Chapter 15
Daisy
The last forty minutes blurred into a fog until Max helped me into his truck. A haze of sad looks, understanding hugs, and offers of support—all of which I was grateful for, but nothing that surmounted the brief but memorable exchange Max had with his brother.
“What did Nox mean?” I asked as we drove down the long drive, the light rain tapping the windshield like sharp fingernails on the top of a desk, waiting for his answer too.
Max didn’t tense. Hewastense since the moment he’d started the engine. He knew this was coming. He knew I wouldn’t just let it go.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s just dealing with some stuff that happened before he went to Italy, and he projects onto others,” Max offered, and while it explained some, it didn’t answer my question.
“I meant, why did he ask if you were moving back out of your dad’s? Is that where you’re living?”Was it really any of my business?Last week, I would’ve convinced myself no, but now…now, he was my husband. Whatever the reason and for however long, we’d sworn for better or for worse, and if there was a wayI could be there for him in even a fraction of the way he’d been there for me over the last month, I was going to take it.
“Daisy—”
“I won’t judge you, Max. How can I judge you? My life is in shambles. I was stood up on my wedding day, my first one, and now I’m living out of your apartment?—”
“Yes, it’s where I’m living right now,” he interrupted, and I cut off my self-deprecating ramble because he was answering me. “And no, I’m not worried about you judging me, Daze.”
“Why didn’t you just stay at your house until it sells?” Something wasn’t adding up, but when I looked to Max, the only thing I could see was the catch of the moonlight on the hard planes of his profile.
“It was easier,” he grunted. “House stays nice for showings. Honestly, I thought it would sell faster, so it seemed easier to move out when I had the opportunity and not have to worry about it later.”
I let those words sink into my head. Maybe I should let them be the end of the conversation. I had my answer. I had an answer I was comfortable with. But I knew Max well enough to know when he was giving me enough of the truth to satisfy me yet spare me at the same time.
“So you left your own home to move back in with your dad?” When he didn’t answer right away, I continued, “Why is Nox upset about that?”
“He’s not. He just wants to give me a hard time.”
“Because of me,” I finished what I knew he wouldn’t say. “Because you’re helping me.”
“No, that’s not?—”
“Then tell me what it is, if it’s not that, because that’s the only thing that makes sense.” His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he turned onto the highway toward Stonebar. “He’supset you’re helping me…upset you married me to help me. It’s okay.”
“Dammit, Daze. That’s not the reason.” Max huffed and pried one hand off the steering wheel to run through his hair.
“Then tell me what it is. Stop treating me like I’m too fragile to handle the truth.”
“Fine,” he growled. “Nox is giving me a hard time because I was staying in the apartment before moving back in with Dad.”
His answer hit like a wrecking ball.
“The apartment…you mean the apartment you’re renting to me? The one you told me no one was using?” Shock and anger surged inside me like fire and ice.
“Well, I wasn’t really using it. I was only there temporarily.” Max slowed the truck and cranked the wipers up to full blast, but I wasn’t seeing the storm.
I was seeing the boxes of clothes. All his things he’d cleaned out the following day, insisting he’d been using the space as an office.How had I not realized?
Because no matter how deep Max planted himself in my life, there were whole chunks of his that he kept hidden from me.
I lifted my hand to my throat, feeling the drum of my pulse along my fingers and the way it matched the incessant batter of the rain on the windshield.
“Max, you werelivingin it. I think that’s the definition of using it,” I said, my voice strangled between the urge to laugh and the overwhelming tide to cry.
Max didn’t move back home because he was selling his house. He moved back home in order to give me the apartment. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d gone and married me so I could have good health insurance.No wonder Nox was annoyed.
“Fine, I was using it, and when you needed a place, I decided I didn’t need to use it anymore.” He shrugged it off like he’d loaned me a pen and not his own living space.
