“You really changed your major?”
“I did.”
She pecked him on the nose. “I’m proud of you.”
“Proud of me, too, doll.” He gave her a peck on the lips. “Anyway, your presence has been requested at the Payton household for Thanksgiving. Now, I can’t promise mashed potatoes that aren’t lumpy and I can’t promise the green beans won’t be steamed into mush, but I can promise a hell of a turkey because Cal has perfected the art of the turkey fryer. He only burnt down our back porch once.”
Her eyes widened at the mention of fire. “Are you serious?”
Max’s eyes twinkled. “If you come to Thanksgiving, I’ll tell you all about it.”
She twirled the hair at the nape of his neck. “Okay, if you promise to go shopping on Black Friday with me and my mom at midnight.”
Max’s mouth dropped open in shock and she threw back her head and laughed. When she looked back at him, his eyes were narrowed. “You’re kidding, right?”
She grinned. “Yep, but you do have to come with me to my parents’ on Friday.”
“Deal,” he said on an emphatic nod.
She pushed on his shoulders so he stepped back, and then he helped her down off of the counter.
“This was pretty clever,” she said, twirling her finger. “Cornering me in my professor’s office and everything.”
He leaned back, bracing his arms on the counter, and his shirt stretched across his broad chest. “Yeah? I thought of it all by myself.”
“You want the rest of the tour?” she said, sauntering toward the door.
He pushed his lips out and cocked his head to the side. “I want
a
tour.”
“What tour do you want?”
He pushed off from the counter and prowled toward her. “Your apartment. Your room. I’d love a tour of your bed, specifically between the sheets.”
“That’s a really specific tour.”
He grabbed her around the waist. “I’m a Lea-specific kind of guy.”
T
HE PIE WAS
still warm and it heated Lea’s thighs despite the thermal bag she’d placed it in. Which was nice because despite the heat blasting in Max’s drunk, it was still wasn’t very warm.
Danica had helped her with an apple crumb pie, and it smelled divine when they’d baked it that morning, along with the pie Danica planned to take with her to Monica’s house for Thanksgiving.
Lea checked her phone. Danica had finally texted back in answer to her inquiry.
Just got here. It’s all good.
Lea smiled.
“What are you smiling at?” Max asked, glancing at her briefly before returning his eyes to the road.
“Nothing, just a text from Danica.”
“She still hate me?”
Lea turned to Max. She knew he meant the question to come off as a joke but there was a hint of vulnerability in his tone. He didn’t want her roommate to dislike him. “No, she doesn’t hate you. I don’t think she ever hated you. She just didn’t care for you. And actually, she’s more mad at me for leaving the hospital without talking to you.”
He thought for a minute. “You know I was a little mad at you, too. I was laid up and I wanted to talk to you and apologize. But looking back, maybe we both needed that time. I needed to get my shit together and you needed to . . .”
He let his voice trail and she nodded. She had to let the past go and trust again.
“I wish it hadn’t had to happen that way, though.”
He reached for her hand. “But it did. And we’re stronger for it.”
She twined her fingers with hers and leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes and humming along with the radio.
“Meooorrrrwwww,” Wayne called from the backseat, where he was secure in his crate. He had such an odd-voweled meow. Max said he must have led his pack with it. When Lea explained stray cats weren’t really pack animals, Max hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Lea’s eyes popped open. She rolled her head to the side and smiled. “I think he’s had enough of the trip.”
“Quiet down back there!” Max scowled in the rearview mirror, then winked at Lea. He’d been adamant about bringing Wayne. Even though they’d only be gone a couple of days, Max worried about Wayne being alone in the town house, even with an automatic feeder and water bowl. Lea secretly thought it was cute but outwardly rolled her eyes at him.
Wayne let out another cry.
“You know,” Lea said, twisting with a knee up on the seat so she could face Max. “Pretty sure when I saw you trying to coax the injured cat to trust you is when I knew you’d get to me.”
“Oh yeah?” Max raised an eyebrow, keeping his eyes on the road.
She leaned closer. “I think that’s when I knew I’d fall in love with you.”
Max whipped his head to look at her.
“Eyes on the road, Max,” she said in a singsong voice. He straightened his head but his hands clutched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.
It’d been weeks, and he hadn’t said the words since that day in the faculty room on campus. And she hadn’t said the words at all. Not that she didn’t know—because she did—but because she didn’t know when to say it. And now, on the way to see his family while her nerves tickled her belly, she wanted to walk onto his home turf with full disclosure.
“I love you, Max,” she whispered.
And now he turned his head to her again, a scowl on his face, which was the last thing she expected to see.
“Seriously?” he said incredulously.
