Always, in December by Emily Stone
Chapter Eleven
‘This. Is fucking amazing.’ Max’s voice was slightly muffled over the mouthful of hot dog he was chewing.
Next to him on the bench that they’d managed to commandeer in Tribeca Park, Liam rolled his dark brown eyes and snorted. ‘Calm down, it’s not that good.’ Though he tried to dial it down, Liam’s accent was typical New York, a testament to the fact that he’d lived here his whole life. He was dressed in what Max had come to think of as a New Yorker style too, a tailored, striped navy suit but with a deep red shirt underneath – bold and expressive, like the city itself, and offset by his deeply tanned skin. To top it all off, he was wearing a pair of stylish black trainers – or sneakers, as Liam called them – rather than the typical business shoes Max himself was wearing. The weather was distinctly warmer than it had been in recent weeks, like the city had finally decided spring was here, and while that was no guarantee that another cold front wouldn’t blast in at any moment, for today both of their coats – his old faithful that he thought was suitable for every occasion, and Liam’s long beige coat, one of many different coats he owned – were slung over the back of the bench in celebration.
Max swallowed, his throat slightly protesting against the particularly big bite he’d taken. ‘It is,’ he insisted. ‘I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunch that it tastes this good.’ He and Liam had pulled a late one at the office where Max was currently working last night, preparing for today’s meeting with a high-profile – translation, complete dickhead – client.
‘Mommy didn’t leave dinner out for you last night then?’ Liam said, chuckling to himself as he spoke, showing a flash of his extraordinarily white teeth.
‘She did, actually,’ Max said, grinning in a deliberately smug way – the grin he could wind up almost anyone except Liam with. Angel that she was, his mother had taken to cooking for him every night, even when he wasn’t sure if he’d be in, and literally never complained about it if the food went uneaten – which is what had happened last night, given he’d been too knackered to do more than change and fall into bed.
Liam rolled his eyes theatrically, but Max ignored him. He knew all too well that Liam bloody loved his mother, and the feeling was mutual being as how, on a very loose ‘family friendship’, revolving around his mother and Liam’s father having gone to school together when they were about eight or something like that, Liam had put in a word at the architecture firm where he worked last year, despite the fact Liam had never even met Max until that point. This was before Max had got the – somewhat short-lived – job at ALA and he’d done a bit of freelance for Liam’s firm last spring, luckily getting on with Liam immediately. When Max’s mother had told anyone who would listen that Max would be in New York a little longer than expected after Christmas, Liam had casually mentioned it to one of the senior partners, who had immediately given Max a six-week contract to assist on a particularly difficult project. Besides, despite the mutual and apparently instantaneous love between Liam and his mother, Max had resolutely decided there was absolutely nothing wrong with a thirty-two-year-old man camping out at his parents’ for two months, given they’d practically begged him to do just that and the alternative would be some sort of dump with a nightmare commute.
Max finished his hot dog, brushing a few crumbs off his black jumper – he tended towards the ‘casual’ of the smart-casual dress code in the office – and sighed. There was literally nothing better than eating when you were hungry. He shifted a little against a cool wind that whipped past them. With a glance up to the sky, he scowled. So much for the weather getting nicer – it was greying overhead, the clouds threatening to steal away the sun’s warmth. ‘I swear it rains here more than in England,’ he grumbled.
‘That’s definitely not true,’ Liam said, his eyes on a runner, tightly clad in Lycra. There were always bloody joggers around here – it was enough to make you feel guilty for just sitting. This particular one was a tall, slim woman this time, and Max’s lips twitched. Liam had a weakness for tall, willowy women.
‘Feels like it, given the last few weeks. Anyway, how would you know? You’ve never even been to England.’
‘I don’t have to have been there to read a weather report.’
‘Read them regularly, do you? Weekly check-up on the weather in London?’
‘It’s a hobby of mine.’
‘Is it on your profile on those multiple dating apps you have? Because that’s probably why you’re striking out there, mate.’ Liam only grinned at him. Impossible to rile, was Liam.
Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he slipped it out. There were a few messages and two missed calls from his mum, but the most recent message was from Erin, telling him she was just boarding the plane and couldn’t wait to see him. He stared at it for a moment, then, unable to think of anything better, typed back Safe flight xx
After deciding it was safer just to ignore his mum for now, then go in strong with apology and flattery when he got home, he lowered his phone. It lit up immediately again and he looked at it automatically. As did Liam – a reflex, Max supposed. Because it was face up, they both saw the WhatsApp pop up at the top of the screen. Just a line of x’s.
‘Erin’s getting on the plane,’ Max said by way of explanation. Though Liam wasn’t one to invade his personal life – one of the many great things about him – this subject had come up a few times, just by virtue of working so closely together every day.
Liam nodded slowly. He had a good scalp, Liam. Something that was a bit odd to notice, but it was sort of impossible not to notice, given he’d shaved his dark hair neatly around his head – a style which matched his carefully shaven jaw – a bit of stubble allowed around just his jawline and top lip. It looked like far too much effort, in Max’s opinion. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘the Edinburgh ex. Worried things will be awkward, after she dumped your ass last time around?’
Max tapped his fingers against his phone. ‘I like to think of it more as a mutual decision. And we’re both past that – we’re just friends now, I’ve told you that.’
‘Suuuure.’ The way Liam dragged out the word made him sound even more American, and Max snorted. ‘So what, she’s flying all the way out here to visit, right before you go back to the UK, I might add, because you’re such good friends?’
‘You know, you’re trying to make that sound suspicious, but it’s really not. Just because you don’t have any friends who would travel a few hours to spend time with you in an objectively cool city, doesn’t mean the rest of us live like that.’
‘Nah, I’m just more picky than the average guy about their friends – try to avoid any hangers-on, you know.’
‘Sure, you keep telling yourself that.’ Even though, from what Max had seen, Liam made friends left, right and centre. Probably because he was so easy-going, Max thought. He didn’t pry, and it seemed to make people want to be around him. It was that very quality, Max was sure, that had stopped Liam asking him what he was doing back here for another prolonged period of time, having been off to his fancy new London job last time they spoke.
Max slipped his phone back in his pocket and frowned to himself. The thing was, in reality, what Liam said held some truth. Yes, he and Erin were friends. They’d been friends at Edinburgh together way before anything had happened, only actually hooking up in their final year. Thus ensued a classic on-again-off-again relationship that would have made Ross and Rachel proud, spanning about five years until last spring, when she’d called it off again. And now, he was pretty sure she wanted to reverse that decision, given some of the messages he’d been getting. The problem was, it was a different face that flashed into his mind now, one that had been the cause of a fair number of pleasant dreams and not so pleasant awakenings over the last few months.
Max glanced at his watch – some kind of up-and-coming new brand that Liam had told him about – and, without saying anything, they both got to their feet. Hour-long lunchbreaks were frowned upon at their office. Not that Max was complaining. He wanted to be busy, to get stuck into the work he loved again. He’d spent too much time over the last few months either obsessing over the past or worrying about his future, all because of that one fucking day last year – the day that had quite literally made his world tilt on its axis.
No. He closed his eyes very briefly. He wasn’t thinking about it. That was the new rule. That was the only way he was going to get through these months – just pretend that it hadn’t happened. Distraction – that was the way forward.
They walked back towards the office on West Broadway, dodging a near-endless stream of people, with the grey sky looming ominously above them. Next to him, Liam lumbered along in that way of his that always made Max want to smile – for someone who played as many sports as Liam did, his gait was almost laughably ungraceful, like he was somehow both trying to show off and hide his somewhat built six-foot-three figure, and had compromised with something that did neither. Without so much as a glance at each other, they swung into the Starbucks on the last corner before their office. It was a given that they’d need caffeine to get through the post-lunch meeting, given the way these clients drawled on, and the coffee at their office, despite the fancy building, was truly shite.
