Chapter 10: The Call
The rest of the week was miserable. Max worked doggedly at her job, met with potential new donors, visited offsite organizations working with Hope For All, finished reports, worked on the grant, and through it all, Everett Morgan remained a constant in her thoughts. Nothing in all her life to that point had been harder than leaving Ev standing in his front doorway without the kiss they both wanted. The one he had laid on her earlier had made her weak in the knees, and she had been more than happy to leave him to it in the kitchen. But he wanted more, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to give him what he wanted. She wasn’t sure she could.
Except now, sitting in Jen’s living room sipping some kind of delicious mocktail that Jen’s fiancé had made for her, she wished she had a plus one, if only so she wouldn’t feel like a third wheel. The couple sitting next to each other across from her was so obviously and completely in love that Max wondered, not for the first time, what was missing in her that she couldn’t find something to match that in her own life. She had nothing against marriage or children, but between the misery of her own parent’s convoluted lives, together and apart, and the one close encounter that had left her glad she had escaped with her dignity intact, she had more or less given up looking.
And anyway, her job had been all-encompassing, and she had very little time for personal relationships. She’d much rather stay home cuddling her two ancient cats than try to figure out men. Dave had been so convincing that had she not been naturally suspicious, she would not only now be married to a man who was a womanizer but also emotionally unstable, if the gossip about what had happened to the woman he did marry were true. She had been very cautious about keeping her relationship with him private, for which she was now truly grateful. No one except Jen and her dad knew about her lapse with Dave. And if she were honest, he was a big part of why she was hesitating with Ev.
“So, how’s Mr. Morgan?”
Jen’s voice broke into Max’s musings, bringing her squarely back into the room and into the question she had expected much sooner. The newspaper articles had been out a week by this point, and she expected Jen to have already asked about their date. But things had been busy, and after Wednesday, she had actively avoided her secretary unless she needed something work related. But she knew she could no longer escape the questions.
“He’s well,” she said, and took another sip of her drink.
“People seem to think you two might be an item,” Jen continued.
“After only one date? They’re dreaming! Do I seem that desperate? Does he?” She stopped herself from saying more by putting a few nuts from the coffee table into her mouth.
“He’s been hot to trot for a while now, hasn’t he? The stories about him are legion.”
“To be fair,” Jen’s fiancé chimed in, “he hasn’t been seen with anyone in the last three months. Maybe he’s seen the error of his ways?”
Max looked over at him as he spoke, wondering if he was right. She didn’t really know too much about Ev aside from what she had found on Google, and she hadn’t even read too deeply there. So if he hadn’t been out and about for three months, maybe the press had a reason to think she was someone special. Or at least someone like the rest of the women he’d been seen with before his hiatus.
“Does it matter?” Jen was saying when Max came back to the conversation. “According to Carrie, he seemed quite taken with you. A guy like that doesn’t pick up just any woman, even if all he’s doing is having some fun. What could be the harm in dating him? It’s not like you’re trying to hop into bed with him…he’s too smart to think that trying that would go over well with a lady like you.”
Max fought to keep her cheeks from heating up. She nodded behind the cocktail glass, in case she hadn’t quite succeeded. The last thing she needed was for her secretary to know that she had the hots for a man known to play the field. What she wouldn’t give, if she could stifle her inner voice of reason, to do just what Jen said and hop into bed with Ev! She had avoided thinking of her obsession in those terms, but there was the stark truth of it…she wanted to do some pretty unladylike things with Everett Morgan.
She knew she needed to say something that would hopefully end the conversation. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we? A girl can’t go out with a guy who doesn’t ask.”
She felt Jen’s eyes on her before she spoke. “The way you’ve been running yourself ragged, it’s a wonder you have time to spend with yourself, never mind with another human being. If I thought about it long enough, I’d suspect that you were running from something…or someone.”