“What?”
“You tell me that now? While I’m driving?”
She threw a hand in the air. “Well I don’t know! Did you want, like, candles and rose petals in a bath?”
“Maybe, if you were in there naked!” He fired back.
“Are we seriously fighting about where I told you I loved you!”
“Yes!”
“Why!”
“Because I don’t want to tell you that I love you back when I’m not able to kiss you!”
The irritation drained out of Lea’s body in a rush. Max looked so adorably miffed that she had to tuck her lips between her teeth to stop from laughing.
Max glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Doll, this isn’t funny.”
“Mims a mimble mummy,” she mumbled through closed lips.
“What?”
She opened her lips and a giggle burst out. “It’s a little funny.”
His death glare was the last straw, and she burst out laughing as Wayne let out another meow.
And then the car jolted and the tires spun as they careened into gravel on the side of the road. She grabbed the handle on the door as the truck came to an abrupt halt.
Then Max’s seatbelt pinged and so did hers. She had the presence of mind to set the pie on the floor at her feet before she was hauled across the bench of his truck seat onto Max’s lap. The steering wheel dug into her back and the gear shift jabbed into her knee but she didn’t even feel it once Max’s lips were on hers.
She grasped his hair and he cupped her neck, his thumbs at her jaw, tilting her head so he could direct the kiss.
And she let him. She let him control this kiss and manipulate her legs until she straddled his hips. And she let him show everything he could physically in a way that made the words they had just said pale in comparison.
The kiss slowed and then Wayne meowed again, clearly impatient in his crate and urging them to get back on the road. Max rested his forehead against hers, his full lips wet and a little swollen. She leaned back against the steering wheel and grinned. “You still mad?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Yep.”
“No you’re not.”
He barked a laugh. “Fine, I’m not, but unless you wanna screw in the car, I suggest you get back over on your side.”
“Such a gentleman.”
Max smirked.
“And you brought me over here, so you put me back.”
He rolled his eyes and encircled her waist with his hands. With a grunt, he deposited her back onto her side of the car. “Happy?”
“I think so.”
He started the car and then waited.
“Why aren’t you driving?” she asked.
He nodded at her seat. “Put your seat belt on.”
“Meooorrww!” Wayne echoed.
“See, he agrees with me.”
Lea buckled her seat belt and then looked at Max expectantly.
Once they pulled out onto the highway, Lea hid her smile behind her hand. “Max?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He growled.
H
ALF AN HOUR
later, Max turned onto a tree-lined street full of small ranch and split-level-style homes. He pulled into a driveway and a man on a ladder, fiddling with a light fixture over the garage door, turned around.
Lea recognized Max’s dad instantly and her gut tightened.
Crap, in the excitement to come home with Max, she hadn’t let herself think about this confrontation. Or how awkward it was going to be. She gripped the pie in her lap and willed her nerves to settle.
She broke her eye contact with Max’s dad and turned to Max, opening her mouth to ask if she could stay in the truck. Or maybe ask him to drive her back home. Or maybe just shove him out and she’d hightail it out of there herself.
But Max apparently could read minds, or at least emotions, because he held up his hand. “He wants to talk to you.”
She bristled. “Well good for him, but last time—”
“I know,” Max said wearily. “You know it’s just us, right? Dad and my brothers?”
He didn’t tell her who was missing. He told her who was present. She didn’t miss that. “Yes,” she said quietly.
“So Dad doesn’t have an excuse for being an asshole, but I just ask you to have a little patience with him.”
She pressed her lips together. “I think I can do that.”
“You feel uncomfortable for a second, just say the word, and we’ll go to your house.”
A bubble of laughter burst between her lips. “Okay.”
A knock startled her and she turned to her window to see Max’s dad’s lined face peering through the dirty glass. He motioned his finger in a circle, asking her to lower her window. Max gestured to the manual crank in the old truck and she turned it, lowering the window and letting in the chill air.
She straightened her spine and met the man’s eyes. He had those gray-blues she remembered in a face lined with life. When those eyes met hers, something shifted and she finally got a glimpse of humanity.
“Got off on the wrong foot,” he said through a tense jaw, and she knew this wasn’t something he did a lot. Do-overs. Apologies. Conversations. He reached a weathered hand into the truck above the half-lowered window. “Jack Payton. Call me Jack.”
His voice was a rumble, like once it made it past all the crags on the way, it had lost a lot of its tone. She reached up and shook his hand. “Lea Travers.”
“Teacher?”
“Huh?”
“You wanna teach?”
She blinked at the question. “Yes, my major is education. I also want to get my master’s in library science.”