They joined the perpetual queue of people, and both smiled at the rosy-cheeked redhead behind the counter, who looked like she belonged in some kind of Irish novel, as opposed to serving coffee to suits in Manhattan. She nodded when Liam ordered his cappuccino with an extra shot of coffee and some sort of fancy syrup or other, then turned her smile on Max. ‘Black Americano, please.’ He smiled and her dimples winked out.
‘You’re from England?’ she asked as she rung up the order and took payment from Max. Again he nodded, and she beamed, her green eyes creasing. ‘That’s so cool. I’ve always wanted to go there. I’ve been saving up for ages to go. Is London amazing? I’ll bet it’s just amazing.’
‘It’s amazing,’ Max said, and when Liam snorted quietly beside him, presumed that his voice didn’t quite match his words. Seriously though, the number of people who just assumed ‘England’ meant ‘London’. And yeah, ok, he had lived in London at one point, but that was really beside the point. Still, he worked up a smile for the cute barista. ‘Well, I hope you get to go one day.’
She grinned. ‘I’ll look you up if I do . . .?’
Liam turned his snort into a cough this time – an overly obvious one – as Max said, ‘Max.’
She nodded. ‘Max. I’m Amy.’ Another smile.
Coffee in hand, they stepped back out to where the first drops of rain were starting up. Though at least that was at the end of their lunchbreak rather than at the beginning. Liam shook his head. ‘You don’t even have to try, do you?’
Max ‘hmm’d’ in an innocent way, and took a sip of his coffee.
‘You know it’s only because of the sexy English accent, don’t you?’
Max shook his head in mock judgement. ‘Don’t be so obviously jealous, mate, it’s not an attractive quality.’
Liam held his coffee up. ‘Just making sure you don’t get too big-headed, that’s all. Figure it’s my job as your only friend out here.’
Max snorted, but when Liam said nothing more, found himself staring blankly at the pavement as they walked the last stretch to their office, caught in a what-if moment. What if he’d joked, flirted back with the pretty redhead, told her he’d take her out for a drink and give her all the tips for a holiday to London? It would’ve been so easy, something fun and light. A year ago – presuming it was in the ‘off-again’ portion of his relationship with Erin – he would’ve done just that, but now he couldn’t even work up the energy to feel bothered one way or another.
‘You ok?’ Liam asked as they reached the slim brick building that was home to their office. It had been named a New York landmark in the early nineties, having been designed by some fancy architect back in the day, and now had come full circle, housing its own architecture firm.
They stepped through the glass doors to reception and Max took another sip of his coffee, then nodded, pulling himself out of pointless introspection. ‘Yeah. Just thinking about this meeting. Should be a laugh a minute, don’t you think?’
Liam didn’t get the chance to answer, because a woman in her late twenties, dark-haired, slim and toned, wearing tightly fitting gym clothes that left nothing to the imagination, stood up from where she’d been flipping through an architectural magazine on one of the sofas in reception and walked directly over to them. Liam, quite literally, stopped in his tracks as she closed in on them, her dark eyes glinting. She was there to yell at him, Max decided. Perhaps she was pissed off because she’d come out of her way to see him, and he’d not been here. Max had always been able to tell just what she was thinking through those eyes, and she claimed the same about him. They’d become so good at reading each other’s minds growing up that their mother had on more than one occasion said that there must be something supernatural going on, and that maybe there was a way they were actually twins – something about an egg separating and remaining in her womb for the four years between them, though the idea had been sufficiently gross to him as a kid, thinking about his mother having eggs and a womb, that he’d tuned out the specifics whenever she went into that rambling theory. They looked nothing alike, though, despite the twin theory. While not short, per se, his sister was petite, and there had always been speculation over why she’d turned out as such, given both Max and their parents were all a bit taller than average. Given she was all dark hair and eyes to his lighter tones, you wouldn’t really be able to tell they were related at first glance.
