Max sucks in a breath that’s audible even over the phone. “You don’t replace someone who’s irreplaceable. That’s not what I’m trying to do, and I hate that I’ve given you that impression.”
Only for the past decade. “So then what are you doing marrying all these women?”
“I guess...I’m chasing thefeelingI had when I was with her. Being with your mom was almost addicting. I felt like the best version of myself when I was with her.”
That’s hard to hear, because that’sexactlyhow I feel about Morgan. Being with her is addicting, not just because I can never get enough of her, but because we bring out the best in each other.
“Then maybe you should try to find someone who makes you feel the way she did, not someone who just looks like her? Because I gotta be honest, Max. That part is creepy as hell.”
He lets out a low rumble of laughter. “I think in my heart of hearts, I know no one else will ever make me feel the way she did. So I settle for someone who looks like her.”
Meanwhile, I found someone whoeverythingfelt right with. Nothing about being with Morgan felt like settling.
“Does some part of you settle because in the back of your mind you’re afraid of really falling for someone else again? Of how much it could hurt if things don’t work out, or if they leave?”
“That’s an oddly specific question,” Max says. “You want to tell me why you’re asking?”
“Answer me first, and then, yeah.”
“I don’t think it’s that I’m worried about getting hurt, so much as it’s that I’ve accepted I’ll never get to feel that way about someone again. So I settle for less, because let’s be honest, being alone at my age is a pretty bleak prospect.”
I never thought about it like that. Max chose to move down to Miami once I was out of college and playing in the NHL, and I assumed it was purely job related. But maybe he wanted to escape the memories of what he had with my mom and the places where those memories existed. Maybe what he needed was a fresh start.
I don’t want a fresh start, though. I want Morgan, and I want to stay in Boston. That much is now crystal clear.
“That’s depressing as hell, Max,” I say.
“Welcome to getting old without a partner.”
“Knowing what you know now, would you do it differently, if you could go back? Would you still marry my mom, even if you knew how it was going to end?”
“Hell yes I would! There’s no world in which I’d give up those years with her; no world in which that time would have been better spent alone, rather than with her and you.” He says it like it’s a warning, and maybe it is. Maybe, like Liam said, the heartache at the end is worth it because of the years you got to spend together. And there’s no guarantee I’d lose Morgan. Am I pushing her away when we could have forever together?
I’m so lost in thought as I drive up Beacon Street into Brookline that I don’t say anything in response.
“So, you going to tell me what’s going on?” Max asks.
I start at the beginning, and tell him about Bermuda, and about finding out we worked together and Carson warning me to stay away from his daughter. I describe how she tried to keep me at a distance, but how I wouldn’t let her. I tell him about my friends with benefits suggestion, and how every minute I spent with her made me crave her company even more. I tell him how the relationship morphed from something that was supposed to be purely physical, to something that I didn’t think I could live without. And then I tell him about Marissa Walsh, and how it brought back everything that happened with Hayley, right before Morgan told me how she felt. “And now, she’s dating someone else to try to get over me.”
Max chuckles quietly. “I should have known, actually, based on how protective you were of her when we were at dinner in Boston. I’ve never seen you like that with anyone. Not even Hayley. And you took her to Ember Cove? Introduced her to Liam? Did you really believe that you didn’t have feelings for her?”
“I suppose I believed it in the way you believe any lie you tell yourself to save yourself from getting hurt.”
“How’s that working out now, Danny? Does itnot hurtwatching her date someone else? Thinking of her finding love with someone who’s not you? Have you protected yourself, or caused yourself pain in this situation?”
I let out a long, loud exhale in response to his rhetorical questions. Obviously, I did this to myself.
“You’re a damn fool if you let her walk right into some other guy’s arms because she wants you and doesn’t think you want her back,” Max says.
“That’s the thing, though,” I say as I pull into a parking spot along the curb on a quiet side street, in front of a large brick house with a small but manicured front yard. “SheknowsI have feelings for her.”
“How could she not, after everything you just told me? And at the same time, you keep telling her you don’t. How do you thinkshefeels? You’re probably confusing the hell out of her and breaking her heart in the process.”
I rest my head on the headrest and close my eyes. “Yeah. I don’t know how to make this right. I would never want her to sacrifice her career for me and don’t think I should do that for her, either.”
“For someone who seems to have had no trouble slipping into that gray area with your stepsister, you seem completely unable to think about her and your career as anything but black and white. Why does it have to be one or the other? Do you really think Carson would try to sabotage your career because you’rein lovewith his daughter?”
“I’m about to find out.”
