Page 92 of Can We Skip to the Good Part?
Max set down the last two bites of her taco. “Honestly, it’s because this was such a wonderful surprise.” She held eye contact with Ella so she understood she was speaking from theheart, her voice laced with sincerity. “Every moment with you is.”
Ella offered a wobbly smile. Was she misting up? A lump arrived in Max’s throat, uncomfortable and stubborn. “Don’t get emotional or I will, too. And I’m not a sap.”
“Well, stop saying nice things,” she squeaked. Uh-oh. Ella’s eyes welled.
Max’s traitorous tears arrived right on cue. “Dammit.” She slid her plate away and slumped back in her chair, letting out a laugh that turned into a sigh halfway through. “Why does everything carry so much weight when you’re tired?”
“I think that’s called losing your filter.” Ella smiled over her last bite, watching her with a warmth that didn’t need words. “You’re just a little raw, and that’s okay.
“Truth. I think I almost cried because the tortilla was warm.”
“You did cry,” Ella said gently. “A little.”
Max let out another short laugh, embarrassed and too tired to care. “Right. Cool. Love that for me.”
Ella stood and held out her hand. “Come to bed, Maxine Wyler.”
She didn’t argue. The exhaustion had reached that bone-deep, not-funny-anymore stage. She followed Ella down the hallway, flicking off lights as they went. By the time she slipped into bed, the sheets cool and familiar, she was already halfway gone.
Ella slid in behind her, and Max instinctively curled in close. The contact was nothing more than shared quiet, but Max felt her whole body begin to exhale.
“You okay?” Ella whispered, easing closer. Her arm circled Max and rested lightly on her stomach.
Max didn’t answer right away. She let her eyes close and let the quiet settle.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Now I am.”
She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed this, Ella’s presence, steady and sure. Not to fix anything. Just to be here. Just to make the night feel less heavy.
Her breathing slowed, tension seeping out of her one heartbeat at a time.
And for the first time in what had been days but felt like weeks, Max fell asleep right away.
TWENTY-FIVE
Have Yourself a Messy Little Christmas
The holidays were sitting in Max’s lap way before she was ready. Businesses were decked out in green and red, and fully decorated twelve-foot Christmas trees lined the streets of downtown. Max always marveled at how fast the town transformed from generically charming to Santa’s own personal village. The stores piped in carols from Burl Ives to Kelly Clarkson, organizations sent out invitations to their annual holiday gatherings, and Max moved through space and time with a tentative smile on her face. Her world felt entirely different this year. She had a girlfriend she was wild about on one hand, an event that caught her completely by surprise. Who even was she these days, tossing aside her cynical notions about romance and moving through the world like a grinning fool?
On the other hand, she was still dealing with the repercussions of a family who’d been through a stressful time. Her mother had been out of the hospital for a couple of weeks now, and though she still had treatment ahead of her, her numbers were moving in the right direction. The chemo was working, but it was too soon to claim victory. Though patience had never been Max’s strong suit, she noticed her abilityblossom as she spent more and more time at her mother’s side. Appointments, infusions, or just hanging out at the house. Unfortunately, that meant time away from Ella. This wasn’t the time to force a new relationship on her mother, who showed no interest in hearing about the two of them. She wasn’t sure what to do about that, and continued to shelve the issue. There’d be time to sort it all out down the road.
“I don’t think you should go to Oklahoma for Christmas,” Max said as they lay in bed one morning. “It’s too warm there. Stay in the frigid temperatures with me. We can wait for Santa.”
“I don’t know,” Ella murmured, pulling Max’s arms around her tighter. “It’s like nineteen degrees out there.”
“Then we can take our clothes off and keep each other warm.”
“Don’t tempt me with your body.”
“I have to. It seems to be your weakness.”
Ella shook her head. “You know me too well.”
With Ella traveling west to Tulsa to spend Christmas with her family, it would mean being apart for a little over a week, which seemed brutal, given that they already weren’t getting enough time together. “Will you at least FaceTime me each day? Send all sorts of nudes?”
She felt Ella’s stomach contract with laughter. “Oh, sure. In between Christmas gifts and eggnog, I’ll snap a few. My mom won’t mind.”
Max snuggled close, spooning Ella, who wore Max’s Jingle All the Way T-shirt and her own adorably cute pink bikinis. She wanted to slide her hand inside them, but it was 6:30 in the morning, and Max needed to be in the shower in fifteen minutes if she wanted to make her first client meeting of the day. She planned to enjoy every one of those minutes, staying close to Ella for as long as possible until the cruel work world ripped her away.
