To the Max (12 page)

“Pretty much,” she admitted.

Clearly she didn’t know him as well as she thought. “Well, I’m glad I surprised you. We discovered this place by accident many years ago. We got lost one day with my dad and ended up stopping for a bite here. Since the main pier was relocated, this side of the town has almost no traffic. Only locals know about this place.”

They’d barely crossed the threshold when one of the owners noticed them and headed their way. “Max? Is that you?”

“Hi, Sierra.”

“Guys, Max is here!” she called to the back as she hugged him. Her two sisters came out. “So good to see you. Where are your brothers?” Sierra asked, glancing around. Then she noticed Annie and her eyes opened wide. “Oh, you’re here with a date?”

“Annie is a friend of mine. Annie, Sierra. And these two are Sydney and Haley. The three Hornsea spitfires. Sisters and owners of the Crabby Lobster.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sierra said to Annie while the other girls nodded in greeting, still looking stunned. “Your table is free.”

“Great.” With a gentle hand on the small of her back, Max directed Annie to a corner table at the far end. “The view of the sea is glorious.”

“By the stupefied expression on those girls’ faces, I take it you don’t come here with your dates? That, or I look even worse than I think I do,” Annie said after they sat.

Max watched her. She’d patted her hair down in the car, but after a whole evening running her hands through it, the volume was there to stay. Her makeup hadn’t been waterproof but she’s scrubbed her face and it wasn’t smudgy anymore, although her eyes were smoky. She’d rubbed her mouth to remove any trace of smeared lipstick and as a result, her lips were red and puffy. Fucking sexy. Especially with the conservative outfit.

“You look great but, no, I don’t come here with dates. It was always my bros, my dad, and I.”

“I heard somewhere lobster is a very romantic food. A favorite on Valentine’s.”

He snorted. “I’m sure they were referring to lobster chowder or some fancy concoction. Cracking a whole lobster with a mallet while wearing a huge bib? Liquid spurting on your face and chest, your hands sticky and dripping? Some of my dates refuse to blink too fast in case their fake eyelashes fall down. Eating at the Crabby Lobster? No way. Not to mention that, after hours of getting ready, covering themselves with a bib is not on their list of priorities.”

Sierra interrupted them. “Your usual?”

Max nodded. “And we won’t be needing lobster scissors or nutcrackers. We want the mallets.”

“That kind of day, huh?” she asked with a knowing smile.

“That kind of day.”

“You got it. Two smashers, then.”

“How often do you come here?” Annie asked when Sierra had left with their order.

“We used to come a lot. Almost every week before James met Tate. Now it’s more sporadic. Don’t tell Tate, but this is my favorite restaurant in the whole world. Rosita’s is fantastic, but it’s always full of people.” The Crabby Lobster was a very unassuming place, but the food was first class and all the tourists missed it on their way to more lively coastal towns, which suited him and his brothers just fine.

Annie leaned in and motioned for him to do the same. He did. “You may have already guessed, but I thought I’d let you know. Every frigging woman in here is staring at you. Several men too.”

“Didn’t notice. I never look at anybody but the woman I’m with.”

She snorted. “Yeah. I was sooo right; I could have come naked and no one would have noticed.”

“I very much doubt that, Ace. And I don’t like my dates going anywhere naked. Or being ogled.” Truth be told, several of his dates had worn some outrageous outfits that left little to the imagination and he hadn’t minded, but he didn’t like the thought of Annie being ogled by other men. More than she already was with her just-fucked, vixen, sexy-as-hell look.

Haley, the youngest of the sisters, brought bowls of water and the bibs, which Annie didn’t hesitate wearing.

When the lobsters came, Max handed her a mallet. “Okay, you do the honors.”

“Never done this,” she warned, holding it. She hit a claw rather hesitantly. It didn’t even make a scratch.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Harder, Ace. Remember back at the house? The pissed-off-ness we need to get rid of?” He hated to remind her of it, but he was a firm believer that hostility had to be dealt with, not buried.

It was as if a bulb had gone on. She swung the mallet and cracked open the claw. “Ha!” she exclaimed, a bright smile on her face. “This is liberating.”

After several swings, she’d made good work of it. “And you?” she asked, pointing at his still-whole lobster.

