CHAPTER 9
Max took enough of a deep breath to dive a hundred feet under water. “I’m in love with you,” he breathed out. He had looked her back in the eyes but the moment the words left his mouth, Max brought his eyes down to the bite out of his ahi burger.If one’s soul could be taken from them and then thrown back into their body, then that’s what happened to Brooke. “Why did you tell me?” she asked. “Something this big, why would you tell me?”
“You wanted to know,” Max coolly answered.
“You should have lied to me.”
“Maybe I am.”
Brooke’s eyes widened with hope. “Are you?”
Max shook his head only slightly, wishing himself he was lying. “What answer would you have taken? You wanted me to be Lucas’s best friend, but I can’t because I’m in love with his fiancée.”
With her elbows on the table and her face buried in her hands, Brooke shook her head. She did that for a while. Max could only sit uncomfortably across from her as she breathed heavily and mumbled into her palms. There wasn’t even a point to deciphering the noises she was making but Max was hoping she would eventually say those things out loud. He needed to know what she was thinking.
“Brooke?”
“Are you sure you’re in love with me?” Brooke wondered. Her palms were still pressed against her face.
“I am trying to leave here as fast as I can.”
Brooke pulled her hands away from her face. “Am I the reason why you and Liz—?”
“No,” Max insisted. “Liz and I…” He regretfully started to shake his head. “It was a number of things that developed and just built up. She does know though.”
“Liz knows?” The red in her cheeks wasn’t blush. It’d be too red for her skin tone.
“She—I—” Max needed to make things better but he didn’t know what to tell her. “She doesn’t think you—She doesn’t blame you. I don’t blame you.”
Brooke couldn’t stop shaking her head. “None of that makes me feel any better.”
“I told her about this later on in our problems.”
“It doesn’t matter when you told her,” Brooke snapped. “It matters when you started to—when you began—” She couldn’t even say it.
“I don’t want to be in this position, ok?” Max tried to convince her. “I’m not Dan’s biggest fan, but he is my father. So I came home. I was terrified. Not because of Dan, because he plays a very small role in why I stayed away from here. I was terrified because I was scared to see Lucas, but more importantly, I was afraid of who I was going to see him with. I was hoping—I was praying,” he corrected. “I was praying that I would see Lucas at the hospital and at dinner alone or with anyone besides you. You have absolutely no idea how relieved I was when I didn’t see you at the hospital. I was thrilled when I went to dinner last night and I didn’t see you.” Max swallowed down hard and tried to re-gather his strength. “But then you showed up,” he sighed.
Brooke watched him enthralled and reflective, as if she was sitting on a colorful carpet listening to Max read a fable during story time in the children’s corner at the library. “What are we going to do?” she wondered.
His right eyebrow hiked up when he looked at Brooke. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
“You have no idea how big a problem this is, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
Brooke scoffed. “Max, I’ve loved you since I was five.”
Max didn’t buy into the end of the world, the whole apocalypse thing, but his world was crumbling around him, and it was sparked by love. Go figure. He hadn’t anticipated that she had felt the same way toward him at some point in her life. “Do you still love me?” Max asked. He needed to hear a ‘no.’
Her answer was the wrong one. “I don’t know,” she replied.
“You love Lucas,” Max tried to instill in her. “You love him. You said yes to marrying him.”
“Because I didn’t know about you!” The volume of her voice alarmed even her. She looked around to see who else she startled. Quite a few.
“That doesn’t even matter,” Max said, lowering his own voice and leaning over the table allowing for Brooke to clearly hear him. “You and me. No.”
“What?” There was disappointment in her voice. “Why?”
“No,” Max said firmly. “Stop it. Stop hypothetically thinking about it. Don’t hope for a possibility. Don’t even try to picture it.”
Brooke opened her mouth to speak but what came out was a musical chime. She brought her eyes to her purse and started searching for her phone. “It’s Lucas,” she announced when she studied the screen.
