The Boyfriend Sessions (25 page)

“You two are so hot.”

I blushed bright red. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sicken you.”

“There’s nothing sickening about it. Call me a romantic, but I love the way he looks at you. It’s like he wants to protect you, love you, and devour you in one bite.”

I stopped walking down the hall and stared at her. “You’re a romantic.”

“And you’re in denial.” She smiled sweetly and before I could protest, pointed to the television. “I’m starting the DVD, so sit down and stop arguing.”

It was unlike Cate to be quite so bossy and I did as I was told. Miranda’s friendly face filled the screen and we proceeded to laugh ourselves stupid like only girlfriends could.

It was six thirty on Saturday morning and I was wide awake.

Cate and I had stayed up late the night before watching episodes of Miranda and talking about nothing in particular—or everything other than what was on her mind. It was one in the morning by the time we’d gone to bed.

Now I lay on my back, the sheets thrown off to one side. The sun’s early morning glare assaulted my eyes from around the edge of my blinds. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get back to sleep. There was nothing more frustrating than being unable to sleep in on a designated sleep in day. Bad mood, anyone?

I stalked to the shower. It was only three weeks until Christmas and the humidity was setting in. My skin already felt damp and sticky, which hardly added to my mood.

Standing under the cool stream of water, I wondered when I should call Max. He’d possibly had a late night as well if he’d gone home and played computer games. I wasn’t about to ruin his sleep in just because I was wide awake.

Cate’s words replayed through my foggy morning brain.
It’s like he wants to protect you, love you, and devour you in one bite.

God, was Max in love with me?

Surely not. He’d agreed to take it slow emotionally. Completely understandable after what he’d been through.

Without meaning to, I recalled the familiar look he’d get in his eyes when he was intent on only me. I loved that look. It was all dark and sexy and determined rolled into one. But there was more than that, too. There was need as well.

That was to be expected surely? It would just be reflecting the same need I felt for him whenever I was close to him.

Cate’s use of the word ‘protect’ was an interesting one.

I still remembered how stubborn he’d been about the incident with Troy. I shook my head. He was just that sort of guy. Decent and loving, and if it was his sister or another friend, I was sure his reaction would have been the same.

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, drying myself fiercely.

Cate had accused me of being in love with Max. She didn’t know what she was talking about obviously. She was so desperate to fall in love herself that she was projecting that on to everyone around her, poor girl.

I tossed my towel back on the rail and began to tug out the knots in my hair with a comb while I stared at myself in the mirror.

So how did
I
feel about Max?

He asked you to be honest, don’t you remember?

Yes, yes, I know
, I replied to my helpful subconscious.

Well, I mused, he’s gorgeous and generous and lovable and sweet and funny and sexy and hot and smart and driven and supportive—what wasn’t there to like?

What wasn’t there to love?

No. I threw my comb back onto the sink with a loud clatter. I didn’t do love. Well, not so soon anyway. That would just make it messy and complicated, and the last thing I wanted to do was put pressure on him.

My role in his life at the moment was to help him smile and laugh again. Plus a decent dose of recreational sex didn’t hurt either. He didn’t need to be falling in love with a woman with my terrible track record. I’d already made a silent promise to myself that I would walk rather than hurt him.

Then what the hell are you doing with him, Christa?

I stared at my reflection, my face pale and my blue eyes bright. I could imagine Maddy asking me exactly the same question. Now I was dangerously close to losing her friendship. Perhaps I should just end it? Accept that she was right—Max wasn’t the one for me. Then we could all return to the way things used to be.

No! First of all, I didn’t want to. Secondly, what right did she have to ask me to give him up? She was worried he’d get hurt again, I understood that. But anyone he got involved with would risk doing the same thing. That was life.

Her unspoken expectations were suffocating. Why couldn’t we just be left alone to let the relationship evolve naturally and see where it took us?

I let out a low growl. Maddy wasn’t being fair and what was worse, I couldn’t even talk to her about it sensibly because she was being so pigheaded about it.

I stalked into my bedroom and found a pair of fitted shorts and a simple blue t-shirt, then threw them on distractedly.

When my phone beeped, I glanced at the clock. It was barely seven. My heart did a flip as I registered that it could be Max. I went to my bedside table to retrieve my phone.

It was a message from Scarlett. Odd. I opened it and grimaced. Even in a text, her tone was dry.

Thanks Christa. I had to endure Maddy for two hours last night. Thank you very much. Either dump him or marry him soon because I can’t stand it.

I groaned and punched in a short reply.

It’s not my fault she refuses to have a proper conversation about it. Sorry my love life is ruining your week.

It was blunter than usual, even for me, but I was past it. Before I could reflect on my bubbling anger any further, my phone rang.