“Didn’t have a shitty day. Would you like to—”

He hadn’t completely finished the sentence before Annie had smashed one of his lobster’s claws.

“So, Luigi,” he said carefully. “Uncommon name. I don’t think there’s anyone named Luigi in Alden.”

“He’s not from Alden. I met him in Boston. And it turned out his name is Glenn. Luigi is his…”

“His what? Nickname?” he offered.

“Something like that.”

“Flashy,” he said reaching for the glass of water. “Is he in the entertainment industry?” Boston was not New York, but it staged its fair share of shows.

“You could say so. He entertains women with orgasms.”

Now Max was the one choking. Thank God he hadn’t been drinking yet, otherwise he would have spurted all over her. “What?”

“He’s an escort. From StudsRus.com. Remember the damn gala this past July? The invitation that I, who never wins a damn thing, won? I should have known there was a catch.”

“You serious?”

“Like a damn heart attack.” She swung the mallet and cracked open the body of the lobster, a spurt of hot water coming out of it and splattering on her bib. “This is therapeutic. In a messy, very unsophisticated sort of way. You going to crack the tail of yours?”

It took a few seconds for her words to compute. “Uh, be my guest.”

She twirled the mallet in one hand several times as if it were a baton, and then smashed his lobster’s tail, shit flying all over. Twirled again and hit it again. Max considered telling her that annihilating the shell and then encrusting it into the meat would make it damn hard to eat it later, but he kept quiet.

“Majorette. Five years. Finally some use for those skills,” she said in apology, lifting her shoulders, and then added, her tone harder, “Luigi, number twenty-six from the most exclusive East Coast escort agency’s catalog. Italian stallion from the old continent. In reality? Glenn from Pennsylvania.”

“He’s an ass. You’re better off without him.”

“Yes, he is,” she agreed and
bam
, whacked the other claw. “And yes, I am. Way better.”

He much preferred her like this than crying, though this was scarier. “Look at it from the positive side.”

“Which is?”

“He didn’t refer to himself in the third person, did he?”

She chuckled. “No, he didn’t. Jeez, I’ve got to be the girl with the worst luck in the whole universe. Totally jinxed. Do you know where my last serious boyfriend, Ben, is?”

Max shook his head.

Annie cracked the last claw, hitting it a second time for good measure. “Selling piña coladas at a beach bar in Miami with his husband, Stan. He was a very successful marketing executive, totally straight, until he met me. Now they are interviewing women to rent a uterus.”

He remembered coming from the military and hearing that Ben had left her. He’d thought Ben was the stupidest man alive. Leaving such a classy lady.

She was breathing hard and twirling the mallet, nothing else to bash. “I think we’re going to need more lobster.”

“Ace, put that down. You’ll be sore tomorrow.” She’d obliterated both their lobsters. Hell, every time she’d hit them, their glasses shook.

She rolled her shoulder and winced. “Right. Now what?”

“Now we dig the flesh out with our fingers, dip it in the garlic butter, and make a mess of eating it. If you’re still pissed after that, we’ll order more.”

“Okay.” She pulled up her sleeves and did as instructed. “God, this is fantastic. It melts in the mouth,” she said after the first morsel.

“Told you.”

“You know,” she started as she dug more flesh out, “in a way, it’s great Luigi bailed. My kid is doomed enough in the family department without adding an arrogant bastard of a gigolo as a father. My dad is a serial groom. My grandparents are stuck-up socialites. My stepmothers make the evil queen from
Snow White
look like Mother Teresa. My mom…”

“What about your mom?” He hadn’t seen her in several years, since she remarried and moved away, but he’d thought she was a very nice woman.

“She’s great,” Annie hurried to explain. “Just a bit eccentric. Larry is cool too. He owns a big sport and outdoors shop that specializes in extreme sports and survival. He’s a trained survivalist and a prepper. Well, they’re both preppers.”

“Preppers?”

“Doomsday preppers. Mom is preparing for a pandemic, Larry for a megatsunami.”

“No way,” Max stated, gaping at her.

“Yes way. Last year she was running a pandemic drill for her neighbors, and since I arrived late, she put me in quarantine while she and the others ate.”

Max was laughing so hard his eyes were watering. Man, she had to be kidding him. “Wasn’t your mom a hippie?” he managed to say. That’s how he remembered her at least.