Max and Jen had been friendly since Max worked in the hospital, so she knew a lot of her history. Although her secretary was younger than she was, Jen had had a lot of difficulty coming to terms with her feelings for the man she was now engaged to. She had literally run from him in an effort to protect herself, when it turned out she hadn’t needed to do that. Trust had been hard for her, because of her history of abuse, and yet here she was about to do the thing she had been running away from. Max supposed Jen knew enough to recognize the signs. Still, she wouldn’t admit to anything. Especially when she knew she was the one who had called a halt to anything between her and Ev.
She knew she had to call him. If only to say she didn’t want to go any further with him, she couldn’t just leave him hanging. It wasn’t in her nature to be so callous. But she also knew that when she did summon up the courage to call, it wouldn’t be to reject him finally. She wanted more with him, and maybe she needed to get over her innate fear of being made a fool of and let him in.
Now, though, she forced a laugh. “You have a vivid imagination,” she told Jen, “which I suppose is understandable since you’re a closet romantic.”
They all laughed at that, and thankfully the conversation was dropped. The talk turned to the weather. It had been a balmy winter so far, but the forecasters called for rapidly cooling temperatures over the next few days and perhaps a blizzard by the following weekend.
“I’m going to have to get groceries early. My cats are out of food, and I’m almost out myself. And it sounds like this will be a stay-at-home-and-snooze weekend.”
“See, now if you had a guy, it’d be a stay-at-home-and-cuddle weekend,” Jen teased.
Max chuckled. “Sadly, that is currently off the books. Not sure I can find a guy to cuddle with in seven days. I’m not Wonder Woman, you know.”
Jen gave her a mischievous look and opened her mouth to speak. Max cut her off with a grin. “Don’t even go there, Jennifer Bailey. I’m not cozying up to Everett Morgan just so I can have a cuddle buddy this weekend!”
“Did I say that?” Jen asked, all wide-eyed innocence. “I know you’d never do that just to have someone to cuddle this weekend alone!”
Max laughed. “You’re incorrigible! I’m fine. I’ve managed without cuddles so far. I can handle next weekend."
“Spoilsport!” Jen laughed with her.
By the time she got back home, Max had more or less decided she would call Ev at some point in the week, just to say hello. Even if she made no promises, she could be friendly. The decision having been made, she went to bed and prepared herself for the week ahead. The first two days were so busy she had little time to do more than sign reports and sit in meetings. Then she had a lull, though she met with the grant writer to go over the progress she was making. The full proposal was due by the end of the year, which was three weeks away. They spent a couple of hours fine-tuning what she had already done, and composing the final big piece. She needed data for that piece, and Max sent her to the people who could give her that and explain it better than she could.
After lunch on Wednesday, she sat quietly in her office looking out the window at the streets below. The temperatures had already begin to dip from the spring-like warmth of a week prior to wintry chills, and she watched as people hurried along, huddled against a stiffening breeze that made the air feel colder than it was. Her mind went back to the conversation she had had with Jen about cuddling and inevitably it went to Ev. She had not called him as yet, and now seemed as good a time as any to say hello.
She waited until the phone had rung ten times before hanging up, shelving her disappointment along with the seed of excitement that had sprouted when she had dialed his number. The rest of the day was a dull round of report reading and phone conversations. She did her best to attend to her work, but by the time she got home, she was in a funk. She fed the cats, and then remembered she hadn’t shopped for groceries as yet. She had already changed into sweats and a sweater, so she added a scarf, socks, and sneakers, pulled her jacket back on and left to get groceries.
The supermarket was almost empty, which she found rather surprising, but she was happy that she could wander the aisles freely. She picked up the things she needed, and added a bottle of wine and half gallon of ice cream to her purchases. Rounding the corner to head toward the cash register, she bumped into someone coming in the opposite direction. Looking up apologetically, she came face to face with Ev.
“Oh…sorry! I didn’t mean to…”
He stared at her for a long moment before saying, “No, it’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.” Then he looked away and went to step around her, and she knew she had to do something now.
“Ev…I called earlier today but you didn’t answer.”
His eyes flicked back up to hers, and he pulled his phone out to check it. “Did you leave a message?” he asked.
Her face heated. “No,” she admitted. She had been so disappointed that he hadn’t answered that she hadn’t even thought of leaving one. “I…I didn’t think.”
