Cade
For the second time in this apartment, I had a very awkward problem at a very inappropriate time.
If given the choice between facing Max’s parents like this and jumping into an active volcano, I would have to make a serious pros and cons list.
I took a few seconds to focus, even though I knew a few seconds would never be enough to get the sight of Max out of my head. She was exquisite, and my self-control was a thin line at the moment. Even now, I was fighting the urge to go back in there and kiss her, which was not helping me fight the other problem I had going on.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, adjusted myself as best I could, and walked down the hall into the living room.
Please God don’t let Max’s mother try to hug me.
Max’s mother gave a shrill squeal when she saw me. “Cade! I didn’t know you were here.”
She was wrestling a turkey out of a cooler, and left it to come toward me for what I could only assume was a hug.
I moved like she was one of the Philadelphia Eagles coming in for a tackle, and darted around her.
“Here, let me get that for you!” I bolted for the turkey in the cooler, and used that as my excuse. I stepped right up to the counter, thankful for the cover that it gave me. When she didn’t call me on it, I breathed a sigh of relief and started trying to free the poultry.
The turkey was squishy and smelled like, well, raw meat. It helped diffuse my issue a little bit.
It was a big bird, and it was a tight fit in the cooler.
Tight fit.
Don’t go there, brain. You were doing so good.
I said the alphabet in my head to distract me as I pried the turkey free. It took a few minutes, but I was almost completely under control by the time I got the bird loose.
“Where do you want it, Mrs. M?”
Mick had just finished piling the last of their things on the kitchen table. It looked like they had brought a whole apartment with them. She grabbed a lar as quickly as possible,
“Right in here, if you please.”
I did as she asked, then rinsed my hands in the sink.
I still had my coat and scarf on. Time to tell the truth and hope I could sell it. “Mackenzie overslept.” I figured throwing out Max’s real name might help, considering their refusal to call her by her nickname. “I actually just got here a few minutes before you guys.” I unhooked my scarf from my neck, hoping it would lend credence to my story. “She was working late last night, and must have worn herself out.”
Don’t go there either, brain. Focus.
I slipped off my coat, too, and then realized I had no idea where to put it. Did Max have a coat closet? Her parents weren’t wearing theirs. Where had they put them? Our whole story was going to come tumbling down because I didn’t know where to hang my coat. There were two doors that could be closets. Or they could be bathrooms or laundry rooms or who knows what.
“So, Mackenzie is getting dressed now?” Her mother’s brow furrowed, and I imagined her thinking the things Max had been afraid of.
“I think she might be taking a shower, actually. I told her not to worry about it, but I think she wants to look nice for you guys.”
Hopefully she wouldn’t come out in sweatpants or something.
“Do you think she wants to take pictures?” Mrs. Miller’s eyes lit up like Christmas had come early. Ah, well, that seemed to distract her pretty well.
“I think so. It is our first Thanksgiving together, after all. I think it’s something we should commemorate.”
I took a chance and opened one of the doors in the living room. BINGO! Coat closet. Day = saved.
I was sliding my coat on a hanger when Mrs. M attacked me from behind. Her arms went around my middle and squeezed so hard, I thought she was trying to give me the Heimlich.
“I am just so happy you came into Mackenzie’s life. Even after only a few weeks, you’ve had such a wonderful influence on her. She never lets me take pictures of her.”
Well, damn.
Max was going to be furious.
I smiled and said, “Oh, I don’t think I’ve changed her. She was amazing before me, and is amazing now.”
“Mick? Are you listening to this wonderful boy? You could afford to take some lessons from him!”
Mick heaved himself up off the couch and came into the kitchen. “You’re making the rest of us look bad, son.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Mrs. M swatted her husband on the arm.
“Don’t you dare listen to him, Cade.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I sighed. I had a feeling this would be happening a lot today.
I watched Mrs. M putter around the kitchen. I offered to help a few times, but she always waved me off. When she wasn’t cooking, she was decorating Max’s empty apartment. She’d brought throw pillows and afghans and picture frames. I was beginning to understand that Max was the complete opposite of her parents . . . probably because she fingernails scrape screamowlmywanted to be the complete opposite of her parents.
“Where are you from, Cade?”
“Texas, ma’am.”
“Oh, where at? We live in Oklahoma!”
“I grew up in Fort Worth.”
“And your parents are still there?”
I fidgeted, scratching at the back of my neck.
“My grandmother, actually. My mother died, and my dad isn’t really in the picture.”
