It had been over a week since I’d been at the actual office. So when I arrived, the whispering started almost immediately. I channeled my inner-Derek and told myself none of them mattered. Not one bit. It would have been a waste of my time to have to explain anything to anyone anyway. Before heading over to Oliver’s office, I popped my head in to say hello to Adam.
“Hey there, stranger,” Adam said out of nowhere. “How are you doing?”
“I’m hanging in there, thanks. How are you?”
“Good, thanks. I was wondering if you were going to be here for the meeting this morning with Oliver.”
“What meeting?” I asked.
In my mind, I was running through all the messages I had received in the past few days, and for the life of me, couldn’t remember any meeting that I was supposed to be having with Oliver today.
“The one that…,” he glanced up to his monitor to confirm the time. “It just started like five minutes ago in his office. Max is already in there.”
My heart dropped to somewhere around my knees in excitement and nervousness. I was so happy and so fucking scared to see him since he had yet to talk to me in any way, shape, or form.
“Oh yeah, that meeting. Yeah, that’s why I’m here too,” I lied so badly it hurt. “I just wanted to pop in and say hello to you because I hadn’t seen you or spoken to you since…you know.”
He rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. “It’s okay. You better head over to the boss’ office before he starts yelling of you though.”
Little did Adam know that that couldn’t happen since I wasn’t even invited to the meeting in question. But whatever. Just a tiny detail. I guess I was about to crash a meeting and see what the heck was going on for myself.
By the time I was within arm’s reach of Oliver’s office door, I could already hear Max’s voice. He was yelling. But not just yelling to be heard over a loud group of people…no. This yelling was I’m-so-angry-that-I’m-going-to-keep-yelling-until-you-understand-me type of yelling. Oliver’s two assistants stationed just outside of his office wouldn’t even spare me a glance as I eavesdropped. That should have been a giant alarm bell warning me right there to turn and run, but it didn’t register with me at all. Instead, I heard Max shout things like, “I can’t work with her! Her family ruined mine!”
I practically jumped back, startled to have heard him say these things. This had to be a joke…a very, very bad one. Did Max truly believe it was my family’s fault that Avery was murdered? And then it kind of all clicked into place…the radio silence after all the text messages and voice mail messages I had left for him. He was purposely avoiding me. He blamed me and Eddie for Avery’s death. It hurt me so deeply to have heard Max say these things about me, about my family, about our working relationship…which led me to believe he was done with me completely.
But I had come this far, it was time to go just a little bit further. Without warning and without even knocking on Oliver’s door, I twisted the knob and opened it. I found Oliver sitting behind his desk looking as stressed as ever. And for a man that always seemed so happy-go-lucky, that was saying something. I couldn’t turn my gaze to Max, but I felt his stare from the other side of Oliver’s office. And if looks could kill…well, I’d be deader than dead right now.
“Daphne, sweetheart,” Oliver said with a little bit of whimsy in his voice. “I didn’t know you were here today. Come in, come in. Have a seat. Max and I were just talking about the show.”
I knew and he knew—and Max, that I had heard most of their conversation at this point. And hearing the nickname that Max called me by sometimes, even from someone else, dug into my heart and made me want to cry. Because I knew it was over.
“That’s okay. I’m not staying,” I told him, still ignoring the giant elephant in the room. “I just wanted to give my notice, effective immediately.”
“You can’t quit on me, Daphne. You signed a contract.” Oliver stood up and adjusted his tie a little bit. He started to come over to where I still stood by the door to his office. “Sweetheart, I unders—,”
“Don’t call me that, Oliver,” I said with surprising authority. Oliver at least had the sense to look a little less bossy and more friend-like as he took a step closer. “Look, I’m really sorry about…everything. But it’s for the best. For everyone’s sake if I just leave, okay?”
Max finally chimed in. “Your damn right it’s for everyone’s best interest if you and your delinquent fucking family get the fuck out of here and stay out.”
How I wished he would have kept his mouth shut. I took a deep breath and tried on a shaky smile, not daring to spare Max a glance still. Instead, I looked at Oliver who could tell I was hanging on by a thread.
“It’s best if I just go, Oliver. Thank you so much for this opportunity and I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
My feet were moving so fast, walking backwards out of his office and away from Max. Once I was far enough away, I finally turned around and practically ran through the bullpen of cubicles. When I reached the bank of elevator doors, I pressed the button repeatedly hoping one would arrive in seconds. But no such luck. By now, I was full on crying and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Dodging stares from people I barely even knew and for sure would be talking about me, I rushed over to the steel door that opened to the stairwell and made my escape.
As I made my way down at least two full flights, it happened. I heard Max’s booming voice yelling from somewhere above. “Daphne! Stop!”
I almost tripped over my feet when I heard him, but didn’t dare stop.
“Daphne! Cut it out, we need to talk!”
That got my attention, because I had been wanting to talk to him and yet, he chose to believe whatever he believed and now he wanted to “talk?” Look, I was upset, hurt, and brokenhearted over all of this, but damn it all to hell if I was a fucking idiot too?
“We had our chance to talk, Max! That’s over and done with and so are we!”
His running steps on the stairwell were getting closer. He was freaking gaining ground on me. Dammit, I still had at least eleven or ten flights of stairs to go. I was losing steam. The crying wasn’t helping me either. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before I would have to take a break from what could be a bad accident.
I took a break on the next landing and rested against the wall with my hands on my knees. Trying to breathe through my nose and out through my mouth was almost impossible since I was practically hyperventilating and crying all at the same time. And then, Max was there; his feet coming into focus slowly in front of me.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Take it easy for a second.”
That pissed me off. Because he said this in a soft, concerned voice…like he gave a shit.
My head popped up to finally look right at him. His eyes, dark as ever, were rimmed with dark circles, but he was still as handsome as ever.
“Oh, no you don’t! You do not get to be nice to me right now, Max!”
“I’m being concerned, there’s a fucking difference, swee— Daphne,” he said calmly. “Not like I need another person to go up and die on me.” He winced after he said that out loud. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Fuck, I don’t know what I mean.”
“Max, look, I get it. You want to blame me and my brother for everything, fine. It’s our fault. I take full responsibility. See, it’s done. We’re over now, the show is over, and everything else is over. We can all go back to whatever we were doing before this all started.”
“Avery can’t.”
“I know she can’t,” I whispered.
Everything came to a screeching halt then. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop in that stairwell. My breathing was back in control, but my tears…that wasn’t stopping any time soon. I was mourning for loss of life and loss of what could have been something amazing between us. Was it love? It wasn’t love between me and Max, then maybe it shouldn’t hurt this much that it was over before it began.
He took a step forward and closed the distance between us. His stormy eyes were full of so many emotions that it was difficult to pinpoint what he would do or say next. A part of me wanted to jump back in time and try to erase everything that had happened between us so that this pain in my heart would just go away for good. But that was wishful thinking. It was as if Max had been thinking the same thing, because he caught himself from reaching up and touching me. Instead, he shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and took a few steps backwards to put some much needed distance between us.
“Goodbye, Daphne.”
“Goodbye, Max.”
And then I walked away from him in more ways than one.