Sunday.”
“I know, but I got a text that my car is finally done.” Max looked down at his hands for a moment. “I also got a call from Marcus. Our newest client has some more work he’s thinking of bringing our way, and Marcus wants me to evaluate it as soon as possible, so…”
“Surely that can wait one extra day,” Hal insisted, leaning forward and taking the reins of the conversation. I let him because my hands were trembling, and my mouth was dry enough that I didn’t think I could speak. “Is this because of this morning? Max, it was a miscommunication, that’s all. You don’t have to go.”
“It could have been bad for the girls.” His voice was hard, but I knew it was directed more at himself than at us. “I didn’t stop to think about what kind of expectations it could set up. I put you in a bad position, and I didn’t even remember to tell you about it until it was already happening.”
“It was an accident,” Hal pointed out. “And maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that you didn’t tell me about it, because I’m not sure I would have let it happen otherwise, and Steph’s been talking more today than she has for the past month.”
“Still.” Max looked down at his coffee then over at me. “I should have put you first. I forgot to do that. I’m just…” He sighed. “I think I need to go home for my own sake, honestly. I need to get back a sense of normality at work, and the only way to do that is to actually work. I brought this client in, and I need to do well by them if I’m going to make partner.”
Oh fuck. Max wanted to leave for good. He actually wanted to leave, and it wasn’t just because of the girls. He wanted to go back to the city. I’d been working up the nerve to ask him to stay through New Year’s. Clearly, that was shot, and the chance for anything more was…well, it had always been impossible. Max was going back to his fancy life in New York City, and a week here with us—a week with me—wasn’t enough to change his mind. Especially not when, the first second something went wrong, I did the same thing everyone else in town had done years ago and turned my back on him.
I had ruined his Christmas.
I had ruined everybody’s Christmas.
Some of my dismay must have shown, because Max’s eyes softened. “It’s okay.”
It was the furthest from okay we could get, but I couldn’t form the words to argue that now. My heart felt like it was splitting in two.
“Everything’s okay between us,” he said. “I promise.”
“Okay,” I said hoarsely after a minute. God, that was a shitty way for us to be, this lukewarm state, but it was no better than what I deserved. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Have you eaten anything since breakfast?” Hal asked, doing his best to interject a semblance of normalcy back into the conversation. “We’ve got Christmas dinner waiting for you.”
Max smiled. “Is it the kind you microwave first?”
“It’s a honey-glazed ham that I baked in my own oven, jackass,” Hal said. “And brussels sprouts, sweet potato casserole, and chocolate cake that the girls wanted because we haven’t eaten enough sugar yet this holiday season.”
“Sounds delicious.”
Max ate dinner, and Hal and I picked at a little more. We tried to get a conversation going, but my words kept failing me. How was I so good at talking when I was at work and so bad at talking when I was with someone I cared about? After we all finished and Hal started up the dishwasher, Max made sounds about heading up to bed.
I finally found my voice. “Do you have a ride to the mechanic’s tomorrow?”
“I was going to ask Hal,” Max said, but he sounded ready to be convinced otherwise.
“Let me do it.”
Max looked at me for a long moment then nodded. “Okay. Maybe you should spend the night here, then. I want to get a kind of early start, and I know you have work tomorrow.”
A faint sense of relief washed over my icy core, thawing it a little. “I’d love to stay.” I didn’t even care if we did anything. I just wanted to be with him for as long as I could. This…whatever it was we were doing together, our interlude, our moment—it was almost over. After this, he would go back to