Always, in December(51)
He turned to go, but his dad spoke up again. “Your mother just worries.”
“I know, Dad.”
“And look, she won’t push—”
“But you will?”
“But she’s getting to know a few people, the longer she’s here,” his dad continued calmly, evenly. “If you wanted to have a chat with someone, consider your options, I’m sure she could introduce you—”
“No, Dad.” It came out more sharply than he’d intended, and Max took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve been through this. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just…” It’s just that this was so repetitive, an echo of similar arguments they’d had when he was a teenager, his mother in particular wanting him to do things the way she thought was best—the medical career, especially. But he couldn’t say it, not outright, not without offending one or both of them. So instead he settled with, “I just have to do things my own way, OK?”
His dad stared at him for a moment, as if deciding something, then nodded slowly. “Fair enough. As long as you’re sure. Go and check on Erin before you go to bed, will you? It’s rude to leave a girl like that without saying a proper goodnight.” He turned away, back to the sofa, so he didn’t see Max’s headshake. But really—a girl like that? As opposed to any other girl?
Still, he did just that, knocking on Erin’s door a moment later. She opened it, already in her pajamas but her face not yet stripped of cosmetics. He hadn’t seen her without them in a long time—a privilege he’d given up when they’d broken up.
“I brought you tea,” Max said, lifting the mint tea that he’d made, hoping that it was still what she liked to drink before bed. An offering, he supposed—one to let her know that he was genuinely thankful she’d bothered to come out and see him, no matter what happened next.
She smiled, took it, and opened the door a bit wider. He stepped in, though he left the door open behind him deliberately. She was in the smallest room, but it was still plenty big enough. Her suitcase was currently open on a green-and-brown rug that he thought was hideous but his mother obviously liked, which was covering most of the wooden floor at the foot of the bed. The sight of her clothes neatly folded and piled there made him smile a little. No doubt she was ready to transfer them all to the drawers in the wardrobe, no matter that she was only here for three nights.
“You OK?” he asked. “All settled?”
Erin nodded, blew on her tea, and took a sip. He started to rock back on his heels, remembered his father doing just that and stopped, clearing his throat. Why could he suddenly think of nothing to say? It never used to be this awkward between them—even when they’d been recently broken up they’d always been relatively easy around each other. But for some reason this time it all felt forced, like there had been some irreversible change. Maybe it was just that six months had passed with barely any contact. That, and the fact that the last time he’d seen her he’d barely been functioning like a human being, clouded with the weight of something he’d been told time and time again was grief.
Erin set her tea down on the bedside table—Christ, his mother had put flowers there, yellow flowers, no less, Erin’s favorite color—and turned back to him, taking his spare hand, the one not holding his own tea, in both of hers. Her scent drifted over to him. She’d always smelled the same, ever since university, some kind of lavender scent, which he presumed came from the same shower gel or whatever that she used.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” she said softly, with a fleeting glance at the open door.
“I know,” Max said, grimacing a little. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been in touch more. I’ve just been a little…distracted, I guess.”
She nodded vigorously, her hair, longer and lighter than when he’d last seen her, bouncing as she did so. “I get that, I do.” But it was said in a way that made him doubt it. Feeling his shoulders tense, he pulled his hand from hers, then patted the top of her hand to make the action less abrupt. He just wished that she—that everyone—would treat him normally again, would stop tiptoeing around him. He’d decided to move on from it, as much as he could anyway; the least everyone else could do was respect that.
She stepped toward him, hooked her hands behind his head so that his mug of tea was pressed awkwardly against him, the steam of it coiling in the space between them. She tilted her head, the way she always used to, when gauging his reaction. “I missed you.”
Her eyes were so blue. He’d almost forgotten that. He cleared his throat. “I missed you too,” he said, because it was true. He wasn’t sure he meant it in quite the same way, but he’d missed having her around. She continued to watch him, like she was waiting for some kind of decision. He hesitated for a moment, then leaned in, planted a whisper of a kiss on her smooth cheek. He stepped away from her, lifted his mug in a kind of toast. The corner of her mouth crooked up.
“Night, Erin.” With that he closed the door behind him and let out a slow, long breath.
Max ran his hand along the side of the bridge they were currently walking across, admiring the feel of the cast iron. Though he hadn’t spent much time here, he knew from an interest in the architecture of New York that this was Bow Bridge, and had been designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, like many other of the key architectural features of the park. It was actually pretty fucking cool, though the egotistical side of him slightly resented that he’d not had the chance to design something like this, something that made it onto the “top ten” lists—something that people came out just to admire. He sighed as he looked around him, a little bit in awe at the views from here. He was just able to make out some of the high-rise buildings of the city—a view that he imagined would become a little more obscured as the trees beefed up a bit in late spring.