She stopped, her hand still shoved up inside the turkey, and looked at me.
“Oh, honey. Bless your heart.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I was young. I don’t really even remember her. Besides, I have my grandmother. That’s enough.”
She used her turkey-free hand to gesture me closer. “Come here.”
I took a few steps, and she kept waving me closer until I was right beside her. Then with one hand still intimately exploring the inside of a turkey, she wrapped her other arm around me in a hug.
She said, “It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember your mother. I’m still so sorry for the things you had to face. It must have been difficult.”
It was weird, but the awkward turkey hug did make me feel better. I got why Max was so weird about her parents, but I would have given anything to have parents that would show up unannounced and intrude upon my life. Grams was too old to do anything like that, though I’m sure she would if she could.
“Um . . . what is happening right now?”
Mrs. M released me and I stepped away from her and the turkey. Max stood at the end of the hallway. I guess she decided against the shower. Her choppy red hair was styled calmer than I had ever seen it. She was wearing a turtleneck sweater that covered her multitude of tattoos. She was wearing less makeup, too. She looked like herself, still, but at maybe 25 percent of her normal vibrancy.
I missed the real her.
“Oh, nothing, dear,” Max’s mom said. “Cade just told me about his parents.”
“Right. His parents,” Max said. She shot me a wide-eyed look.
So, I changed the subject. “Mrs. Miller, tell me what Max was like as a child.”
Max groaned. Her mother practically cheered.
“I just happen to have baby pictures with me! I keep a photo album with me at all times.” Max stalked into the kitchen and threw herself down on the stool beside me.
“Yay. Baby pictures. What a great idea, sweetheart.” She laced her fingers with mine, and then lightly dug her fingernails into the back of my hand in warning. All I could think about was what it would feel like to have her fingernails dig into my skin under different circumstances.
I pulled her hand up to my mouth, and kissed the back. Her eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath. I smiled evilly and said, “Oh, honey, you can’t blame me for wanting to see your baby pictures.”
While her mother was distracted in the living room finding the album, Max leaned into my ear and said, “You bet your ass I c fingernails scrapeing himm,an blame you. You’re not funny, Golden Boy.”
“Really? I thought it was hysterical.”
“Later, when we’re alone—”
“—I like the sound of that.”
She laughed loudly in the direction of the living room, totally fake, and then turned on me. “Don’t think I won’t murder you, pretty boy.”
“So, I was golden and now I’m pretty?”
She took another deep inhale, and I imagined she was counting to keep her anger under control. I liked her like this. With her cheeks pink and her eyes sparkling, she looked like herself despite the major style change.
“I can’t help it. It’s just so much fun to get you riled up.”
“You really want to play that game?”
“Here we go!” Her mother flitted into the room and slid the album in front of us.
The first picture was of the day they brought Max home from the hospital. The nursery was a mishmash of different pinks and had MACKENZIE painted across one wall. Max looked like most babies—small with a pink, pinched face, and no hair. Mrs. Miller had fluffy, curled bangs and looked like something out of I Love the ’80s.
“Mrs. Miller, I have to say, you don’t look a day older now than you did then.”
She giggled, and swatted me on the shoulder. “Oh, stop.”
Max untangled her hand from mine and said under her breath, “Really, please stop.”
Max took control of the album and flipped through the book quickly, giving me barely any time to look at the pictures, but one thing was obvious. Max’s parents never let her be herself when she was younger. They dressed her in pink, frilly things that you could tell she didn’t like. Her hair was blond and always curled in perfect ringlets.
I leaned into her ear and whispered, “You’re naturally blond? It’s getting easier every minute to picture you in that cheer uniform.” If looks could take physical form, the one she gave me would have been a bitch slap.
She looked picture-perfect in every photo. Like a Barbie doll, and her smile in each was just as plastic. She was beautiful, but sad. She flipped the page, and I was treated to the real Cheerleader Max mid toe-touch.
“And now I no longer have to picture it.”
Her glare stayed firmly in place, but her lips curled up at the end slightly.
“Did you play sports?” Mrs. Miller asked me.
“I did, yes. Football and basketball.”
Max paused in turning the page and said, “Really?”
“I did grow up in Texas. Plus, I was good at it.”
She laughed. “Of course you were.”
“I bet you were a great cheerleader.”
“Great? Not really. Nearly homicidal? Sure.”
I got to see her in a bubblegum pink prom dress and graduation robes. We were approaching the end of the book, and I kept waiting for a more recent picture of her with her new, non-Barbie look. To actuheal sex had bee