He said nothing for a second, just nodded. Then he asked, “Is everything okay?” and when she said yes, he turned and walked away.
What the hell had just happened? She paid for her groceries, and all the way home she tried to figure out whether the encounter in the store was a positive or a negative thing. It didn’t seem positive to her, given that he had walked off without saying anything to her, but he had asked if she was okay. Should she call him again? And what would she say? Why are you still mad at me? I called didn’t I? She was definitely not going to grovel, so that was out. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do.
At home, she took her groceries in, packed them away, and took out the bottle of wine she had just bought. Then she changed her mind before opening it, and helped herself to a large serving of black cherry ice cream instead, settling on the sofa to have her treat and contemplate the sadness of her life. She hadn’t had a breakup exactly, but that encounter in the supermarket had felt an awful lot like an ending to her. And an ending for something she hadn’t even allowed to grow into anything worthwhile.
Her cell phone buzzed and she picked it up. She had a missed call and a message. Settling the ice cream bowl on her lap, she pulled up the message and listened.
“Hi. It’s Ev. I’m not sure whether to be glad that you finally called or mad that you didn’t leave a message. So I’ll leave one instead. I miss you, Maxine. Call me back.”
Her hands were trembling as she made the call. He picked up on the second ring. “Hi Maxine.”
“Hello, Ev.”
“Thanks for calling. How are you?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’m not fine. I miss you. May I come over?”
Her mouth said “Yes” before her brain could ask “Why?” and he had hung up before she got around to voicing the question. Why was he coming over? Was he expecting something from her she wasn’t ready to give him, even if she wanted it? Why was she letting him come? Did she want to encourage his attentions? Was that fair to him if she was just going to say no at the end? But why wouldn’t it be fair? He played with women all the time and then discarded them, didn’t he? Why should he escape a taste of his own medicine?
She sat there so long in thought that she was startled when the melted ice cream in her lap fell to the floor as she scrambled off the couch to change into something else. Cursing, she got rid of the bowl, cleaned up the sticky mess and was just washing her hands when the doorbell rang. It was too late to change now, so she dried her hands and went to open the door.
“May I come in?”
“Yes.”
She stepped aside and Ev walked past her into the hallway, shrugging out of his bomber jacket. She took it from him, hanging it on the stand by the closet. Then she turned to walk away, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“If I can’t do what I’ve come to do, I can’t stay, Maxine,” he said. “I’ve spent this whole past week thinking about kissing you and more, and you didn’t call, so I assumed it was a no go. So now I need to know exactly what your call means for us.”
She looked at him standing in the dim light of her hallway, dressed casually in dark jeans, a cable knit white sweater and boots. Why had she called him? Did she want his kisses? Yes. Did she want more? Yes. Should she let him do all the things they both wanted? She hesitated.
“I called because I wanted to let you know that I…was also thinking about you,” she said.
“What?” he asked. “What have you been thinking about me?”
Max tried to look away, but he pulled her chin up. “Look at me, Maxine. Tell me what you’ve been thinking about me. You know what I’ve been thinking. I haven’t hidden it.”
“I’ve been thinking the same things that you have,” she said. “But I’m not sure we’re…”
He pulled her closer and slid his tongue over her bottom lip before pulling it away from her teeth with his. “Do you want to feel me here? Taking your mouth with mine? Tasting you?”
Jesus! She was going to go up in flames if he kept up the kisses he was pressing against her throat and behind her ears and down the column of her neck. “Yes!”
“Then kiss me back, baby, and we can talk about the buts after.”
She opened her mouth then, and he swept in, dueling with her tongue, finding every place he could to leave his mark, tasting her, teasing her, owning her mouth as he kissed her over and over, standing there in her hallway. Her body stirred wildly as he kissed her, and when he pulled her even closer, wrapping his arms around her, she went willingly, opening her legs so he could slide his thigh between them and anchor her to him. The drugging kisses went on and on, their muffled moans and sighs echoing in the space around them.
