Always, in December(37)
He hadn’t asked, and Josie knew he wouldn’t, that he wasn’t expecting any explanation, but now that they were here, huddled up in their little corner with the sound of George’s laughter reaching them from the other end of the bar, Josie found she actually wanted to talk about it. She lifted the wooden straw in her cocktail and gave it a little stir. “He never told me,” she said on a sigh.
He nodded, that poker face already in play. “Yeah, I got that impression.”
“I think he tried to.” Josie stopped playing with the straw, glanced up at him. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
His eyes were level on hers. “About the fact he didn’t tell you, or the fact he’s moving to America?”
Josie pulled a hand through her hair. “Either. Both. I just…” She waved that same hand in the air, then dropped it into her lap.
“I don’t think there’s a law that says you have to decide how you feel after news like that within the next hour.” She snorted quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap. “And it’s OK, you know, if you both hate him and wish he wasn’t leaving at the same time.”
She picked up her straw again, deciding to risk another sip. “Been in a similar situation, have you?” He shrugged and she immediately grimaced—he’d told her, hadn’t he, that his girlfriend had broken up with him in May? “Sorry,” she said quickly.
But he only laughed, shaking his head at her grimace. “It’s OK. This year has been pretty…rough, I’ll admit. But then, if none of it had happened, maybe I wouldn’t be here with you now.” He reached out, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and let his fingertips trail lightly down her neck, leaving little shivers behind. He grinned. “And then I would have missed out on a fancy work party and free drinks.”
Josie let out a breath. “Couldn’t be having that,” she said, trying to match his easy tone. “And hey,” she added, gesturing with her cocktail, “maybe you’ll bump into Oliver while you’re visiting your parents—at least he’ll have one friend there, right?”
“Totally. I’ll send him a Facebook message, we can go to a Knicks game or something—I mean, the guy is just dying to be my friend, I could tell.”
Josie snorted and picked up her drink again, realizing that her tongue was tingling just a little bit, her head starting to feel pleasantly buzzed. A reason to keep drinking, she decided, all things considered.
“I think you might have gone, you know.” She paused in the act of drinking, the straw still between her lips, to look at him. His gaze was totally locked on hers in a way that made it impossible to look away. His mouth crooked up into a small smile and she felt heat rush to her face. The skin on the back of her neck tingled. “I think you might have more adventure in you than you give yourself credit for.” Then he turned to nod at George as George held up a bottle of beer, and Josie unfroze, setting her drink down and letting her breath out on a whoosh. “I mean,” Max said, his voice light again, “you came to the beach with me, what’s more adventurous than that?”
“Well, I suppose adventure’s one word for risking frostbite and pneumonia by paddling in the ice-cold water.”
Max grinned. “I still have all ten toes, don’t I?”
She glanced down at his shoes and shrugged. “I’ve yet to see concrete proof of that.”
They stayed for another two drinks, George refusing to let them leave, though Josie switched to one of the mocktails for the second one, not wanting to get completely plastered and do something embarrassing in front of Max. She was laughing when they got into the taxi, the chill of the night air slightly taking her breath away. The party now seemed like a vague memory, like it had happened on a different night entirely, though Josie was sure that, if she focused on it, the whole thing would come racing back into humiliating focus. Better, then, not to think of it at all, and to concentrate instead on the way Max was holding her hand, tracing circles on her skin with his thumb, on the feel of his leg pressed next to hers as he sat in the middle seat, right next to her. She should feel tired, she supposed, given the lateness of the hour, but she felt overly alert, like her whole body was waiting. At some point, without her realizing it, the haziness of the cocktails had left her, leaving her mind clear and, like her body, intensely focused on the heat of Max’s body next to hers.
When they reached her block of flats he got out of the taxi too, and, after saying something to the driver that she didn’t quite catch, followed her up the stairs. Neither of them said anything, and now that he was no longer touching her, the air between them felt strangely electric. It seemed to take her several minutes to find her keys in her bag, though surely it couldn’t have actually been that long, and she refused to look at him the whole time, not sure what she’d see on his face if she did, not wanting him to kiss her goodbye and then leave, as he’d done last night. When she did eventually find them, it took her two attempts to get the key in the lock because her fingers weren’t quite steady, so that Max gave up waiting and did it for her.
He went through the door ahead of her, still holding her keys, and then turned to look at her. His eyes were measured as he stepped toward her, his expression straight and even as she tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. He reached out, brushed her hair back away from her face. “You look beautiful, you know.” His voice was low, husky. “I should have told you that at the beginning of the night.”