Chapter Twenty-Eight
TREAT’S ARM FELL on an empty sheet. He opened his eyes and listened for Max. The house was too silent. He went to the window and looked down on the empty deck, then went into the bathroom, wondering if she’d gone for a walk. As he took the toothpaste from the basket beside the sink, he realized her things were gone.
“Max?” he called into the empty house. He ran down the stairs, his heart thundering in his chest. He tried to deny the wrenching in his gut. She can’t be gone. She wouldn’t do that to me—to us. He tore open the door and raced to the empty spot in the driveway where her car had been.
“No!” he yelled into the crisp morning air.
Treat stumbled back into the house. She can’t be gone.
He reached for his phone, and a handwritten note stopped his heart. He picked it up with a trembling hand.
Dear Treat,
When I read your letters back at my apartment, I knew how much you loved me, and how much I loved you became crystal clear. Being here with you these past few days has only solidified that in my heart and in my mind. But I’ve been where we are now, where one person has to give up something big to make the relationship work, and in the end, the very love that drives people together can turn to resentment. Once the honeymoon stage runs out and real life comes in with deadlines and pressures and late nights when all you want to do is be left alone, you can’t help but lose the feelings that drove you together. And then the resentment creeps in.
I didn’t mean to listen to you on the phone, but I overheard you saying you were giving up acquisitions—the very thing that gets your juices flowing. I can’t be the one to cause that, and I’m not sure I can travel the world like you do. I like to travel, and I love you, but not having a home and moving around so much would make my need for organization go overboard. And I’m sure it would eventually drive you crazy.
I love you, Treat, but I can’t let our very different lives tear apart what we have. If I leave now, we’ll always have these past few days. It won’t be enough, and I know that, but it’s better than waking up one day as strangers who feel trapped in a relationship. I can’t go through that again. I’m sorry, but I guess I’m still too weak—even with your love giving me strength.
There’s more, and I never thought I’d admit it to anyone, but I may never love anyone the way I love you, so I will share it with you now. Someone once told me that you can’t have an honest, happy relationship with a partner until you have an honest, happy relationship with yourself. There are still a few demons lurking in my head, and I think I have to deal with them before I can be a fair partner to anyone, especially you. You deserve so much more.
I know how much you want Thailand. You deserve it, Treat. Go. Do what you are so very good at and what you love. I’ll always love you, and I know you’ll always love me.
My heart will always belong to you, but please don’t follow me. Let us go so you can thrive.
Your sweetness at heart, Max
The lump in his throat didn’t change the anger that roared in his chest.
“No.” He slammed the letter on the table. “No. I’m not losing you again.” His phone rang and he snagged it from the table without looking at the number.
“Max?”
“Uh, no. It’s Savannah.”
“Sorry.” Treat’s mind was reeling. He had to call Max and talk her out of what was sure to be the biggest mistake of their lives.
“I thought Max was with you.”
He closed his eyes against the urge to snap at her. “She was.”
“Trouble in Loveland?”
“Savannah, not now. What do you need?” He calculated how much time it would take him to get to the airport, drive to Max’s apartment, and set things right.
“Sorry. It’s Dad. He’s sick, and I’m really worried about him.”
“I just saw him. He was as strong as an ox.” I’ll have to convince Max that acquisitions aren’t all that important to me. How can I do that? I’ll hire someone to do them. I’ll pay the attorney double if I have to. Treat had built his empire based on his keen negotiating skills and his belief in personally being involved with every transaction. He’d entrenched himself so deeply that there was never a need to look outside of his own abilities, partnered with his legal and financial advisers, when it came to the acquisitions. Now he was seeing another side to what he’d always done. He’d been hiding—from life, from commitment, from love. For the first time in his life, he realized, he cared about someone enough to want to stop hiding. There’s got to be a way.
“Treat, are you even listening to me?”
The edge in Savannah’s voice pulled him back to the call. “Sorry. Tell me again.”
“Treat. You have to come home.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up and called his travel agent, who had him booked on a flight out of Provincetown forty-five minutes later.
He called Max on the way to the airport, and as the phone went to voice mail, he realized that Max hadn’t checked her phone once the whole time they’d been together. In fact, he didn’t remember even seeing her phone, which made him wonder if she’d even get his message—but he had to try. “Max, please don’t do this. I love you, and we can figure this out. My dad’s sick. I’m headed there now. I’ll call you once I know what’s going on.”
BY THE TIME Max arrived at home it was almost noon, and she was exhausted. She’d cried so much on the plane, the stewardess asked her if she needed medical help. Not unless they can fix a broken heart. She dropped her bags on the floor and fell into bed.
Nine hours later, Max woke up feeling like a wet dishrag. The headache that thumped and squeezed was only a minor discomfort compared to the ache in her heart, but she’d done the right thing. You can’t take an aggressive, successful man and steal him out of his element for good—that would be like caging a bear. Eventually the bear would recognize the bars for what they were and tear them down—even if it meant hurting the person who had been nurturing him, tending to his needs, loving him, for years.