“I didn’t think you’d be up yet. Are you with him?”

I rolled my eyes. Hi, Scarlett.” “If by him, you mean Max, no, I’m at home.”

“Trouble in a paradise?”

“Everything’s fine. I spent the night hanging out with Cate.” I didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate any further, as I was pretty sure Cate wanted to keep the details of her tumultuous week between us at that point.

Scarlett appeared to accept my brief explanation. “What did you say to Maddy? She seemed even more pissed, if that’s at all possible.”

“She hardly gave me a chance to talk to her, so I don’t know what she’s going on about. I basically told her I wanted to clear the air, that I hadn’t planned for any of it to happen and that Max was a willing participant, it wasn’t all just my doing.”

“Truth won’t get you anywhere, Bubbles, you know that.”

I sighed. “Obviously. She had the audacity to accuse me of trying to seduce her brother, like I go around doing it regularly.”

A long silence followed, which did nothing at all to improve my already dark mood. “What?” I demanded.

“Seduce is probably the wrong word. But you do have a way of attracting men.” I could practically hear her grinning down the phone.

“Not you too! Seduction is deliberate, what I apparently do to men is not deliberate,” I whined.

“Nothing you do is deliberate.”

Nice. “Thanks for your show of support. Look, I’m sorry she spent the night bitching to you, that was partly why I wanted to keep it a secret, to avoid all of this.”

“You didn’t want to tell us?” She sounded intrigued.

“Not at first. Not at least until I figured out what was going on between the two of us and whether it’s serious.”

Her response was lightning quick. “If it needs figuring out, then it’s serious.”

“Excuse me?”

“If it was just good old fashioned consensual sex, there’d be no figuring out required. You have feelings for each other.”

“Of course we have feelings for each other! I wouldn’t have gotten involved with him otherwise.” I’d gone from Cate’s rose-colored view of the world to Scarlett’s—it wasn’t an easy transition at seven in the morning on limited sleep.

“The fact that you’re prepared to piss Maddy off to be with Max is telling in my opinion.”

“See, here’s the thing. I wasn’t looking for anyone’s opinion. I was actually hoping to have avoided all of this by not telling you.”

“Uh huh. That’s after the fact stuff. I’m not talking about telling or not telling, I’m referring to the fact that you got involved in the first place.”

I closed my eyes. My head hurt and I badly needed coffee. “I told you already, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“You didn’t mean for it to happen, but you let it happen. There’s a difference.”

“Are you premenstrual or something? The last person I expected to be pissed at me about this was you.”

Scarlett responded with a deep laugh, which only served to infuriate me further. “I’m not pissed at you. I’m annoyed I had to endure Maddy last night, absolutely, but I’ve got no problem with you being with Max.”

“At least you don’t think I’m in love with Max and he’s in love with me,” I muttered.

“Cate been giving you her perspective on things?”

I grunted in response.

“She has a point. You do have it bad for each other.”

Not her too! “Having it bad for each other does not necessarily equate to love and marriage,” I managed through gritted teeth.

“So you love the guy, so what? The world’s going to keep turning.”

She was exasperating. “I never said I loved—”

“Bubbles, you don’t need to say it. It’s written all over you.”

“Goodbye Scarlett. Have a nice weekend, won’t you?”

Her lilting laughter faded as I removed my mobile from my ear and hit ‘end’ brutally.

I could have sworn I heard her say “Poor Max,” before I hung up on her. I threw the phone onto my bed and stomped to the kitchen in search of coffee.

Friends. Who needed them?

“I think you need to set yourself up online.”

It took me a moment to tear myself away from the view and digest Max’s statement. It was mid-afternoon and we were in the middle of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, one of Sydney’s best known heritage-listed parks. I’d bushwalked on and off for years but I’d yet to walk all the trails in Ku-ring-gai—today we’d chosen a track called the Waratah Trail.

“How do you mean?” I asked, distracted by a rustling in the trees to my left. I’d come across a few deadly brown snakes in my time and it was always important to keep a lookout, especially on warmer days like this when the temperature was headed toward thirty degrees.

“I’ve been doing a bit of research and come across others like you, doing the same thing,” Max continued, scanning the sandy fire trail from behind his reflective Ray Bans.

“Doing the same thing?”

“Selling their designs as book covers,” he clarified. “They set up a Facebook ‘like’ page, a Twitter account, and a website, and target themselves toward publishers and writers.”

Huh. I hadn’t even thought of that. “Do you think it works?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It can’t hurt to try surely? It’s easy to design a website and I can help you with the technical stuff. You can start to build a name for yourself.”

