Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series) Page 21

  Her shoulders shook then in uncontrollable delight as she lifted the items out until they were lined up on her mattress. “Max!” His name escaped her lips in a loud laugh. Bags of Circus Peanuts, boxes of fruit snacks, and a large container of Greek yogurt cajoled her out of her sadness and into a happier place. It didn’t matter that the yogurt wasn’t cold anymore because there was no way she was going to eat that stuff. She smiled. That was the Max she knew—he always knew how to make her not only smile, but laugh—and laugh hard.

  The letter was the last item in the bag. If he can write it, I can read it, she thought, fingering the envelope. With a handful of Circus Peanuts, she opened up more of Max’s past.

  Dear Janie,

  This is the last of it, the final letter you will receive. I’m sure reading these have not been easy; the man in these letters is hardly the man you know. Trust me when I tell you that writing them, while painful, has brought me to a place I never thought I would get. So, here is the rest of it. My past is officially in your hands…

  Sometimes I think Danny’s on Main was my life preserver. I had been drifting for so long I thought I would drown. Had it not been for Danny, Julie, and the rest of the group…well, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I started working there not long after Gage and I (for lack of a better term) broke up. Things with Chloe and I were okay—she worked days, and I worked nights. We were surviving, but I wasn’t happy anymore. Although, to be honest, I would have denied it at the time.

  After a while, Kyle was hired, and we worked some day shifts together. One day he saw a picture of Chloe hanging behind the bar and recognized her. To make an extremely long and horribly disgusting story short, Chloe was having an affair with Kyle’s friend. While I was working nights, she was out with him. On top of that, Kyle had the horrific experience of having to explain to me that he had seen my wife engaged in a ménage a trois with his friend and another man. Apparently, the whole thing had been videotaped and posted online.

  After breaking what was probably a case of glassware and a few bottles of whatever I could get my hands on, I went home to confront Chloe. She wasn’t there, and she never came home that night. As the sun came up the next morning, though, a car pulled up to our house. I watched as my wife cheerfully slipped out of the passenger side and headed toward the front door.

  When I came out to meet her, I saw him. Her boyfriend. That was the day she told me that she had had enough. Janie, my head couldn’t process the things she was saying, but it had no problem understanding when she informed me that she was pregnant with the other guy’s baby. I’ll never forget the look she tossed me over her shoulder as she got back in his car. Then she smiled and waved as they drove away.

  Janie put the unfinished letter down on her lap. The orange marshmallows felt like lead in her stomach. How could anyone be so cruel? Thoughts of her own parents struck her like lightening. Rubbing her hands over her face, the wetness of her tears coated her fingers. After taking a few cleansing breaths, she picked up his letter and continued to read:

  I don’t remember going back into the house. I don’t remember the hours that passed. But later that day I received a call from the hospital telling me that Chloe had been in a car accident, and I needed to come in. Apparently, her boyfriend’s car was hit by a truck. He walked away virtually unharmed, but Chloe and her unborn baby died on the operating table.

  It was amazing, Janie, how blind I was. I sat at her funeral looking around at those in attendance; there were so many mourners to support me and her parents, but not one person who actually missed the deceased. How could I have allowed myself to stay so ignorant? How could I have given up on everyone and everything that meant so much to me for the love of the one person who had nothing to offer me but pain? Gage came to me after the funeral. After three years of silence, he took me back without hesitation.

  Six months later, Chloe’s parents tracked me down, too. They apologized for the hell I lived at the hands of their daughter, and then they informed me that they had been sending Chloe and I money for years...

  Chloe and I had lived small—comfortable, but small. We both worked long hours, yet there was never extra money. So to say I was surprised by her parents’ revelation would be an understatement. Their visit opened my eyes to another truth about the woman I had pledged my life to: she was hiding the money from me. She had almost a million dollars saved. Her parents told me and gave me the money, and I haven’t seen them since.

  It’s been seven years since Chloe died. Seven years since I shut down.