“Answer it.”
“What do I say?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Anything. We have nothing to hide.”
Brooke knew he was right, but not entirely. Yes, they weren’t doing anything wrong, but—
The ringing stopped and both of them stared at the phone in Brooke’s hand.
“Call him back,” Max ordered.
“Chill out,” Brooke laughed. She flipped her phone open ready to speed dial Lucas but a single chime stopped her. “Voicemail,” she said. She put the phone to her ear. “He’s on his way to see you,” she reported back.
“What?”
“He wanted to know if I wanted to come with him.” Brooke snapped her phone shut and looked to Max for an answer.
Max looked down at the table. Maybe the answers were on the linen? “Why is he coming to see me?” he wondered.
“Let’s find out.” Brooke already had her phone back to her ear and waited for Lucas to pick up. “Hey, Luke,” she said. “Sorry I missed your call.”
Meanwhile, Max was shifting uncomfortable in his seat.
“I’m actually with your brother right now,” Brooke said into the phone.
Max swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The thermostat on the wall would tell you that it was only 68 degrees inside.
“We had to exchange our gifts,” she explained. “We just finished lunch at Bel. Ok, we’ll see you soon.”
Max watched the phone. Brooke snapped it shut. That meant the call ended. Lucas was no longer on the other line. “Why ‘we’?” Max demanded to know. Apparently he wasn’t much of a team player.
“Because I’m already here, and if I leave, he’ll think something is up.”
The busboy came to clean up the empty plate and the plate with most of the ahi burger still on it. Max thoughtfully grouped his utensils together on his plate so they wouldn’t swing around or fly off the plate when picked up and carried back to the kitchen. Continuing his gesture of kindness and consideration, Max picked up the plate and carefully gave it to the young man. The plate nearly fell from Max’s hand as soon as he finally processed Brooke’s words.
“Why would he think something’s up?”
“Lucas and I—” Brooke paused and sighed. “We try to be honest with each other. I don’t hide a lot from him.”
Translation: Lucas knows about Brooke’s schoolgirl crush on Max.
“Why did you tell him you were here?”
“Because I obviously don’t lie to him either, and you said we didn’t have anything to hide.”
“That was before—”
Max stopped when the server approached.
“Is there room for dessert?” he wondered.
“No,” Max said quickly. Pretending to consider Brooke, he stared her down. He might as well have held a gun to her head.
Brooke offered a smile and shook her head. “No, thank you.”
The server flashed a grin and placed the check on the table. Max said a kind “Thank you.” His attitude changed as soon as the server walked away. Max’s frustration was evident when he exaggeratedly opened the booklet and signed the check, billing it to his room. While he filled the slip out, Brooke playfully and slyly looked over the table to discover what kind of man Max was. The twenty dollar tip for a sixty dollar meal told Brooke something she always knew.
“I said we didn’t have anything to hide,” Max started back up, “because I didn’t know Lucas knew.” He slammed the booklet shut and tossed the pen carelessly as he stood up. He grabbed his birthday gift and started walking, expecting Brooke to follow him.
She took her time though, forcing Max to slow down and wait for her. “Geez, relax,” she chuckled. “Your attitude right now is making me fall out of love with you more and more.”
Max stopped and looked at her. His abrupt halt gave her a lead of a few steps. She stopped three feet ahead and turned toward him wondering what the hold up was.
“That is not funny,” he told her.
Everything changed. Apparently Max’s sense of humor did too.
“Look, I love Lucas,” Brooke emphasized to avoid confusion, “and you love him too. We wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. He knows that.”
But Max wasn’t so sure Lucas did. Lucas knew that Brooke wouldn’t hurt him. Did Lucas know Max wouldn’t hurt him?
Without a reply, Max started walking toward the entrance to the hotel. “Come on,” he sighed. “Let’s wait for him out front.” Max conceded. He was done talking about it.
