“Nope. No,” she said, and lifted her head from his chest. “I am not going to do whatever you are about to do.”
He stroked her cheek. “I wasn’t going to do anything. You deserve this shot, and I wish you—”
“Yep, okay, enough of that.” She pushed out of his embrace, her eyes glistening. She popped up, kissed him on the cheek. “Bye, Baxter!” she shouted over his shoulder, and then fled to her car. “I’ll call you! Remember, dogs don’t belong on the couch!”
He lifted his hand and waved. He was not offended by her abrupt departure. He completely understood—neither of them wanted to say goodbye, because when they did, they both knew that would be the end.
Twenty-Five
If Max had been a betting man, he would have lost, because the end came faster than he ever would have guessed. Not him and Carly, although that end came much faster than he wanted. But twelve days after his father eloped to Las Vegas, it was over. Just long enough for Jamie and Duke to move in with Max. Just long enough for Jamie to create a new painting of three dogs, with two men in the background who were not Jamie and his father, but Jamie and his brother.
Just long enough that Max managed to take a day off from work to take Jamie around to check out some group homes. One of them was next to a park and on a bus line, and would accept Jamie’s “service” dog. The home was expensive, but Max thought that he and his dad could make it work.
On a crisp and cool Thursday afternoon, Max was finishing up his last class when he got a call from Jamie. When he answered, Jamie shrieked, “Too much noise!”
Max couldn’t get Jamie to say more. In the background, he could hear Duke barking. He dropped Bonnie at the lab and then he ran. He thought his father had died. He thought there had been a heart attack or a stroke, and he raced to his car, his arms pumping and his legs churning.
But when he got to his father’s house, he found his father very much alive and on his feet. Jamie had been with Max the last week while his father slowly packed and got ready to move to Evelyn’s. He was busily gathering things that clearly belonged to Evelyn—quite a lot, Max thought, in such a short time—and piling them on the kitchen table.
“What’s going on?” Max asked.
His father paused in his almost maniacal gathering. “I’m only going to say this once, Tobias Maxwell. You were right—it was all too fast. I didn’t know her well enough. Fuck that—I didn’t know her at all. But it’s done, and I never want to lay eyes on the woman again. Never. I don’t care if she drops dead tomorrow, I won’t be at her funeral.”
“Whoa,” Max said, holding up both hands. “What happened?”
“Don’t ask,” his father said, and tossed a bra onto the pile. “Just get her shit out of here.” He jerked around to where Jamie was rocking back and forth. “Jamie, stop the caterwauling! You saw a heated argument, so what!” And with that he stomped down the hall. They heard the door to his room slam shut.
Max looked at Jamie. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling. “Too much noise,” he insisted again.
“I know, buddy.” Max glanced at Duke, who was supposed to be soothing Jamie. But Duke was on his belly on the tile floor, his head between his paws, as if it were a lazy summer afternoon.
His dad returned a moment later, marching down the hall and unceremoniously dumping clothing onto a pile at the back door. “Take those things to her and get my things, Max. If I see her, I’m telling you, I may kill her.”
“You just married her, so maybe take the murder talk down a notch or two.”
“I’ll get it annulled and then I’ll kill her.” He turned again, and they listened to him mutter under his breath all the way down the hall. And then his door slammed shut.
Max found a couple of grocery bags, stuffed Evelyn’s things into them, told Jamie to work on his painting and take care of his dog, and that everything was okay. No more noise.
When he pulled into Evelyn’s drive twenty minutes later, he instantly knew that the neatly stacked boxes on the porch were his father’s things. From what he could see, there was the handle