Chapter 9

Eliza's POV:



The last thing I expected Max to do that night was kiss me in the middle of something close to an argument and in a room full of hockey players. That alone should surprise me but in actuality, the biggest surprise was how I felt being that close to Max and how his kiss felt. When he leaned down and kissed me it happened so fast I didn't know what to do except stand there and just feel everything. His lips had been surprisingly soft and his stubble had lightly scraped my cheek and chin. It felt like he was everywhere around me at once and I forgot that we were in the bar of a restaurant with all of his friends. Afterwards he just stared at me and then asked me "Do you get it now?" Uhhhh, yeah. It still doesn't explain exactly what he wants from me. Does he want me to be one of his typical one-time hookups or is he moving more towards a relationship? Whoa there, moving waaay too fast.

And now he wanted me to follow his car to the mystery place he was taking me to. At least he was driving reasonably slow so that I could follow him. He better know better now than to drive like a maniac while I'm watching him. The roads were getting more and more rural and I knew we were driving to a suburb somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. After another 10 minutes of driving we finally turned off on a side street and Max swung his car into the driveway of a beautiful, red brick home. Did he just bring me back to his house?

Max pulled into one of the garages and I left my car parked outside. I waited outside not quite knowing what I should do. As I was debating with myself on whether or not to get out of the car, a hand knocked on my window before opening the door for me.

"Usually when people get out of a car, they unlock their seat belt first." Max said smiling down at me still fastened into the car.

"Where are we?" I asked ignoring his seat belt comment.

"At my house. Now come on." He ordered bending down to lean into my car and unbuckle the seat belt for me. As he did this he leaned across me smirking as his lips came in close contact with my own again. Before I knew what was happening, I was out of the car being led into the garage by Max who was holding my hand. His hand was huge compared to mine and I was surprised that he had grabbed my hand instead of my arm like he usually does when dragging me around somewhere. He flipped on lights in the dark room we had entered and I was stunned by what I saw. His house was not only beautiful on the inside too but also clean. As in things sparkled clean. We were standing in a kitchen done in a sage green with dark woods and sparkly granite counters. Did he do this himself?

I turned from my inspection of the kitchen we were standing in to find him staring at me with an intense expression.

"Max" I breathed still looking at the room "It's gorgeous." As someone who loved to cook, this kitchen was a dream compared to the kitchen I had in my apartment.

Instead of saying anything, Max wound his fingers with mine again and led me into other parts of the spacious first floor pointing out different rooms as we went along. I was surprised by his taste in decorating because I had been expecting more of a bachelor pad. Instead, he had miraculously formed a home. The house reeked of a woman's touch.

As if reading my mind and the shocked look on my face he told me, "Don't worry, my mom and sister-in-law helped me decorate when I moved in a year ago. I also have a woman come in and help me take care of the house because I'm away too much to do it myself." I tried not to act relieved. I would kick the crap out of him if he was trying to bring me into another woman's home and territory.
"Well your family did a great job. It's very comfortable. I can see a bunch of the guys hanging out here on a regular basis." I said smiling at him.

He was staring at me in a way that made me uncomfortable like he had in the kitchen and had moved closer while I was busy marvelling over the state of his clean home. I felt like the rabbit being stalked by the wolf.

"Well I'm glad you like it" he said still moving towards me and being less sneaky about it.

"So," I said moving around the open living room, "Why did you bring me back here?" I was really curious after all but this was a better question to ask then to try to figure out exactly why he had kissed me.

"So I could do this without everyone looking at us" he said before pulling me closer and kissing me again. I didn't even have time to laugh at his obviously bad line because this time the kiss wasn't as soft as it had been the first time and I felt myself melting against his hard body and the arms he had wound around me. As his lips massaged mine I was quickly losing my ability to think. He was taller than me by a couple of inches so it was difficult to comfortably meet his mouth without standing on my tip toes the whole time. I broke the kiss to breathe and pull Max down with me onto the couch. He looked at me surprised and groaned when I crawled into his lap to kiss him again. His lips moved down my jaw to my neck and the scraping of his stubble on the sensitive skin of my neck made me squeal and wince in embarrassment. He had found my hot spot and combined with the stubble, I was starting to feel like a furnace with way too many clothes on. Max had the same idea as he quickly removed my sweater leaving me in my tank top. I returned the favor by stripping him of his sweater and stared down at his muscular chest before his lips met mine again. The feel of his skin pressing around me as he pulled me closer made the butterflies in my stomach obliterate. Damn him for being so hot.

"Max" I said in between kisses.

"Mmm?" he mumbled against my lips. One of his very skillful hands was rubbing up and down my back toying with my bra strap while the other had found its way to my butt.

"What are we doing?" I asked picking his head up from the curve of my neck and forcing him to look at me.

"What?" he asked looking genuinely confused. I guess he was used to making out with different women all of the time but I definitely wasn't.

"I mean, what are we doing? Where are we going?" I needed to know. He was making me feel too much just from kissing him and I needed to know that we were on the same page.

"Well, where do you want us to go?" He asked pulling me closer and making me relax against him.

"I don't know and that's sort of the problem." I said trying to be honest. I could honestly say that I didn't want a relationship right now. Not that I thought he did either but if I had to be honest, then I had to be honest. And this guy who had been nothing but trouble since I met him and who had somehow also become my friend of sorts was not in any way like any of my previous boyfriends. He was too...Max.