The humidity covered them like another layer of clothing. Add onto that the exhaust from the cars parked out front. People coming. People going. Valet and bellhops frantically sprinted everywhere they went. Everyone else around them just stood around. Waiting to come in. Waiting to go. Except Max and Brooke were waiting for Lucas.
“What are we going to do about this?” Brooke wondered.
She shattered the silence between them that Max was growing to enjoy. With his hands in his pockets, Max shrugged. He people-watched and didn’t even face Brooke as they would imminently start up another conversation.
“We have to deal with this, Max. If I don’t see you until the wedding—”
“There’s going to be a wedding?” Max questioned. “So you are going to marry Lucas?”
Brooke was hesitant but she gave Max the answer he was hoping for. “Yes,” she said.
“Then there you go,” Max said, satisfied. “There’s really nothing to do. You’re going to marry my brother.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?” Said with another stupid shrug.
“So you’re just going to leave?”
“What do you expect, Brooke? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to act on my feelings? Do you want me to fight for you? Will that make you feel better about yourself?”
The urge to physically hurt Max was the only thing on Brooke’s mind, but she wisely restrained herself and impressively kept her composure. “Fuck you,” she told him.
She was overcome with genuine shock and anger, something she had never felt toward Max. But then it became apparent. Max would never speak to her like that, not unless there was a purpose, besides being a dick, of course. If Brooke remembered her psychology 101 class right projection was, in fact, a defense mechanism. It was a brave effort on Max’s part to be the bad guy in order to do the right thing, but should Brooke really have been surprised? It’s the same thing he was doing with his family.
Unaffected by Brooke’s hurt reaction, Max continued people-watching, searching and waiting for his brother to arrive.
“Fine,” Brooke told him. “Go to New York or Los Angeles or wherever the hell you want to hide. Meanwhile Isabel’s slipping away because of heartache. Michael’s going to keep treating Maria the way that he does. And Nathan’s going to panic and ruin every good thing going on in his life.”
“Don’t talk about my family.”
“Your family?” Brooke laughed. If he intentionally hurt her, she was going to intentionally hurt him. “Don’t pull that crap ‘cause I am family. I’ve been family longer than you have.” And she was right.
Since she was, Max didn’t bother arguing that fact. “You’re right,” he told her. “I’m hardly family. So they’ll be ok. They’ve done find without me, they will continue to. If I come home, I don’t think there’s any good that I can really do.”
“And what about us?”
Max offered a kind smile. “There is no us, Brooke.”
“So you’re really going to go off and hide?”
“I have to.” Again, he shrugged, because it was just no big deal. “Don’t worry about me. That is the last thing you want to do.”
Max stuffed his hands into his pockets and continued to scour the people around them. With her arms crossed in front of her chest, Brooke appeared to do the same, but she wasn’t thinking about any of the people. She wasn’t wondering where these people were coming from or what they were going to do at Bel. The thought on her mind was Max. She wondered how the last five years were for him and how he was going to keep living like that.
“I don’t know how you’re going to do it,” she decided to say aloud. “How are you going to just to go on without confronting your feelings?”
“Do you really have to ask?” Max chuckled an almost condescending chuckle. “You did it for years.”
Brooke opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to say something witty or smart but she had no comeback. He was so right. She had pushed her feelings aside, but she was a teenager back then, and while her emotions were real, it was easier for her to ignore them.
“Hey!” Lucas smiled. He approached with his arms open and wrapped them around his brother when they collided. “What are you guys doing out here?” He kissed his fiancée on the cheek and didn’t witness his brother turn away.
Pretending to be distracted by a family unpacking their loaded van, Max shrugged. “Needed to walk the food off,” he answered.
Brooke clearly recalled his uneaten burger, but she agreed nonetheless. “Big portions,” she nodded, then she looked at her watch. “I better go. I’m getting my nails done at three.”
