Max stood taller at that, shoving his hands in his pockets once more.
“What’s your girlfriend like?” Bo couldn’t help herself. She had to know. She’d torture herself later otherwise.
Max smiled, and it was a soft smile, full of affection. It made Bo wince inside to see him so happy with someone else. “She’s great. She drives me crazy eighty per cent of the time, but it’s a good crazy.”
“And the other twenty per cent?”
Max smiled again, and it was that same soft, loving smile. Bo thought she might vomit into her gerberas. “The other twenty per cent of the time she makes me so happy I could sing with it.”
“You don’t sing,” Bo returned, looking down to her flowers so that Max wouldn’t see the hurt passing over her face.
“You’re right. Actually, she makes me so happy I’ve been writing music again.” He paused, looking at her intently. “Lotsof music.”
Bo swallowed. So, the Jacobien Concertoreally was Max’s way of saying goodbye to her, his way of finally letting her go.
“And you love her?” she asked quietly.
Max took a step towards her. “Yes. With all my heart. Not that I’m any good at telling her that. Maybe if I was . . .”
“Yes?”
Max took another step towards her. “Maybe if I was, I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t need these.” He nodded to the bouquet of flowers Bo was tying a ribbon around with shaky fingers.
Bo nodded. She chewed on her lip as she finished up Max’s bouquet, wrapping tissue paper around the flowers carefully.
“I don’t want any money for them,” she said as she handed the bouquet to Max. “But you can give them to your girlfriend with my blessing, okay?” She took a deep breath. “We’re okay, Max. Everything that happened between us . . . we’re okay, right? I’m okay.”
Max seemed to think for a moment. “I wrote this piece of music recently,” he began slowly. “Because I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay at all. I called it the—”
“The Jacobien Concerto,” Bo finished for him, and now her cheeks flamed red. “I know. I’ve heard it.”
“You have?”
“Of course I have.Youwrote it. Of course I was going to listen. You could’ve written a jingle for the world’s most annoying advert, and I’d still have listened to it.”
“I sent you tickets to see the premiere,” Max said flatly. “But you didn’t go.”
“I did go.”
“No, I looked for you, you weren’t there—”
“Iwasthere.” Bo couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward, taking one of Max’s hands in her own. “My sister bought her own tickets. We sat in her seats. You didn’t see me, but I was there.”
Max looked down to where their hands were now joined and Bo disengaged instantly. What was she doing? Max was dating someone else. She wasn’tthatwoman. She never wanted to be that woman, and she never wanted Max to be that man.
Max however, seemed to have different ideas, and he instantly reached for her hand again. “You were there? In Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“I hoped you would be.” Max squeezed her fingers, and Bo felt hope, unwise and unexpected, jump within her. “I knew it was your hometown. I sent the tickets weeks in advance, hoping you would understand. Hoping you would read between the lines. When I looked down and saw that the seats were empty,” Max gave a sad smile, “I thought I had my answer.”
“I was there,” Bo said again. “It was beautiful. I’d never heard music like that before.”
“You sent me flowers,” Max replied. “I read your note again and again, hoping and hoping, and then I would doubt myself, again and again. You weren’t there; I told myself. You see, I’d decided that if I had any chance at all, you would be there. And then you weren’t.”
A chance?Bo turned Max’s words over in her mind. He sent her the tickets to see if he had a chance with her? More than that, he’d been hoping he would? Bo felt a bubble of excitement rise within her. Was it possible that Max still loved her?
“I was there. I promise I was there,” she replied fervently, telling herself not to fuck this up.