  Please know that my intentions were never to deceive you. They were never about hiding anything at all. I buried my past the day I buried Chloe, and a part of me that I was ashamed of, disappointed in, and disgusted with went into the ground with her. I needed it gone. I wanted it forgotten. The problem? In order to bury that much bad, I had to get rid of some good parts as well. That hadn’t been a problem…until you.

  And now I’m coming for you…one step at a time.

  Love always,

  Max

  I’m Done Pretending

  Janie’s trembling fingers sent a text to Lyla and Ashley first thing the next morning.

  Meet me at Starbucks @ 10. Don’t be late!

  After another fitful night’s sleep, Janie wasn’t sure if she should blame the anxious, queasy, jittery feelings on the sleep deprivation or the decision she’d made, one that now sat heavily on her chest. Forcing herself into a scalding shower, she hoped the burn of the hot water would take her mind off the man who was singed into her every thought. After quickly throwing on tattered Pitt sweats and sweeping her long, brown hair into a messy ponytail, she arrived at Starbucks an hour early.

  She gulped down her third coffee. The copious amounts of caffeine coursing through her veins had her fidgety, and she waited impatiently at a table for her friends to arrive.

  “Are you sure you need more caffeine, Miss Bouncy? Look at you, you can’t sit still.” Ashley reached over Janie’s head and grabbed her iced coffee, swallowing a huge gulp before sitting down.

  “Orange, huh?” Janie nodded to Ashley’s newly streaked hair. “Where the hell is Lyla? The girl works from home—how is she always late?”

  “I’m right behind you, Twitchy,” Lyla said. “What did you put in your coffee? Crack?”

  Lyla and Ashley giggled, and Janie continued to jerk her ankle around and tap her fingernails on the table. “Seriously, Jane, what gives? You look…horrible.”

  Janie heard the sincerity in Lyla’s voice and saw the concern in her eyes.

  “I don’t know what to do about Max. The man is killing me. Physically killing me. I’ve been trying so hard to keep a lid on my tears”—her eyes welled up, as if on cue—“but I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Aw honey…” Ashley placed Janie’s hand in her own. “What happened?”

  With that one question, the flood gates opened.

  Large teardrops left Janie’s tired eyes. “So you know about the packages he’s been sending me. The gifts and the letters…” It wasn’t a question; both women had read the first letter and knew about the first two gifts. But after reading Max’s second letter, Janie decided to keep its details to herself. They just seemed too personal to share, even with her best friends. But now she needed advice, so as much as it would pain her to do so, she would need to divulge some of Max’s secrets with her friends. “They are…tearing me up,” she continued. “The gifts are so thoughtful and personal…” She sent an evil eye to Lyla then. “Don’t think I don’t know you had a part in some of that.” Lyla looked away and let out a whistle. “But obviously, it isn’t the gifts that are the problem…”

  “Well, that’s good because, honestly, Jane—”

  “Shut it, Lyla!” Janie and Ashley said in unison.

  Janie took a deep breath. “It’s the letters,” she said, wiping fruitlessly at her steady stream of tears. “His letters gutted me. What he went through was horrible, and that crazy
bitch he was married to was…terrible. I want to help him. Every instinct I have screams for me to figure out a way to fix it for him. And I know this is gonna make me sound cold…but I don’t know if I can be with him. I mean, I love him. I really love him. I’ve been falling in love with Max DeLucca for months. But being with him now that I know what I know? I’m not sure I can do it.”

  Two pairs of very confused, very angry eyes bore into Janie.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lyla snapped. Janie could see the sheer act of will it took for Lyla to not say more.

  “Look, he loved his wife.” Janie let her gaze move from between her friends. “I mean, he loved her. He stuck by her as she took everything from him. She cheated on him, she made him choose between her and his family, his best friend, college…hell, life, and he chose her over everyone and everything else that mattered to him. She broke him, and he never left her.” She looked at the perplexed faces of her closest friends. “Don’t you see the problem with that?”