Finally, he let her up for more than a second of air, and led her into the living room, dropping down to the couch and pulling her down onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her again, and kissed the top of her head. She could feel the hardness of him everywhere, and the steel rod against her bottom was a clear indication of just how far gone he was.
“Don’t make me wait so long again before you call me, okay? Even if it’s just to say hello. Even if you’re scared of what’s happening between us. Even if you’re mad at me. Call me, okay? Always call me.”
She nodded, looking into his eyes. “Okay.”
He groaned and kissed her again, as though he needed to assure himself that she was actually there, in his lap, holding him. Finally, he released her lips again, and said,
“Maybe I need to get you off my lap for a spell so we can talk.”
Max felt the loss of his body heat the minute he slid her off to sit next to him on the sofa. Still, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“Okay, tell me what you aren’t sure about.”
She loved that he listened to her, even when he was drowning in desire. “Well, it’s not even been three weeks that we’ve known each other, and I’m not the kind of woman who jumps into bed with men on a whim.” She hesitated, and he looked her in the eye and said,
“Go on, tell me the rest.”
“I know I shouldn’t give credence to gossip, but based on your reported activities over the last year, you’ve had more than one or two bedmates. I’m not looking to become the newest notch on your bedpost.”
She held his gaze as she said that, and when he looked away, her heart sank. Was this going to be the end of something that hadn’t even had a chance to start between them?
Finally, he looked back at her, and then stood up and began to pace. “When Dani died, I felt like the whole world went dark,” he began. “For a whole year, I withdrew from the world, became a recluse, almost. But when the company started losing money, I had to get back in and work to bring it back to what it used to be. But I was still in deep mourning. It wasn’t until the end of the second year that I began to feel less like a zombie.”
He stopped pacing and sat down again, this time without touching her. “I went to a holiday party in early December that second year, and for the first time, I noticed a woman. She was breathtaking and I wanted her. That hadn’t happened in two years. I didn’t go home with her, because she was married to someone else. In fact, I didn’t do anything for a whole month after that. But desire was reawakening in me, and I made a conscious decision to go where it took me. Because I knew I was still empty. Dani wasn’t there, and she would never be again. And I had to fill the space.”
He sat forward, hanging his hands between his knees. “I made a decision to fill the void with women. They wanted what I had to offer so I gave it to them. They understood there would be no happily ever afters. They understood we were just playing. Entertaining each other for a night or two, scratching an itch. I never promised them permanence. I never promised them anything but a good time.”
He sighed and passed a hand over the hair at the back of his head. Max watched him, listening with a heavy heart, hating what he was telling her, but knowing it needed to be said. She felt sad for him, not able to imagine how broken he must have felt to lose the love of his life.
“Three months ago, something shifted. I don’t really know what, but suddenly, I was tired of the socializing and the sex. They weren’t helping. I still wanted more. It seemed like a waste of time and energy to go after something I knew wouldn’t solve the problem I had. And then I met you.”
Now he looked at her, his eyes dark and heavy with emotion. “I’m not saying I don’t want to sleep with you, Maxine, because I do. The way I feel right now, if you let me take you, I’d never let you out of my bed.”
He reached for her hand and held it, spreading the fingers. “But I like you, too. You’re funny, you’re smart, and you’re passionate about helping others. You’re interesting. I want to spend time with you out of bed as much as in it. You’re different from the other women I’ve had.”
Max heard the utter sincerity in his tone, and the wonder, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was telling her. She turned her hand so that their palms touched, and closed her fingers around his.
“Thank you for sharing that with me. I appreciate your honesty. So, what now?”
He took her palm, looking into her eyes as he brought it to his lips and kissed it, letting his tongue rest in the center of it. Max remembered the last time he had done that, and how she had shut him down. She knew this was him asking permission.
“Now I want to hold you in my arms and feel you breathe. I want to ask you how your week was. I want to invite you out dancing with me.”
Max smiled. “My week was long and slightly miserable.” When he looked at her with a raised brow, she chuckled softly and said “Okay, more than slightly. I don’t dance. And I wouldn’t mind cuddling, if that’s what will make you happy right now.”
She knew it was what would make her happy.