Annie nodded. “With time she’s reached the conclusion that love, live and let live do not apply to nasty bugs. In hindsight, she always was a bit obsessive-compulsive with cleanliness.”

“Damn interesting family reunions.”

She sighed. “I take great comfort in the thought that by age three, my kid will be able to perform a tracheotomy and disarm a bomb with just his pacifier. MacGyver will have nothing on him.”

Max watched as Annie smiled at him. Fuck, here they were, talking gigolos and preppers. Laughing their heads off. The table was full of bits of shell and stains from the food. They were all but elbow-deep in lobster meat and garlic butter. Their bibs were a mess, their fingers sticky. He couldn’t remember when he’d had this much fun going out with a woman. Probably never.

* * * *

After making it home and saying good night, Annie went to her room, feeling happy and totally relaxed. Luigi who? Max had been right; his method for decompressing was fantastic. And way better than wallowing over a pint of ice cream. She wrapped herself in a towel, ready to take a shower, when she picked up her e-reader to turn it off. She hated leaving chapters unfinished, so she sat on her bed to finish that one. Before she knew it, almost an hour had gone by.

Shit. As she hurried to the bathroom, she bumped into a big, pierced, naked chest.

“Oh, Max. Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”

“My bad. I thought you were sleeping already, otherwise I would have gone downstairs.”

“I was reading and time flew by,” she said, blushing.

Annie was trying really hard not to ogle him, but boy it was difficult with that piercing at her eye level and all those bulging muscles and perfectly defined abs in front of her. Smelling like man and summer and sunshine.

His amused voice startled her. “Ace? You’re talking to my nipples again. My face is higher.”

“Sorry but your face might be worse. I mean better, which is worse.” She lifted her gaze to his in time to see that slow, sexy smile of his making an appearance. Yep, much, much worse.

She shook her head, trying to break the spell. “Don’t worry. I think we are adults enough to be able to share a bathroom, even if at the moment I’m hardly behaving like one. We’ll just knock, right?”

“Fine with me,” he said with a grin. “How are your CC meetings going? Did you guys make it past Highlanders?”

And then it dawned on her: he’d guessed what she’d been reading. No historical drama or clever contemporary novel. Nope. Smut. Mouthwatering, funny, sexy, delicious, but very much underrated and frowned-upon smut.

“Hmmm, yeah. Barely. We’re on bikers now.” Which had helped with Lucy and her historical inaccuracy issues.

“Are they better?”

Annie pondered for a second. “Not sure. One thing is certain: given the fact that 99 percent of all the bikers I’ve ever seen are old, with unkempt beards and huge bellies that not only don’t defy gravity but also are the only thing keeping them balanced on the bikes, I’d say hot bikers are as imaginary as fourth-century Highlanders.”

Chuckling, he reached for her. “Stay still.” Like she could move with Max’s hand brushing her ear and his eyes trained on her. “You have something…here,” he said, pulling a piece of lobster shell with gooey stuff on it from her hair.

“Good thing I’m taking a shower, huh?”

“I found several in my hair too. Women might have been watching me at the beginning, but when you went Godzilla with the lobsters, everyone was looking at you,” he said, smiling. “Well, I’ll go and let you have a shower.”

“Max?” she called as he was leaving.

He stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

They stared at each other for a long second before she found her voice. “I had a great time tonight.” She’d already told him, but it was worth saying it again.

“Me too.” He lowered his head, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “You beat the fucking shit out of those lobsters, Ace.”

“Yes, I did.” And she had enjoyed every second of it. Of the whole evening, as a matter of fact. Then something occurred to her. “Did I embarrass you? Because if I did, I’m so—”

He lifted his right eyebrow, his gaze defiant. “Did it look to you like I was embarrassed?”

Actually, no. Not at all. Not even when she’d hit his lobster’s tail and pieces of shell had gone flying on him, along with some liquid and God only knew what.

“That’s right,” he said, reading her expression. “The food was fantastic, only topped by the pretty woman eating with me. And the mallets are there for a reason. By the way, Sierra said she’s going to get us protective eyewear next time. And hard hats for the tables near us in case the slick fingers make for a slippery mallet. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“That we are a public menace?”