Max sighed and looked at me in that way he always does. "Well I don't know if you've realized it yet or not but I'm attracted to you Lizzy." Was he laughing at me? The lust in his eyes had been replaced by a twinkle and I knew he wanted to laugh at me.

"Okay there's no reason to be like that. I can't help it if I was a little slow on the uptake Max. It's not like I'm your usual type so how was I supposed to take you seriously until now?" I asked him.

He leaned forward to kiss my lips again before repeating "ridiculously attracted" in my ear. Okay, so maybe I understood now. I tightened my hold around his neck but leaned back to look him in the eyes again.

"It's just..I wouldn't be good at this whole being with someone thing right now." I said trying to gauge his reaction.

"Just out of curiosity, why not?" He asked making me feel like the rabbit again with that intense look of his.

How did I begin to explain that I was a complete mess? Especially after criticizing him so much all of the time?

"Is this about your Dad?" he asked me his hands now rubbing my lower back soothingly.


"What? How do you know about my Dad?" I asked him.


"Mia told me that night we all went out. I knew something was up but you obviously weren't going to tell me so I asked Mia."


"You mean you asked Mia about it and she told you? Why didn't you just ask me about it?" I asked getting angry at both of them and partly at myself for feeling like such a fool at the fact that he had known the entire time.

"Lizzy, I did ask you about it. You just avoid the subject all of the time and there's never a good time to ask you while you're pretending that I'm not your friend."

I knew he was right and that once again, I was completely wrong about my own personal life but that didn't stop it from hurting. The last thing I needed him to see right now was me crying but before I could climb off his lap he kept me anchored where I was.
"Shit, don't cry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked Mia about it unless you told me. I'm sorry, just stop crying please." he said looking panicked and upset. I had never seen him this worried about anything before, including the time we had to go to court last minute. Because he looked so concerned over me, it made me cry even more and he gave up apologizing to hug me and let me cry into his neck. He murmured different words to me to try to calm me down and continued to rub my back in a way that I was starting to love.

"I'm sorry" I said hiccuping and wiping my face. "I just, I miss him so much all of the time and the way that my family was before he died." Max continued to nod supportively to me and listen as I talked.


"It all happened so suddenly and I was in the middle of my final exams at school that I had to be there for my Mom and put all of what I was feeling on hold so that I could get through my final month at school. I guess I still haven't dealt with all of it yet though and so I just haven't talked about it a lot to anyone." How did all of this just pour out of me when I couldn't even talk like this to my own mother?

"It's okay" he murmured kissing a tear away on my cheek. "I'm glad you cried on me if that made you feel better." He said smiling at me. Why hadn't I noticed how nice he was to me before?


"I'm sorry this has made me so mean though. I've treated my Mom really badly and have ignored calls from so many of my friends. And I guess I've been pretty rude to you too." I hoped that he would realize that this was the best apology I had so far.

"You guess?" he said joking with me. Typical Max. "It's okay, I knew what was up, I just needed to wait you out for when you finally admitted that I was sexy and that you wanted my body." I laughed again. Leave it to his ego to make me laugh and feel better. He was being so nice to me just by being who he always was and there I was still straddling him and getting snot on his shoulder after months of being a bitch to him. We sat silently for a few moments while I tried to compose myself.

"You're beautiful, you know that right?" he said it so quietly that I almost didn't hear him. "You're beautiful and you're smart and you'll do the right thing with your family." He said this part much louder and I was shocked to feel the bubble of happiness rising up in me. I couldn't think of anything to say so I tried to show him by kissing him with as much feeling as I could hoping that maybe he would understand.

He pulled me away to peck me on the lips before lifting me so that he could stand up and pull me off of the couch with him.

"You know what I think? I think that we need to get you a beer and some ice cream and watch some late night TV." He said rubbing his hands up and down my arms and grinning at me.

"Beer and ice cream? Together?" I asked a little bit disgusted.

"Yeah, trust me on this one. Even Sid likes it and he's the pickiest person I know." He said laughing and leading me into the kitchen. He pulled out two beers from his fridge and bent over in the freezer digging around for the ice cream. I smiled at how adorable he looked shirtless and bent over in the refrigerator getting ice cream out for me. I could finally admit how unconventionally gorgeous he was, especially after seeing him shirtless. I still didn't really like the lumberjack facial hair he sported sometimes but that didn't take away from the basic male sexuality that just seemed to pour out of him.

"Okay, so it looks like I only have Rocky Road and plain vanilla. Which one do you want or do you want both?" he said holding them both up.

"Um, rocky road." I said still admiring how all of the muscles seemed to move in his body even with the slightest task of scooping ice cream.

"Okay, here we go. Follow me." He said grabbing the ice cream and leaving me to follow with both of our beers. He was already seated on the enormous couch in the living room eating his bowl of ice cream with a blanket draped across his lap.

He looked up and caught me staring and asked "are you coming?" his mouth full of rocky road.



As I snuggled in next to him and watched him eat ice cream, drink beer and laugh at Reno 911 re-runs, I realized that I felt better and more relaxed than I had in months. And miraculously, the person who had made me feel this way was a hockey player who under normal circumstances, I would never even think about getting involved with.

"Hey, you okay? You look too serious to be drinking beer." He said kissing my cheek and shifting so that his arm was around my shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm okay." I said smiling up at him. And as I said, I realized it was true. I was going to be okay.