The waitress came by and Sam ordered a Diet Pepsi. “So, thank you for meeting me for lunch. I only see you when everyone is around and it’s hard to really talk, you know?”
“Yeah, thanks for inviting me.”
Samantha rested her hands on the table. “I just wanted to get to know you. I mean, if we’re going to be family now, we may as well be friends, right?”
“Family?” I asked, my eyebrows arching.
She laughed. “I was just kidding. You know, the whole engagement thing from yesterday. I’m sorry about Brielle’s outburst, by the way. I don’t know what she was even doing. John ripped her apart when you left.”
I sipped my drink and tried to figure out how to navigate the conversation. “Well, he didn’t have to do that on my behalf. It just sort of caught me off guard.”
“So, you and Max aren’t engaged? Has he even asked?”
I felt like a loaded question. “We’ve discussed it,” I replied, trying to mask my uneasiness with the topic. “It’s just one of those things, you know?”
“I can only imagine. Max has always been such a family guy. He told me once he wanted to have five kids,” she laughed. “I hope you’re ready for a houseful.”
Thankfully, the waitress showed up and saved me from coming up with a reply. We placed our orders and the waitress picked her way through the tables back to the kitchen.
Sam swirled her straw around her drink, watching one of the televisions overhead.
“It’s been such a long day already,” she sighed. “We had one of the places we’re working for call in first thing. The guy demanded to talk to Cane. Something about getting a tip that the asphalt we put down on a job wasn’t the correct thickness or something. I could hear Cane and Max yelling in the conference room and then they tore outof the office.” She laughed. “Not that that’s weird behavior from Cane, but I normally don’t see Max that upset about anything.”
“Max stays pretty level-headed,” I agreed, slightly annoyed about her presumption that she knew my man’s habits. “I hope things are alright. I know he’s been worried about the bid he’s working on and then about Dan.”
“That Dan guy is crazy! He called in again today, shouting at me and demanding to talk to Cane. He’s a lunatic.”
“Max said he seems to have gone off the deep end a little,” I shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll work out. Max has a way with people.”
She smiled. “He does. Everyone loves Max.” She swirled the straw around in her drink again. “And he lovesyou.”
“Well,” I said, not sure how to respond. “I hope so. I think a lot of him.”
“How could you not?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “He’s pretty perfect.”
I gauged her closely, trying to determine if I should mark my territory. “He is. That’s why I decided to move in with him.”
“You know I was kidding the other night about moving in with him, right? I didn’t think anything of it until Brielle pointed it out when we left the bar.”
“No worries. But, speaking of Brielle, any ideas as to why she doesn’t seem to like me very much?”
“Don’t worry about Bri. She’s just really overprotective when it comes to Max. She’ll come around.”
“I hope. The closer Max and I get, the more she seems to dislike me.”
The waitress sat our plates in front of us and asked if we needed anything else. The food looked great and smelled even better. She dropped the check off on the end of our table and dashed off to wait on someone else.
“Bri’s just a lot to handle sometimes.” Sam picked up a french fry and popped it in her mouth. “She wants to rent a house together, but I don’t think I want to do that.”
“Did you ever find anything?” I asked, spearing some lettuce with my fork.
“Nope. It’s hard finding something that doesn’t cost a fortune.”
I took a deep breath and considered that I should talk to Max before I said what I was thinking. After mulling it over for a whole two seconds, I decided to go for it. It was a very nice olive branch, not to mention that it would help me out financially. “Since I’m living with Max now, I don’t need my house. Would you want to rent it?”
Sam’s eyes grew wide and a smile formed to match. “Really? If you could work with my budget—damn, how I despise that word!—I’d love to.”
“It’s a good sized place with three bedrooms and two baths. There’s a pool out back, too.”
