“I can’t understand paying ten dollars for a drink.”
“You keep raising the price,” I say, pointing at him, and he rolls his eyes.
“I saw how much you tipped in there.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Baristas deserve tips.”
“Five dollars on a ten-dollar order is egregious.”
I open my mouth to retort, but I catch something across the street and my jaw drops.
“Oh my God,” I say, grabbing his arm and pointing to the general store. “Look at that — that set of tables and chairs. I need to getthat. It would be perfect at the cabin. Think it would fit in your Jeep?”
“No,” he says, brushing my hand from his arm, then grabbing my wrist and pulling me in the other direction. “Come on.”
I want to argue with him about that furniture set. I didn’t even know it would be possible to get something like that in Low Pines. But we walk into the hardware store, and Liam is there to help us pick out and mix paint. Max is still cold toward him, but Liam doesn’t seem to notice, laughing and joking the entire time.
When we leave the hardware store, another man is coming in. He’s tall, with a mop of golden curls and an outfit that looks more like it belongs in San Francisco than in this town.
And he knows Max.
“Hey, Maxwell!” he says meaningfully, his gaze swinging between me and Max, who lets out a noise like he’d rather be anywhere else. I’m starting to realize that’s his approach to most situations.
“Hey,” Max says, trying to usher me to the truck. “We were just?—”
“Given any more thought to the?—”
Max cuts him off. “Oh, I didn’t introduce you! Warren, this is Lacey. Lacey, Warren.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking his hand. “I didn’t realize Max had friends.”
That makes Warren laugh, which makes me laugh, which makes Max scowl.
“That’s okay,” Warren says, sticking his hands in his pockets and giving me a conspiratorial look. “Pretty sure he doesn’t realize it, either.”
“Great. All right. Well, now you both know,” Max says, managing to get me back into the truck. As we pull away and drive past the general store again — and I catch another glimpse of the beautiful set outside — I can’t shake the feeling there’s something about Max that I’m missing.
The momentwe get back to the cabin, Max turns into a foreman. While we were in town, he talked to an electrician about coming in and taking a look at the wire when we finished with it, but now — with the power still turned off — he snips it back past where I nicked it and runs new wire, doing his best not to open up all the walls in order to get to it.
Mid-morning turns to afternoon turns to evening, and Max moves from one project to the next with a focused intensity. I do my best to keep up and insist more than once that he shows me how to do something rather than just doing it while I watch.
The last thing I want is for Max to do most of the work here. More than once, I catch myself staring at his arms, watching in awe at the strength he displays when lifting Jasper’s cobbled-together desk to move it to the other side of the room.
“This place has great bones,” Max says, shooting me a look, “other than the wiring you messed with. It really will be all aesthetic.”
“And some new appliances,” I add, still not understanding how Jasper didn’t think to install a washer and dryer up here. Hand-washing my laundry doesn’t even seem possible, let alone sanitary.
When we’ve already fixed some trim and completely cleaned out two of the rooms, including the cobwebs in the corner, Max starts to answer some of my questions and prompts for conversation, telling me about when Jasper showed up and how Max helped set him up with a plumber and electrician. While Jasper knew enough from his years of construction work, he still needed approval from officials.
Max admits that this is the first time he’s really seen the place.
“You should have just come up,” I say, as we work together to paint the study, washing the walls in a beige I think will be good for renters. Our hands brush when we reach for more paint, and I ignore the sparks it sends skittering up my arm. “Jasperlovedcompany.”
Max shrugs. “Didn’t figure he did. You don’t move to the mountains for the party scene.”
After that, I open up to him about Jasper, telling him about what it was like to grow up the way I did. Maybe it’s just how quiet Max is, or he’s actually a good listener, but I find myself telling him more and more about myself. About my job and the promotion I’ve been going for.
“Seriously?” I blurt when he tells me he’s never played a video game before. “Never?”