She wandered into her living room feeling dazed and hungover. She eyed the couch, but the memory of Treat sitting beside her on it was too much to bear. You did this to yourself. He begged you to make a life with him. The emptiness was like nothing she’d ever known. She went to the refrigerator and swung open the door. Blech. Nothing looked good. She needed something, but she couldn’t pinpoint anything that would fill the void.
After wandering aimlessly around the apartment, she finally grabbed a book and went back to bed. Within the first page, she was sucked back into sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING, Max lay in bed stewing over what she’d done. She had no energy to get up from her comfortable bed. She wasn’t hungry, and though she knew she should get up and go to work, her motivation had slipped away somewhere in the night. She closed her eyes and faded in and out of sleep until late in the afternoon.
She hauled herself out of bed and went to the little balcony off the living room, where she pressed her hands against the cool glass, thinking of Treat. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the bay breeze against her face and smell the salty air. She could feel Treat’s hand on her leg. She opened her eyes with a start.
“You’re pathetic,” she said to her reflection in the glass. “You did this. You turned him away. This is your fault, and now you have to suck it up.” She turned away with tears in her eyes. Great. Now I’ve turned into a crazy person who sleeps all day and talks to herself.
That was enough to send Max into a warm shower. As the water rained over her, she thought of Treat, how much she missed him already and how she’d freaked out when they were first in bed together at her apartment, which brought her mind to her ex-boyfriend and how much he’d messed up her head. God, she hated him. What the hell have I done? How could that one relationship in college fuck me up so badly? She turned the water hotter until steam filled the glass doors and she couldn’t see out, until the memories of her ex-boyfriend separated from those of Treat, and until the tears that she didn’t realize were falling melted into the rain from the faucet.
An hour later, with her hair dry and pinned up into a ponytail, having donned clean jeans and a fresh T-shirt, she headed out to her car. She stood in the parking lot remembering her legs wrapped around Treat’s waist just feet from where she now stood. Ugh! I can’t keep doing this to myself. I chose to leave. It’s for the best.
She drove circles around town just to avoid being alone in her apartment and wallowing in memories that made her skin burn with regret. She drove toward the office, but when she entered the dark parking lot, she realized that she was too tired, and it was too late, to do any real work. She drove into the Village, where the familiar lights in the trees brought a smile to her lips. Treat would love it here. She forced the thought from her mind.
Max followed the sidewalk past all the stores, around a corner, and down an alley, then disappeared down a few steps. She pulled the heavy door to Taylor’s Cove open and waved to the bartender and owner, Joe Taylor.
“What’ll ya have, Max?”
Joe’s grandfather had opened the pub years earlier, and when Joe had taken it over, he’d encouraged the hard reputation the pub had of catering to bikers and blue-collar workers. Joe might serve a rougher crowd, but he ran a tight ship. He didn’t allow any trouble, and the result was a quieter pub where there was little conversation and an abundance of solitude.
As she climbed up on a stool at the empty bar, she waved her hand. “Whatever. Something strong and yummy.”
“You look beat, Max. You okay?”
“Yeah, just flew halfway across the United States. I’m tired, but I’m fine.” She took the glass without asking what it was and sucked down the pungently sweet liquor, licking her lips as she slammed down the empty glass.
“Wow, that was good!”
“You know my rule, Max.” Joe wiped the bar with a towel and removed her empty glass.
Max rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, no refill for a full minute.” Max was already feeling the effects of the drink. The tension in her shoulders and neck loosened as she touched her right ear to her shoulder, then the left. Treat would rub that pain away. Oh my God! Shut up! “Has it been sixty seconds yet?”
“Almost.” Joe leaned on the bar.
She looked around the small tavern and tried to focus on the television, but it didn’t hold her attention. There were two older men sitting at a table in the corner, and a younger man was sitting at a table just to her right. What am I doing here?
Max dug through her purse for her cell phone. She must have left it at home. Damn it. She tried to remember when she’d last used it but couldn’t think beyond her desire for another drink. Luckily, Joe was placing one in front of her as she looked up.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She nursed her drink. The more she drank, the less sure she was about what she’d done. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken the onus off of him to realize that giving up the things he loved to be with her was the wrong thing to do. The thought of Treat waking up to find her note no longer seemed the kindest way to have set him free. Maybe she should have stayed put and fought it out with him. She finished her second drink and held up her glass.
“Five minutes, Max.”
“Whatever,” she said, then went right back to focusing on Treat. Hadn’t she told him to love her through her insecurities? This was his fault. It had to be. He should have never let her go. He should have declared his love for her. Wait. Did he? Oh yeah. He had.
Max slid off of her stool to go to the ladies’ room, which seemed very far away. Why was the floor wobbling like that?
When she came back to the bar and asked for another drink, Joe shook his head.
“Joe, I’m almost thirty. I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to drink.” Joe had always watched over her, ever since she’d first walked in as a twenty-two-year-old, doe-eyed girl.
“Yeah, you are, but when you first came in here you said you weren’t a drinker. I’ve seen you only a handful of times since then, but you never drank like you are tonight, which tells me two things.” He leaned over the bar, and Max leaned closer.
Between her exhaustion and the alcohol, she had a hard time remaining still.