I was silent while I contemplated his idea. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? But he was right, it couldn’t hurt to try. Especially given my current freelance work with Maddy was strained. I’d only just worked up the courage to go freelance. After all my years of working, I’d now realized I didn’t want to go back to a nine-to-five job without giving this a decent try first. I also didn’t want the reason for my freelance arrangement not working out to be because I’d slept with my client’s brother.

“Is it a good idea or am I inflicting my entrepreneurial ways on you again?” Max asked.

“Very good idea,” I replied quickly. I didn’t want him to think my silence was because I didn’t like the concept. Far from it. “You mentioned writers as well as publishers, why’s that?”

“Think about it. Digital publishing is going haywire at the moment and lots of authors are going it alone. They need access to good design, like yours. You could start with the fantasy market and go from there.”

I nodded and wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead. It was around two in the afternoon and the sun beat down on us mercilessly. I was conscious my fair complexion probably looked like an overripe tomato, or hopefully something more tantalising like a peach. Max on the other hand looked completely in his element. His powerful forearms extended from his white t-shirt, olive skin glistening in the sun.

He turned to look at me from beneath his broad brimmed white cricket hat, an eyebrow raised. “You seem distracted.”

Understatement. I was dangerously close to blurting out that both Scarlett and Cate thought we were in love with each other, but the awkward conversation that was likely to follow held me back.

“Sorry, Cate’s on my mind,” I explained, which was partly true.

“How is she?”

I adjusted my baseball cap—already soaked with sweat—as I formulated my answer. “A bit of a mess.”

“How come?”

I still wasn’t sure whether I should share Cate’s dilemma. “Man troubles,” I hedged.

“I probably don’t want to know. You and your secrets.”

I frowned. What was that supposed to mean? “I don’t think she’s told anyone else, so I’m not at liberty to say what’s going on, Max.”

“Isn’t constantly keeping secrets exhausting?”

“Are you really that desperate to know?” I knew my bad mood hadn’t completely lifted since my frustrating phone conversation with Scarlett that morning, but his dismissive tone wasn’t helping.

“Not really. I guess I’m just surprised you seem to have so many secrets from each other.”

“We don’t tell each other everything.”

“I noticed.”

“Come on, surely guys don’t tell each other everything either.”

His face broke into an amused grin. “That’s because there’s not that much to tell.”

He had me there. “I think I should try being a guy for a while.”

“Please don’t.” His heavy hiking boots skidded on the rocky trail and he turned to look at me. I stopped and stared at my distorted reflection in his sunglasses. “Christa, you can tell me anything, you know that?”

I gave him a quizzical look. “I know that.”

“And there’s no secrets between us, agreed?”

I swallowed. He wasn’t talking about Cate’s predicament anymore, he was referring to us. He was reiterating his need for complete honesty in our relationship, but I didn’t want to talk about us.

“I’m not in a position to discuss Cate’s issue—”

“I’ve already told you I’m not interested.” He reached up and pressed a gentle, but firm, finger on my temple. “I’m not asking you to betray a confidence. I’m just reminding you that you’re not very good at letting me in.”

“I’m not sure you’re ready for the unrestrained inner thoughts of my mind,” I replied weakly, forcing a grin.

He dropped his hand to his side. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Max looked at me for a moment longer then turned away and started walking, not waiting for me to follow. He was pissed. Again. How did I manage to completely annoy and seduce him without even realizing it?

I watched his tall frame stride purposefully another few metres, before I found the courage to open my mouth.

“Cate and Scarlett think we’re in love with each other,” I blurted out.

Max paused mid-stride and dropped his head to look at the ground. “Bingo,” he said softly, then turned to face me. “And what did you say?”

“I told them they didn’t know what they were talking about.”

“Oh?”

I stared as his lips formed a long thin line. This was exactly what I was worried about, so I decided to throw it back on him. “What would you have told them?”

“To mind their own business.”

This time I did grin. “Now who has secrets?”

“Touché.” He held out a hand and waited for me to join him.

We resumed walking and I was both relieved and a little surprised that he was so willing to drop the subject. I wasn’t complaining. I took a deep breath as we picked up our pace and inhaled the heady scent of humidity mixed with eucalypt. I loved this place. The bush stretched out around us for miles and it was a never ending vista of gum trees, sandstone ridges and low lying bushes meandering along the sandy terrain. It was easy to forget we were only a short drive from the city.

The ground underfoot crunched reassuringly as we progressed along the track. This particular walk was about nine and a half kilometers return. We’d been walking for roughly an hour and by my calculations we weren’t far from reaching the lookout at the end.

About ten minutes later we came to a dead end. The sand on the ground glared piercingly in the afternoon sun and it took me a moment to realize that on our western side, the ridge dropped away gradually to the bay. I watched as Max assessed the small outcropping before us, then having identified a haphazard cluster of sandstone behind us on our eastern side, indicated I should follow him up.

