“Never,” he says, giving me an amused look.
I shake my head, turning back to the wall and rolling more paint over it. “I don’t know how you went through the entire process of being a teenage boy without playing a single video game. It’s like… unfathomable to me.”
“My foster parents didn’t even have a TV,” he says, and I try not to let my surprise at this admission show.Foster parents. I always knew our situation was hard, with just me, mom, and Jasper, but I know foster kids have to deal with a whole different can of worms.
I don’t push for more information, and Max doesn’t offer more. When we’re finished with the first coat, I offer him a cold can of soup for dinner.
Astounded, he turns it over in his hand, raising his eyes to me. “This is all you have?”
“Someone has been a real asshole about me going to the general store,” I say, crossing my arms and giving him a look. “So, yeah, all I have is the stuff in the pantry. Besides, it’s not like I know how to cook, anyway. Though warm soup would be nice.”
Max eyes me for a moment, then reaches over, fiddling with the wood stove. “Warm soup tonight,” he says, his back to me. “Tomorrow, you’re coming to my place for dinner.”
My cheeks flush, even though this obviously isn’t him asking me on a date. Like with everything else, he’s probably worried that I can’t take care of myself. That I’m going to starve or get scurvy without him making something for me.
“Okay,” I agree, hating how breathy my voice comes out.
My mom would probably say Max is way too handsome to even consider dating. She has a very specific set of qualificationswhen looking for a man, and says that when they’re too good-looking, it goes to their heads.
“A man needs to unequivocallyknow that he’s lucky to be with you,” she said to me once, twirling her wine in her glass. “Not thinking that he could do better.”
Thinking of her reminds me that we haven’t had our daily calls, and there’s a lot to tell her. I make a note to call her the next time we go back to town, and to ask Max about what I can do to get internet here.
“Soup’s ready,” he says, turning to me with the food in bowls, nodding his head toward the porch. There’s no dining table in here to sit at, so we instead balance the bowls on our laps, eating together in companionable silence on the porch.
Not for the first time, I think I really get why Jasper loved coming up here so much.
CHAPTER 10
MAX
Warren is going to be pissed off, but I don’t care.
I bump up the road toward Lacey’s place, the furniture in the back of the Jeep carefully strapped down. I had to take the top off to make everything fit, and the cool morning air filters past the windows.
For the past week, Lacey and I have been steadily working through everything on her list.
Although I told her to come down for dinner at my place, we’ve always worked too late to make it happen. Still, each night before bed and in the mornings before coming up here, I’ve been working on the aspen pieces.
And, instead of giving them to Warren to sell, I’m going to give them to Lacey.
She’s on the front porch when I rumble up the driveway, and I see her set her laptop to the side, sitting up and watching me come to a stop, her eyes darting to the stuff in the back. Although she hasn’t made it to my place for dinner yet, I did make sure to take her to the general store so she could stock up her fridge.
If I’m honest, I thought she might have brought a bunch of fancy organic groceries with her when she drove up here. Or maybe I’d thought she would order something special into town. I wasn’t expecting her to be eating Jasper’s knock-off soup, cold, from the can.
The more time we spend together, the more I learn about her. And maybe my first assessment — that she was nothing but a rich, entitled airhead — was off the mark. Lacey grew up poor, like me, at least before her mom’s career took off. So, Lacey knows what it’s like to eat a ninety-nine-cent pot pie from the microwave for dinner.
Luckily, when we went to the general store, Warren was too occupied with a pair of tourists — who were, coincidentally, looking at some of my stuff — to harass me about the competition.
“Max!” Lacey calls, coming down the porch as I swing out of the Jeep, unhooking the straps and starting to unload the furniture. “What’s all this?”
“Chairs,” I say, a little too gruffly, not looking forward to the moment where she asks where I got them.
When she gets closer, she gasps, bringing her hand to her mouth and running the other over the top of one of the chairs. “Max, these are gorgeous. Did you get them from the general store?Whois making these?”
I ignore her. “I’ll take them into the dining room.”
She picks up a chair and follows me inside, and we nestle them in the newly painted dining room, underneath the gold chandelier that we wired up and hung last night.