“You’re either getting over some man, or you’ve been fired, and since I spoke to Chaz and he assured me that you’re still an employee, I’m thinking it’s the first.”
“You called Chaz?”
He ignored her question. “And because I’m thinking it’s the first, and I can’t have some guy coming down here with a baseball bat to have at me for allowing you to drink so much that you end up in the hospital, or dead on the side of the road, I’m pulling rank.”
Max had to smile. He was right. He had been at this a long time.
“Mind if I join you?” Kaylie slid onto the stool beside Max.
“Oh my God.” Max covered her face and groaned. “I’m sorry he called you, Kaylie.” She glared at Joe, who shrugged with a caring smile.
“Thanks, Joe,” Kaylie said. “Wanna talk about it?” she asked Max.
“God, no,” she said, feeling the effects of the alcohol. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t gotten that third drink.
“So, you went to Mass and he wasn’t there. So what? I told you fate was a load of donkey doo.”
On second thought. “Joe, now that I have a driver, may I please have another drink?”
Joe brought her half a glass.
“Thanks, Dad,” Max teased. She slammed her head back and gulped it down. “Ahh. Okay, now I can talk.”
“I can tell this is gonna be good.” Kaylie rubbed her hands together.
“Don’t get too excited. Long story short, he was there. Fate did step in.”
Kaylie touched her arm. “No way. And?”
“And I’m here and he’s there, and…”
“And?” Kaylie asked.
Max held her palm up toward the ceiling. “He’s wonderful. He’s…Oh God, where do I start?”
“I want the good stuff, so start with that.”
Max leaned in close so she and Kaylie were head to head, and she whispered, “He’s loving and romantic and, Kaylie, oh my God, I never thought I could feel the way I did when I was with him.”
Kaylie put her hand on Max’s shoulder. “Max, you told me all of this before you saw him. So…what are we really talking about here?”
At the same time that Kaylie said, “Multiple orgasms?” Max said, “It’s definitely love.”
“Wait, what?” Kaylie said.
Max blushed. “And that other thing,” she whispered.
“Max!”
Max shot a glance at Joe and saw a wicked grin on his lips. She covered her face. “Great, now I’m the town tramp.”
“Oh, stop it. Joe knows you better than that.” Kaylie winked at Joe. “You were the town tramp before Treat; now you’re also the Wellfleet tramp,” she teased.
Max slapped her arm.
Joe sauntered over and leaned in close again. “Maxy, I’ve never even seen you with a guy besides this one’s husband.” He nodded at Kaylie. “I think you’re a lady, no matter what she says.”
“Thank you, Joe.” Max noticed the room was beginning to spin and reached for the bar.
“I wanna know the rest. Why on earth are you home? Chaz gave you the week off.”
Max stood up, gripping the bar. “I left in the middle of the night. Left him a note.”
Kaylie grabbed her arm and steadied her. “I’m gonna take you home with me tonight.” She paid Joe for Max’s drinks and thanked him, then walked Max out of the pub.
“He was giving up Thailand for me,” she slurred. “I couldn’t let him do that.”
“Thailand?”
“And acqui—acqui—acquisitions. Everything he loved. Poof! Gone. And all because of me.”
They arrived at Kaylie’s car, and she leaned Max against the side as she opened the door, then guided her in. “If you’re gonna heave, open the window,” Kaylie instructed.
“I couldn’t let him poof! because of me.”
“You’re not making any sense, Max, and I don’t understand.” Kaylie drove out of town, toward her house. “You like everything about him, but you don’t want him to give up what? What’s Thailand?”
Max closed her eyes.
“Are you asleep?” Kaylie asked quietly.
“No, I’m not asleep. How can I sleep when I’m this drunk?” Max opened her eyes, squinting at the bright streetlights. “Okay, so he was talking about for-e-ver. You know about for-e-ver? You have it with Chaz, only Chaz didn’t have to give up Thailand and all the things that got his juices flowing to have his forever like Treat would have to do. What kind of name is Treat anyway? He is delicious, let me tell you.”
Kaylie laughed. “You are so drunk, Max. Before the other day, I’d never heard you say two words about a man, and all of a sudden your mouth spilleth over. So, I assume by got his juices flowing you mean he would have to give up other women, and Thailand is some sort of reference to exotic women?”
“Locations.” It seemed like the right choice. She missed Treat. Just talking about him made her loins ache.
“So, he has women in exotic locations and he’d have to give them up? Well, hell yeah, he’d better if he’s going to have forever with you, but he didn’t strike me as that kind of guy. I guess you never know. I mean, he’s really hot.”
“Hey, he’s my hot guy.”
“You left him, remember? Now he’s anyone’s hot guy.”
“Shit.” Max spun toward Kaylie. “What have I done?”
As Kaylie parked the car in front of her house, she said, “You drank too much. We can deal with this tomorrow, after you’re sober and thinking straight. It still feels like the story is a little off. I mean, come on, Max. Everyone gives up something when they get married.”
“You’re right. Actu-a-lly, I think I did the right thing. Now he won’t resemble—reset—resemb. Hold on.” Max covered her face, then shot a finger up in the air and said, “Resent me!”
“Okay, let’s get you inside.”