We climbed the old, soft stones easily and decided on a particularly wide and flat rock to sit down and enjoy the view. Below, the water in the bay winked enticingly at us and I found myself envying the tiny assortment of scattered boats floating leisurely in the light breeze.

“It makes me want to go for a swim. Preferably from off the side of one of those amazing boats,” I told Max.

“I’ll take you for a ride on our boat another time,” he promised.

I turned to look at him. “You have a boat?”

“It’s Dad’s, but I’m licensed to skipper it.”

Of course, I was forgetting I was talking to a Spencer. Maddy had no interest whatsoever in boats but I think I recalled her vaguely mentioning her dad’s boat on a few occasions.

“That would be nice.” And it would be. Very nice. Unbidden, the day spent with Nick on his boat came traitorously to my mind and I did my best to push the images away.

As if reading my thoughts, Max let out a low chuckle. “Although I’m not sure I can make it more memorable than your first boat trip.”

Oh. I reddened, if that was possible in my already overheated state. Was he competing?

“I’m joking, Christa.” He reached around and retrieved his drink bottle from the side of his backpack. I watched, distracted, as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down while he took a long swig of water. A few errant drops of water traveled along his five o’clock shadow down to his chin.

He caught me looking at him and a long, lazy smile spread across his face. “Maybe not entirely. Our boat has queen size beds.”

My eyes widened behind my sunglasses and I quickly reached around to grab my own water bottle. How did he do that? And he accused me of seducing him.

I felt his eyes on me as I took a mouthful of water and did my best to keep looking at the view instead of his unsettling stare.

“It doesn’t bother me, you know.”

I turned to him, momentarily confused. “What doesn’t?”

“Your long list of exes.”

Oh, right. The lightning quick Spencer change of subject. “Should it?” I tried not to sound defensive.

“It might bother some guys.”

“But not you?”

“No.”

I was still confused. Why had he suddenly brought the subject up? Was it something he needed to get off his chest or was there more to it than that?

“I’m not ashamed of it,” I said, levelly. “I’m almost twenty-eight years old. It’s not unusual to have had a few partners by my age.”

“Hey.” He reached over to rest his palm on my arm and my already hot skin tingled at his touch. “That wasn’t supposed to make you defensive. All I meant was I don’t want you to worry that I’ve been privy to your dating history. I won’t ever use it against you.”

I released a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Thank you.” I sneaked a look in his direction. “Not even Handy Hamish?”

“I’ll try.” He squeezed my arm then had another long drink of water, when a thought occurred to me.

“Why doesn’t it bother you?”

His low laugh made my stomach flip, but I did my best to ignore my reaction.

“Because none of them were serious.”

Hang on
, my subconscious shouted. “One engagement, one proposal and one avoided proposal and you don’t think any of them were serious?”

My temper flared as I watched him bite back another laugh.

“You weren’t in love with any of them.”

“I thought I made it quite clear that I was in love with Troy and most definitely Nick—”

“You thought you were in love with them. There’s a difference.”

I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands. What was with everyone trying to tell me who I was in love with?

“It must be a macho dick thing, but I can handle your ex-boyfriends because none of them really counted.”

“So by your logic, I should be having a really hard time with your relationship with Sarah then,” I refuted stubbornly.

“I think it’s quite clear that’s over,” he said softly.

I immediately felt guilty. “Sorry.”

He reached over again and grasped my hand. “I’m sorry too. This is coming out all wrong. In my attempt to be honest, I’m putting my foot in my mouth.”

I looked at him warily. “So what exactly are you trying to say, Max?”

He pushed his sunglasses to rest on top of his short cropped brown hair, his warm, chestnut eyes studying me intently. “None of it matters when I’m with you.”

He reached a hand over and brushed a palm against my cheek, somehow making me shiver in the blistering conditions.

“None of it matters when I’m with you,” he repeated softly. “Not my past, not your past, not even my little sister’s overreaction. Just you.”

He leaned in and barely touched his lips to mine, the gesture a promise that sent my blood racing.

“What are you saying?” I managed.

“I’m saying your friends are right.”

I sat back, my head spinning.

“I need to be honest with you, Christa.”

I closed my eyes. He was going to say it, wasn’t he?

“Don’t.” It came out harsher than I intended, but I couldn’t help it. “Please don’t.”

“What are you so scared of?”

I jumped up and glared down at him. “I’m not scared! I’m just sick of everyone trying to tell me how I feel.”

Slowly, Max got to his feet and looked tenderly at me. “I’m not trying to tell you how to feel. I’m telling you how
I
feel.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

He ignored me, his eyes locked on mine. “Whether you like it or not, I’m falling in love with you, Bubbles.”