Haven't Met You Yet

Chapter 19- Shit.

"Hi Max." I managed to speak past the lump in my throat.

"Hey gorgeous. What brings you here?"

He gave me a huge bear hug and had the biggest smile on his face. Max was always so happy to see me - it was quite refreshing to be honest.

I smiled and hugged him back with all my might. He actually gave pretty good hugs.

"Uh, is this a good time?" I sort of mumbled, I was scared that he'd be busy.

"It's always a good time for you. What's going on?" I think he knew something was wrong, he had this odd look on his face. Like if he had just seen a puppy being run over.

"Can I come in?" I asked as I ran my fingers through my hair nervously.

"Of course." he rushed as he pulled me into his apartment.

I walked in and found the state of his apartment to be very interesting. It wasn't spotless but it was fairly clean. The walls were full of beautiful, detailed paintings of sharks. Which didn't surprise me - he had such a fascination.

As I walked further inside I noticed the shelves were full of framed pictures. I stared at them observantly and realized that most of them were photos of him and an older woman who I assumed was his mother, a dark, shaggy haired guy that was obviously his brother (the similar 'I know you want me' smirk gave it away) and an old man that seemed like he was high on life.

"Oh, I see you've stumbled upon all my pictures." he walked toward me and stood next to me, rubbing his stubble and smiling.

"Yeah, they're pretty adorable actually. I'm assuming they're all your family?" I asked, staring at all the photos once again.

"Yup. That's mum, Jack and grandad for ya." he pointed out each of them for me. I noticed there weren't any pictures of his father but I figured there was a reason for that.

"Well you have a beautiful family. Your mother is stunning." I stuttered a bit. His mom really was very pretty. I can see where he gets his good looks from...

"Thanks, I'll make sure to tell her you said that." he said.

"You talk to your mom about me?" I asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Um well not a lot but." he blushed and trailed off.

I cut him off with a chuckle as we went and sat down on his couch. It was pretty comfortable, I probably could've fallen asleep on it.

"So, what's wrong love?" his eyebrows furrowed a bit and a look of worry began to spread across his face.

I felt my belly flop a bit. I really enjoyed being called love.

Then I felt sick to my stomach once I remembered why I came in the first place. My eyes started to water and the harder I tried to fight it, the worse it got.

"Um, I need to kinda just vent I guess." I answered, my voice cracked slightly.

"Go ahead." he responded, scooting closer to me.

And I began to fill him in.

***

"And I have no idea what to do." I finished and pushed through the tears.

I decided it was best that I didn't tell him about the situation with Jay. He shouldn't be in the middle, it's not fair to him.

He leaned over and put his arm around me before kissing the top of my head.

"I'm sorry babe, I really am. I can see how much this is botherin you and I wish I could make it all go away." he sounded more hurt than I did.

"Thanks Max. That means a lot to me." I sniffled.