  “No, Jane,” Lyla said slowly. “I think I need you to explain more.”

  Ashley nodded in agreement.

  After wiping her hands over her tear streaked face, Janie looked back up at her girls. “If she were still alive, I think he would still be with her.” She paused. Admitting it to herself was hard ,but saying it out loud stung like tiny pieces of shrapnel piercing her skin. “And what if they weren’t together, and he was with me instead? What if I made him unhappy? I don’t think he would ever leave. His letters proved he would rather be miserable than walk away.” Pushing away the last of her tears, she sucked in a deep breath. “I could never live with that kind of pressure. I can’t be the cause of any more hurt and unhappiness for him. I refuse to be. I watched the way it tore my mom apart when my dad finally left, and I watched her let every other man step on the pieces. She would let them stick around until she had nothing left to give, and then they left her behind smaller and weaker than before.” She met Lyla’s sad, knowing glance. “I never realized it before, but up until now, I think I was following her path.”

  Lyla closed her eyes and gave a slight nod, which confirmed Janie’s greatest fear.

  But that confirmation gave Janie the strength to move forward. “I’m done pretending my needs don’t matter so that the men in my life can be happy. But while I won’t sacrifice my own happiness like my mother did, I won’t be like my father or like every man that crossed the threshold after he left. My needs aren’t the only ones that matter. If I can’t trust Max to play his part and be honest not only with me but with himself…” Her vision began to blur from the watery sadness that weighed on her heart. “Then, I have to walk away. I never understood the expression ‘Sometimes love just isn’t enough,’ but I guess sometimes it isn’t.”

  “Honey,” Ashley—a woman who was always filled with spice, sass, and sarcasm—had a faraway look that Janie had never seen before on her face. “You’re right…sometimes love isn’t enough. But this isn’t that time. I have knowledge that you don’t, and that is years of friendship with Max. I’ve never seen him the way he is with you. Don’t run away until you talk to him. You may be surprised by what you learn when you just take some time to listen.”

  “Wow, you were right, Jane. She can be really insightful when she isn’t acting all scary!” Lyla nudged Ashley, trying to lighten the mood. “Speaking of scary—Janie, honey…” Lyla pried the coffee out of Janie’s hands and dumped it in the trash can. “I’m thinking you should lay of the liquid life support for the rest of the day. And go take a nap. You look like ass.”

  The woman left the coffee shop with hugs and kisses, and Janie went up to her apartment to spend the rest of her Saturday eating fruit snacks and Circus Peanuts, and drifting in and out of sleep.

  Max hadn’t actually heard her voice in nearly a week. And the last time she’d been screaming at him, telling him to never speak to her again. Every time he thought of Monday night, all he could see was the hurt and betrayal covering in her normally radiant face. All he could hear was the pain and the discord in her usually melodic tone. He did that to her; he put that doubt in her eyes. Those images of Janie would be forever branded in his memory.

  He had hoped that his letters, his explanations, would be enough to help her understand how he had gotten so lost in his life. Each time his phone rang or he got a text he felt his pulse spike, only to feel rejected when it was anyone but her. What did you expect? For her to read about your fucked-up past and feel sorry for you? The thought was a punch in the gut.

  “That’s it!” Small pieces of advice that had been offered by his friends over the past few weeks started coming together like a puzzle in his mind. He was done watching his life; it was time to start living it.

  His heart pounded in his chest as he ran from his kitchen down the hall into his home office. He had been spending a lot of time there the past few days, between writing the letters for Janie and working on the project with Lyla.

  As if his thoughts conjured her up, his cell rang. “Hey, Ly. Is it done?”

  “Yes.” He could hear her smile through the phone line. “And it’s great, if I do say so myself…which I do.” She chuckled.

  “Of course, you do,” he teased. “Listen, I wanna talk, but I have to make some changes to the story. I just thought of something that she really needs to know—”

  Lyla cut him off midsentence. “Max, there are a lot of things she really needs to know. I promised myself I would stay out of it, so I will, but listen up…be really clear about what you’re looking for in terms of a relationship with her. She’s learned to be strong…and damn, Max, she is…but the same rules apply to you.”

