However this all ended, Connor had changed his life, and Max wouldnever, ever forget him.
But deep down, he would have preferred it not to end at all.
ChapterTwenty-Three
“Of course, I understand,” Connor said, his head spinning.“Please, tell her to take care and not to worry, we’ll be okay. Thank you forletting me know.”
He hung up the phone, panic rising in his chest, making it feeltight.
He needed to sit down.
Connor grabbed a chair from one of the front tables, cursing underhis breath as the legs got tangled, yanking it out hard enough to knock the centerpieceover and practically collapsing onto it.
He tried to take a deep breath, but he felt as though he wassuffocating. Blood pounded in his ears, the rush of it deafening.
This wasn’t happening. Afterallhis hard work. All ofMax’s hard work.
“Connor?”
Connor looked up at the familiar voice, finding Max standingdirectly in front of him. He hadn’t even heard him approach, too busy spiralinginto panic to pay attention to his surroundings.
“Are you okay?” Max asked, pulling the other chair away from thetable and swinging it around, sitting down right in front of Connor, closeenough that their knees touched.
The simple contact with Max wasjustenough to bring himsome of the way back. Enough to explain what was going on.
“The celebrant isn’t coming,” he said, his voice trembling. “Thatwas her wife on the phone. She has laryngitis. I can’t… I don’t…”
“Shh,” Max soothed, putting his hands on Connor’s knees. “It’sokay.”
“It’s not okay!” Connor said, louder than he’d intended to.“Everything’s falling apart and I can’t fix it.”
“Now would be a bad time to tell you that Marcus’ delivery vanbroke down, huh?” Max asked.
Connor stared at him. “Yes! Yes, it would be a bad time!”
He didn’t intend to snap at Max, but he was right on the edge ofrunning off into the woods, screaming at the top of his lungs, never to beheard from again.
He’d forgotten how stressful it was when things went wrong, andwhen it was hisownwedding, even if it was fake, thinking past thestress to find a solution felt impossible.
“Don’t freak out,” Max said.
“Way too late for that,” Connor responded, a wave of nauseawashing over him, his head light.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to go and sit in the corner and cryuntil everyone left, but he knew he couldn’t do that.
Not after they’d come this far.
All the same, he could feel tears welling up in his eyes, makingthem sting. He wasn’t going to get a choice about whether or not he ended upcrying.
Max squeezed his knees gently, pulling Connor back to the realworld.
“Hey, look at me,” he murmured, his voice so low that Connor couldonly barely hear it. Connor looked up at him, meeting his striking blue eyes.
Normally, he could have gotten lost in Max’s eyes for days. Rightnow, it was a struggle to even look at them.
“Now close your eyes and focus on my voice,” Max said, to Connor’srelief. He followed Max’s instructions, happy to take orders from anyone whomight know what they were doing right now.
He felt so damnedincompetent. Normally, he would have hadbackups for his backups.
