Chapter Twenty-Six
Liam chuckled as he pulled a frozen burrito out of the break room microwave and carried it to the table, sitting down across from Max. “You should have seen him, Max. Ava was standing there pointing at different spots on the tree, and poor Jamie was hanging the ornaments wherever she directed. Then she’d tap her lip, study it, and make him move it. I could tell he wanted to chuck the whole box in the garbage. He’d glare at me while I tried not to bust out laughing, and then he’d move the damn thing.”
Max grinned, crumpled up his fast food wrapper and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “You should have seen him the other day when she pointed at the tree she wanted him to cut down. He looked at me like, is she kidding? The thing was two feet taller than our ceilings.”
“Did you laugh?”
“The man was holding a chainsaw. What do you think?”
Liam almost snorted his bite of burrito out his nose. He grabbed a napkin and wiped his face as he choked it down. Then his watery eyes moved over Max who was staring blankly at the tabletop instead of making a crack about it like he usually would. And the reason was obvious. His brother was still struggling with his breakup with Malee. It had been weeks now. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Have you talked to her?”
That brought Max’s eyes up. “No, I haven’t talked to her. That’s done. I’m over it.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Liam, quit.”
“It may be done, but you ain’t over shit, Max. Sweet, beautiful girls like her—ones you feel you have a real connection with—they don’t come along every day.”
“No, they don’t. But ending it wasn’t my choice.”
“You sure about that?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I asked her to marry me, Liam. She chose her family instead. End of story.”
“I’m just sayin’, you could’ve pushed harder.”
“You don’t know fucking shit about it, so keep your opinion to yourself, okay?” Max stood, crushed the can, and flung it in the waste can before heading back up to his station.
Liam watched his brother’s retreating back. He wished there was some way he could help him get over this. So far, nothing had worked. They’d tried talking to him, getting him drunk, even tried getting him laid. None of it had worked; their brother wanted no part of it.
Liam let out a huff and pushed his plate away. If Max continued to be the bear he was being, Christmas was going to suck this year.
***
Max walked out of the break room and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the comments his brother had made. He knew his brothers meant well with their attempts to help him, but he just wanted to be left alone.
Halfway across the room, he saw her.
Malee.
She was standing in the lobby, her eyes searching the shop for him. It stopped him dead in his tracks. Stiff and taut, he stood for a moment, watching her.
He knew the exact moment she saw him, too. She froze, looking right at him, their eyes meeting across the space.
Confused, he hesitated, waiting. Why are you here? he wanted to demand as he stared back at her across the few feet that separated them. But he didn’t say a word.
She began to walk toward him.
His legs finally remembered how to walk, and he moved, ignoring her approach as he headed to his station. He’d be damned if he’d even acknowledge she was there.
His name on her lips stopped him abruptly. She rarely spoke. He stood stiffly, caught between his chair and Rory’s.
“Max.”
Her voice was closer this time.
He turned his head. She was standing right beside his chair now, so close he could smell that honeysuckle scent of hers, could have reached out and touched her, could have laid his fingers over the pulse beating in her throat and felt her breath as she dragged it into her lungs.
They looked at one another.
He tried not to show any emotion, to keep his face like a stone.
She took another tentative step closer.
His eyes flicked to her décolletage. The silver heart pendant he’d given her still hung around her neck, the engraved words I Love You taunting him. Why did she still wear it?
What are you doing here, he signed at last. Isn’t this place off limits to you? His gestures were choppy and his stance unfriendly and distant. He was as rude as he could make himself be. Why were her eyes so wide, so imploring?
“I wanted to ask you something.”
What?
She looked over his shoulder and pointed. He twisted to look. The damn drawing she’d given him. It was taped to the wall by his station. He’d never taken it down. Now he wished he had. He hated that she saw he still kept it, like it meant something to him, like she still had a hold on him. She did, but he didn’t need to advertise the fact. The drawing had always brightened his day. Now it’s telling presence pissed him off.
You want it back? Here. He yanked it down and held it out to her, deliberately cold, as he tried to harden his heart.
She shook her head. “I don’t want it back.”
Then what?
“I want you to tattoo that on me.”
He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d grown two heads. What?
“It’s my symbol.”
And then it dawned on him, and his eyes flicked toward the window and her shop across the street. He’d seen a company installing a sign above the storefront the other day—Designs by Malee, with her hummingbird next to the company name.
He shoved the paper back at her. Find someone else to do it. I can’t.
“Please, Max. I want you to do it. It has to be you.”
Why?
“Because you’re the one who made this all possible.” When he hesitated, she pushed. “Please. I could come back whenever you have time.”