He squinted his eyes at her, shifted them to Max behind her and then back to her. “Maybe you can find jobs near each other then.”
“I—”
“Sorry about that day at the shop.”
This man really had crappy conversation skills. “Um . . .”
He waved his hand. “Bad day and . . . yeah.” He tapped his hand on the side of the car and stepped back, his face closing down, signaling the end of the conversation. Lea had no idea what happened but she figured that was his peace offering.
It was better than nothing.
“Get her inside, Max, before Brent burns the house down.” And then he walked away, climbing back up the ladder to continue doing whatever he was doing to the light.
She looked at Max and he shrugged. He grabbed Wayne’s crate out of the cab and propped a foil-covered casserole dish on his hip.
“Hey, what’s that?”
“My specialty,” Max said.
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“Nope.”
When they walked by his father toward the front door, Max called, “Dad, Brent said he’d do that.”
“Well I’m doing it,” he said without looking back.
“You fall and break your neck, I don’t wanna hear bitching.” Max yelled.
Jack mumbled something but Lea assumed it was cursing.
Max opened the front door for her and ushered her inside.
The curtains were drawn closed and Lea made out a hallway ahead of her, lined with dozens of crooked pictures. As she followed Max down the hall, she twisted her head to look at them, all shots of the boys in various sports uniforms and positions of mischief—climbing trees, jumping in lakes.
There was no
Jill
.
Only Jack and his three boys.
The home reeked of masculinity. It was dark and could use a deep cleaning but was surprisingly clutter free. Lea wondered if Max had anything to do with making sure the place was clean for her visit. She knew Cal and Brent didn’t live at home.
“Taste this. Am I the boss or what?” They heard as they stepped into the kitchen. The room was a mess, food and dishes everywhere. Cal and another man whom she assumed to be Brent stood beside a mixing bowl. Brent held his finger toward Cal’s face, a lump of mashed potatoes on the end.
“If you think I’m licking that off your finger, you’re fucking crazy,” Cal said.
Max clapped. “Hey.”
Both boys looked toward them. Cal’s gaze zeroed in on her as Brent stuck his mashed potato covered finger in his own mouth. “Hey,” he mumbled around it.
Max introduced Lea to his brothers and she greeted them. Brent eyed the crate. “What is that?”
“Wayne,” Max answered, setting the crate on the floor.
“Who’s Wayne?” Cal asked.
“My cat.”
“You have a cat?” Brent craned his neck over the center island.
Max opened the front of the crate, but Wayne didn’t venture out.
“I’m not sure I believe there’s a cat in there,” Cal said.
“I’m telling you—“”
“Meeeeeoooorrrrrrwww,” came the battle cry and then a streak of black flew out of the crate and took off down a hallway.
Cal jumped back, covering his face with his arms while Brent cowered behind him, gripping his shoulders.
Max laughed. “Dudes, calm down.”
Brent peered from around Cal’s shoulder. “What the hell was that thing, a bear?”
“I told you I had a cat.”
Cal glared at him. “If that thing eats my face in my sleep, I’ll never forgive you.”
Max waved a hand and set the crate by the back door. “Oh, he’s harmless. Probably sleeping on my bed right now.”
Neither brother looked appeased.
“How’s the food coming?” Max asked leaning on the counter.
Brent straightened and returned to his place by the mixing bowl. “Cal won’t try my mashed potatoes.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t try them, I’m just not sucking them off your finger, dickbag.”
“Then get a spoon!”
Max swiped his finger in the bowl and tasted the mashed potatoes. “More salt.”
Brent whirled on him. “What? No. No way.”
Cal pulled a spoon out of a drawer, made to dip it into the mixing bowl, then paused. He looked at Lea. “Here, you be the judge.”
She took the spoon from him and then scooped out a mouthful of potatoes. She stuck the spoon in her mouth. They were good, maybe a little thick, but fluffy and buttery. She placed the spoon on the counter and realized all three boys were staring at her expectantly, with baited breath, like she held the key to the meaning of life. “They taste great. Just the right amount of salt,” she declared. Brent whooped and Max grinned despite her disagreeing with him.
Cal rolled his eyes and went back to the sink.
Brent hummed happily and began dishing the mashed potatoes into a slow cooker.
“I thought they were done, why are you putting them in there?” Max asked.
“Keeps ’em warm and fluffy. I saw it on TV.”
Lea turned to Max. “Do you guys always cook Thanksgiving dinner?”
Max poked at a bag of rolls. “We used to go to our grandparents’ and then they passed away. We’ve only cooked at the house here the last couple of years. We’re getting better every year though.”
“Hey, my turkey was amazing the first year. It was you dumbasses that screwed up everything else.”