  “You know Lyla, I’m not sure if you are finally starting to make sense, or if I’m getting becoming as fucked up as you, but I totally understood what you just said. And those are the changes I’m making as we speak. Can you drop off the cover this afternoon?”

  “Yep. And Max, F-Y-I…she isn’t coming to dinner tomorrow night. She says she’s sick.”

  Her sickness must have been contagious because Max felt his stomach clench, and his lunch begin to rebel. He couldn’t do this any longer. He was going to see Janie Silver tomorrow…whether she was ready or not.

  It felt strange not being with Lyla on a Sunday. Strange wasn’t quite the right word…sad, lonely, isolated, just plain bad. Yeah, that about covers it, Janie thought. But this isolation was self-imposed—she needed just one more day to get herself together before she returned to normal life. Whatever normal was.

  She had spent all of Sunday morning trying to remember what it was like before she and Max added the “who have sex” to their friendship status. Sure, it had only been a few weeks, but those weeks were packed with enough emotional angst to fill a season of The Vampire Diaries minus the vampires, werewolves, and witches.

  Having just gotten out of the shower, Janie absentmindedly ran a brush through her long, wet tresses. She needed to talk to Max. Oh, that should be a great conversation, she thought. Thanks for sharing your deep, dark secrets––at my insistence, mind you–– but we can’t be together because we’re both too fucked up.

  A stilted laugh escaped her lips as slipped on her favorite pink Henley and a pair of black leggings. “Are you going to regret this?” she asked her saddened reflection in the mirror. She didn’t hear an answer, not that she expected one, because a loud knocking came from her front door.

  A quick glance at the time as she padded barefoot to the door told her it was five o’clock. Just about everyone she knew was at Lyla’s.

  She could hear her heart slamming in her chest and her blood flowing through her ears when she looked through the peephole. Standing on the other side was the beautiful, strong man who had finally opened his heart when he opened his past to her.

  Max heard the clink of the lock, and his breathing was shallow as he watched the door slowly open. Her face came into view, and Max inhaled sharply. He felt like it was the first full breath he h
ad taken since she walked away from him the week before, since he stood there and watched her go. And now there she was, her hair wet, the smell of coconut and lime emanating from her skin. The fragrance had his mouth watering as he used what felt like superhuman strength to keep his fingers from reaching out and touching her. He was speechless.

  “Max?” she croaked. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Lyla’s?”

  “I heard you were sick.”

  He grinned, and she swore her knees went weak. She reached for the doorjamb to help stabilize her suddenly boneless legs.

  “I brought you some soup.”

  In his hands was take-out from the same restaurant she had gone to when she brought him soup a couple of weeks before, along with another bag. If it was possible, her heart beat even faster. “I gave you my past Janie…” He walked past her frozen body into her apartment.

  Once she steadied herself, she followed him back toward her kitchen. “Max…”

  Her eyes looked so sad. He had never seen her look so torn. Part of him was scared and wanted to turn around and leave, but the other part, the stronger part, knew this woman, this love was worth the long and painful journey he took to get here.

  “Janie, I’m worth so much more than my past,” he began. “I know you have doubts. I can see them written all over your beautiful face.” He stood so close to her. His fingers caressed her cheek as he tilted her face up to his. He looked directly into her cautious blue eyes. “And you would be a fool not to.”

  He reached into the first bag and pulled out containers of soup and loaves of sourdough bread. “First, I’m gonna make us something to eat.” He then opened the second bag and pulled out a three-ring binder. He watched as her eyebrows pinched together in confusion and then as her eyes grew wide in recognition.

  “Max, what is this?” She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. On the counter in front of her sat a binder, but under the plastic sheath was what could only be described as a book cover. A thousand butterflies took flight in her belly as she stared at the cover.