She came to an abrupt stop in front of them, tilting her head up at Max in a way that made the angles in her face even more pronounced – all sharp cheekbones and pointy chin. She’d amped up the look recently by cutting her dark hair short, though Max was pretty sure that she’d done it in part to annoy their mother, who had immediately complained that it made her look boyish. But there was no way you could look at Chloe and think her boyish, whatever she did to her hair – if anything, it had made her looks even more striking. One quick glance at Liam told Max he was thinking along the same lines right now. The narrowed eyes came automatically to Max, and caused Liam to cough and quickly rearrange his expression.
Max could sympathise, to be fair. Chloe had this effect on men, something which had caused him to get into some difficult fights over the years, in order to defend her honour or punish heartbreak, as was the expectation of the big brother. This had culminated in a big argument where he told her to stop putting him in situations where he had to keep confronting people, and her telling him it was their honour that he should be worried about. A tacit agreement had then been reached where he looked the other way while she made it through streams of men, leaving a trail of heartbroken bodies in her way when she declared that they just weren’t what she was looking for.
‘Hello, Chloe,’ he said evenly, swigging the last of his coffee. ‘Nice of you to drop by.’
She jabbed a finger towards his chest. ‘It is bloody nice of me, I’ll have you know. I came by ages ago, and when you wouldn’t answer your phone I had to just hang around waiting, didn’t I?’ Max frowned and slipped out his phone. He saw that she’d rung him – barely twenty minutes ago. ‘Luckily,’ Chloe continued, gesturing towards the reception desk and the college kid who was currently sat there, ‘Steve here was nice enough to let me wait for you down here, though he had no idea who you were – you must not have made much of an impression.’
Next to him, Liam bit his lip, and Max got the distinct impression he was trying not to smile. ‘Better than your alternative,’ Max said, keeping his tone deliberately light to combat her rage, well used to the mini-tantrums that inevitably cooled down as quickly as they flared up. ‘The only reason people remember you is because you make the wrong impression – hardly something to celebrate.’ She waved a hand in the air as if to say ‘whatever’ and Max sighed. He grabbed her elbow to manoeuvre her to the side and away from the doorway. ‘What are you doing here, Chloe?’
She huffed. ‘I’m here because Mum has been trying to get hold of you for, and I quote, “the whole damn morning” and you refuse to answer her, so she bribed me with a free spin class at one of those fancy Tribeca studios near here. And so here I am. Doing the loving, daughterly thing and coming to check that a) you are still alive and nothing terrible has befallen you – that’s a direct quote again, she actually said “befallen” – being as how she couldn’t get you on your mobile and the office told her you weren’t there when she called them and—’
‘Jesus, she actually called the office?’
Chloe ignored him, carrying on in that way of hers, one word tumbling into another without the need to take a breath, ‘And b) to see what time Erin is landing because she’s flapping that the house might not be ready in time, and is worrying that you might forget to pick her up from the airport.’
Liam made a sound halfway through a cough and a laugh, and Chloe’s attention shot to him. He actually flushed under her gaze, for Christ’s sake, then cleared his throat hurriedly when he saw the look in Max’s eyes. One that, he hoped, quite clearly told him he was being pathetic. Chloe, however, gave Liam a little smile, making no secret of the fact that she was weighing him up.
Max took a breath, trying to dredge up some patience and remember that he dearly loved both his mother and sister, and could not blame them for treating him with kid gloves, even though he’d hoped they would have stopped by now. Because, though she’d never admit it, he knew very well that it would not have taken much for their mother to persuade Chloe to come and ‘check up’ on him, though she’d do her best to hide that under sharp words, as she always had. Which, to be fair, suited them both. Neither of them were exactly great with all that touchy-feely crap.
‘Well,’ Max said, ‘you can tell our mother that I am indeed fine, nothing evil has befallen me, that Erin doesn’t get in until this evening and won’t care in the slightest what the place looks like, and that I will go and get her myself. And—’
‘Oh here we go,’ Chloe muttered.
‘That even if I wasn’t going to get her myself, Erin is a fully grown, intelligent woman, who is more than capable of finding her own way from the airport.’
‘And boy, is she lucky to have you.’ Liam took an ever-so-subtle step back away from them, though that only made both of them glance towards him in unison, before looking back at one another.