It was hard to tell but Brooke’s nails looked perfectly fine, but women and their nails…so Max welcomed the hug Brooke was going to leave him with. He kept himself from breathing to avoid inhaling her sweet scent of peaches, and the smell of the smoke from his cigarettes had grown on her, but she too, resisted the temptation.
“Travel safe,” she told him, “and please keep in touch.” She got on her toes and kissed Max’s cheek.
He couldn’t help but smirk. “Thank you for the birthday gift,.” He looked her in the eyes, because despite his feelings of frustration and jealousy at the moment, Max was immensely grateful for the present she had given him.
“Thank you,” she said back. They smiled at each other for two seconds that both of them cherished and savored. Afterward, Brooke turned toward her oblivious fiancé and rubbed cheeks with him. “Call me later.”
“I’ll be at my place, just come over.”
“We’re always at your place,” Brooke sighed. “I want to be around my things, my bed.”
Max shifted uncomfortably and let more tourists steal his attention.
“We go over this all the time. Just move in with me already,” Lucas told her.
Brooke glanced at Max, realizing her disregard. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said.
She received a nod and a kiss on the forehead from Lucas. Max watched as she put on her smile and left them, backing up and waving from the hip as she did.
“So do you want to go for another walk or grab a drink?” Lucas asked Max.
Until she disappeared into the parking lot Max watched her but he had heard his brother and when he couldn’t see her anymore, Max turned to Lucas and smiled.
“Let’s have a drink.”
The brothers walked into the hotel and headed straight to the bar. Max ordered a highball while Lucas opted for a whiskey sour.
“So what brings you here?” Max wondered.
Lucas sat huddled around his drink, his knee nervously bouncing and his stare focused on his glass.
“Are you ok?” Max asked.
Lucas confronted him. “You and I, we’re not really brothers. Are we even friends? I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know how you feel about me. Do you even like me? Do you hate me?”
Max sat wide-eyed with his eyebrows nearly meeting at the bridge of his nose. “Lucas, I—”
“It has to change, this relationship between you and me.” He shook his head regretfully.
Max let Lucas take his time.
After clearing his throat, Lucas spit it out. “I want us to actually be brothers.”
A nervous laugh came from Max. “Lucas, I don’t hate you.”
For Lucas to think that, it broke Max’s heart, but he shouldn’t have been so surprised to hear it. Though Lucas made the kind gesture of welcoming Max into Dan’s home all those years ago, Max willingly kept his distance from Lucas growing up. Max didn’t want to get to know Lucas because Max resented Lucas for being, quite frankly, the bastard child Dan took into his home while Max disregarded at birth.
By the time Max realized it was a Godsend to spend his early years outside of the Scott home and that Lucas didn’t choose to be chosen by Dan, it was too late. Max was in love with Brooke and there was no way Max couldn’t face Lucas. It was another reason Max wanted to keep at bay, because not only was he in love with his brother’s girl, he had punished Lucas for years for something he had no control over.
“Lucas, I don’t hate you,” Max said again. “I’m sorry my actions made it seem that way. I know that we’re not close but I’m willing to change that.”
“Good,” Lucas smiled. “We’re on the same page.”
Max nodded.
“So will you do me a favor and be my best man?” Lucas asked.
No clear thought had entered Max’s mind but he began to speak regardless. “Lucas, I—” Then slowly everything started to register. Lucas had just asked him to be his best man at his wedding where he was going to marry his girlfriend of five years, Brooke. Max could feel his heart break and in his silence he could hear his heart break. He shouldn’t feel this way though. He wasn’t supposed to be in love with his brother’s fiancée.
“Of course,” Max finally said. “I’d be honored.”
The two brothers celebrated over the rest of their drinks before it was time for Max to gather his and his wife’s things and head to the airport. Before leaving his hotel, Max said goodbye to his brother with Lucas insisting that Max keep in touch.
When Max arrived in New York, he gave Lucas a call, letting him know that he and Liz had arrived safely.