”
I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. She didn’t understand; it wasn’t the same. “If I go with Perry, she may die. If she ever gets pregnant, it could kill her.”
She shrugged. “So then adopt if you want children.”
“That’s not the point,” I said, glaring at her glibness. “The two of us together, we create fucking holes in the universe. We’ll make things worse for each other and for other people.”
She tilted her chin down. “I saw more demons and more ghosts when I was with Max. I’d rather live my whole life with them everywhere I turn than live this one without him in it.”
“There would be so many consequences,” I added.
“And what about the consequences of you not being together? This isn’t your decision alone, Dex. If you want to really be selfless and noble here, you’ll have to tell her. Acting like an asshole isn’t going to explain anything. Your Perry, she’s been through a lot with you. She deserves more than this.”
“If she knew…what if she’d want to get pregnant, just to prove a point?”
“Is that really what she’d do?” she asked carefully. “Or is that just what other people are afraid of?”
I mulled on that, sitting back in my seat. I took a long suck of the Bloody Mary, hoping the vodka would go to work a little faster.
“Don’t let other people tell you how well you know someone,” she added. “Don’t let other people, no matter who they are, decide what happens to your life and hers. You will live a lifetime of regret if you let others influence your decisions. Believe me.”
I eyed her. “So then, who influenced yours?”
She looked down at her hands. “Maryse.”
Now it was starting to make sense. Why she broke up with him. Why she walked away.
“Then why don’t you and Max try and make it work now? You’re here. He’s here. You still love him, don’t you?”
She smiled softly but it never reached her eyes. “Some risks get scarier as you get older. The less you have to lose, the less you want to try.”
“So there’s no hope.”
“Sugar, we’d be dead without hope.”
I sighed, feeling like we’d just gone around in a circle.
“What a bunch of fucked up, lovelorn, ghost-seeing shitburgers we are,” I said.
“Don’t forget crazy,” she added.
“That is forever and always a given, sweetie.”
She sipped on her drink, her nose scrunching up at the clump of horseradish I saw get sucked up her straw. I started thinking it was nice that Rose pulled me aside to discuss my love life without trying to make me feel shitty, that she was so concerned about Perry and I to do so.
Then I could see the uncomfortable look on her face, even when the horseradish was long gone, and I knew that wasn’t the real reason why she took me all the way out here to have a drink. There was something else.