‘Is that all?’ Max asked sweetly.
‘Will Erin be needing her own bedroom?’ she asked sweetly.
Max scowled. ‘Go away, Chloe.’
‘What!’ Chloe exclaimed, shifting her gym bag further up her shoulder. ‘That’s a genuine question! And if she isn’t sharing a room with you, then that means I have to stay on the sofa, which is just so—’
Max ran a hand through his hair. ‘God, you’re annoying. Why did you decide to come out here for Easter again?’
‘For the better weather obvs.’ She actually said it – ‘obvs’ – like she was some kind of teenager.
Both Max and Chloe snapped their attention to Liam when he let out a low laugh. He immediately straightened his face, looking slightly alarmed by the combined force of their gazes, and Max sighed. ‘Sorry about this, mate.’ He glanced at his watch, gestured to Liam to say that they should just carry on around Chloe to get to their floor.
But Chloe shifted position, making that impossible. ‘Yeah, sorry. About Max that is. He’s clearly too self-involved to introduce me, but I’m Chloe – his sister.’
Liam nodded, and when he spoke, his voice was ever so slightly huskier than usual. ‘Yeah. We’ve actually met, last year. Your parents’ wedding anniversary.’
Chloe gave him an appraising look, then pursed her lips. ‘That’s right. Sorry, I remember you now. You’re my mum’s old schoolfriend’s son, or something like that, aren’t you?’
Liam nodded again, giving Max a sort of helpless look. Max wasn’t sure if he was asking to be rescued, or asking permission to dive in head-first. Generally, Liam needed no help when it came to women, despite his comments about it being too easy for Max. He also had no idea if Chloe had genuinely forgotten meeting Liam – he could just imagine her playing some sort of game right now, all too aware of the way Liam was looking at her. The problem was, Chloe was good at that bit – too good – but she protected her heart fiercely, so that it made it almost impossible for men to actually get close to her, though she’d no doubt start hissing at him if he ever dared to voice that opinion.
Figuring he’d better move Liam along and out of harm’s way, Max groaned. ‘For God’s sake, mate, pull it together – you’ll make her worse, looking at her like that.’
Chloe huffed, swinging her gym bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘Stop being deliberately obnoxious and embarrassing. Poor Liam.’ She flashed Liam a look that made him clear his throat. ‘Next time you try to chat up a girl in front of me, brother mine, I’m going to point out all your flaws in front of them. In excruciating detail.’
Max gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘Honey,’ he said with a fake, sarcastic drawl, ‘I don’t need to chat them up, they all fall at my feet, you know that.’ They grinned at each other – both challenge and solidarity. And in all fairness, her arrival had well and truly pulled him firmly out of his self-imposed melancholy. She could be annoying as hell, but Chloe was also the one person who could drag him out of a mood – self-imposed or otherwise. So he kissed her on the cheek to say goodbye before heading through security with Liam.
‘Jesus,’ Liam said, running a hand along the back of his neck.
Max couldn’t help but laugh, and he gave Liam a friendly pat on the back. ‘Don’t worry, mate, you’re not the only one to react like that, trust me.’
Liam shook his head. ‘That doesn’t actually make me feel better, funnily enough. Not that I . . . I mean, I know she’s your little sister and all.’
‘Yeah. Just make sure to leave out the “little” if you ever talk to her about that. But don’t worry, you’ll have the chance to make a better impression tonight.’
Liam frowned as they started up the stairs – a conscious effort on Max’s part to try and regain some kind of fitness. ‘Tonight.’
‘Yeah. I’ve just decided I need backup, if I have to deal with both my ex and my sister at dinner.’
Liam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘I thought you said she was just a friend?’
‘Well, whatever. You’re coming.’
‘Alright. As long as your mum’s cooking, I’m in.’
As they let themselves into their office on the third floor, Max admitted to himself that what he’d thought down below wasn’t actually quite true. Chloe wasn’t the one and only person who could drag him out of himself. Whether she knew it or not, the other was the one who had, quite literally, fallen at his feet four months ago.