He glanced over and saw Liam—who’d returned to his own station—give him a look. Maybe it was because he’d just spent his break trying to convince his brother that he was over her. And maybe he needed to prove that to himself. So he gestured to his chair. But he couldn’t help asking one question. You sure you really want this? You won’t be sorry tomorrow?
“You told me all those times we were together that you believed in me. You made me believe in myself. And now my art is selling, and I have a shop. This tattoo represents all that. No, Max, I won’t be sorry.”
He searched her eyes a long moment, then nodded curtly, determined not to let the effect her words had on him show. Fine. You want it done, then we do it right now. I’ve got another appointment in a few hours, and I’m booked up all week.
It took a while for him to draw up a stencil, but soon she was in his chair, her skin cleaned and he was doing the transfer. She wanted it on her shoulder. When he got it in place, he handed her a mirror so she could check the placement.
***
Good?
Malee nodded at Max’s short question, and he grabbed the mirror out of her hands. She tried not to let his abruptness hurt her feelings, but it did. And deep down a part of her knew she deserved it.
He positioned her and pulled his rolling tray over. While he fiddled with his equipment and inks, she glanced across the aisle to Liam. He met her eyes briefly, but didn’t smile at her. She supposed they all hated her now. She’d hurt their brother. Naturally, they would rally around him.
The only one who had smiled at her had been the girl at the reception counter, but she was not the one Malee had been introduced to the night of the concert. She was not his sister-in-law, Ava. Perhaps this girl had been hired to fill in. Ava must be due soon. Perhaps she’d already had the baby.
Malee’s eyes drifted to Max’s bent head, and she wondered what other changes had occurred in his life since she’d last seen him. Somehow the thought that she’d missed out on pieces of his life, no matter how small, twisted the knife in the wound she already carried.
He glanced up and signed, Ready?
She nodded, and he reached down and flipped on the machine.
He laid one hand on her skin and warmth flooded through her body at just that simple touch. Then he brought the hand with the tattoo machine up and the needle to her skin. She felt it prick and then the vibration as the needle moved. She couldn’t hear the buzz of the machine, but she noticed a million other things, like the smell of the ink and the cleanser he’d used on her, the cold of the vinyl under her, and the heat of his body as he leaned over her.
For a moment, she watched the needle bounce and his other black-gloved hand wipe the excess ink away with a cloth, before she had to turn her head away.
***
Max might have been halfway through the design when it really began to hit him exactly what he was doing. He was laying ink on the woman he loved.
She had come to him. The thought shook him.
Maybe it was just about the tattoo. Maybe it was nothing more. He better not dare let himself think it was anything more.
Still, somehow knowing his ink would live on her skin all the days of her life did something to him. It touched him deep down in a part he’d thought he’d locked away.
He took his time. He wanted to do it right. He wanted it to be some of his best work. He meant to make sure she didn’t have any regrets for this day. He only had a few hours with her, to be near her, to touch her.
And if this was no more than a tattoo, at least she’d have it to remember him by.
***
Business continued around them, customers coming and going. Malee was conscious of none of it as Max worked except his body so close beside her. She didn’t dare look at him more than once or twice; she’d give her feelings away if she did.
When she did dare glance at his eyes that were intent on his work, a hot rush of sweet pain shot through her. And when her eyes would drop to his gloved hands with his long agile fingers and pronounced knuckles, she remember how she had caressed them, kissed them in the darkness those nights in his truck and at the gym.
Her eyes moved over his head; he was letting the shaved hair grow out and she longed to run her hands over it, to see if it was as soft as she imagined. Her gaze traveled down along the beard that still framed his strong jaw and beautiful mouth. How many times had those lips been on her skin?
He glanced up, his eyes dropping to her lips as if he’d read her mind. When his gaze dropped, she felt bereft. Perhaps she was wrong to come, wrong to ask him to do this for her. Was she just torturing herself, torturing them both with things they couldn’t have?
Time passed and eventually he shut off his machine, wiping the design clean one final time. Then he set the items down and held up the mirror. She met his eyes. Was that nervousness she saw? Was he worried she wouldn’t like his work?
Her gaze dropped to the reflection, and it took her breath. Her face lit up with her excitement. She loved it. Just like she knew she would.
She looked at Max. His eyes were on the design, but when he lifted his gaze to hers and saw her happiness, he couldn’t stop the responding smile that gave her a flash of his white teeth. Oh, how she had missed that smile. It changed his entire dark face, and the effect that had on her was powerful. She tore her gaze away, shivering a little, and whispered, “It’s beautiful.”
A few minutes later as she was leaving, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. When she looked at him, he signed one phrase and then turned back to clean up his workstation.
Congratulations on your shop, Malee. I wish you all the best. Really.