Chapter 30

Bahahaha. Loved the comments from the last post because all of you were so outraged at the possibility of someone not liking Max. Made my day.
Also, this chapter is a little short but I needed the filler for what's coming next!


Eliza's POV:

I woke up the next morning to the feeling of Max's stubble scraping along my bare shoulder. He planted a kiss on my collarbone and I knew that he was awake.

"So I know you said it a lot last night, but I want you to say it again" he murmured biting down on my earlobe. It was one of those rare Sunday mornings with no alarms, nowhere to be and nothing to do but lay here. This was definitely the best way to wake up in the morning.

"Say what again?" I smiled unwilling to open my eyes. I wanted to pull the blinds shut tighter and spend the rest of the day cuddling with him in bed. As long as we had each other, we didn't need anything else. He picked up on my teasing automatically and rolled over me to pin me down like he had last night.

"So we're back to this again" he said looking down at me seriously. While we were both kidding, there was still a serious look in his eye that worried me. Did he think that I was actually serious?

"Max, I'm kidding. I love you." I said smoothing my palms over his cheeks. I liked times like these when we could just look at each other and I could see that Max Talbot did indeed have freckles- the one stroke of innocence on his strong face. I stroked over his features taking in the lines and occasional scars of his smooth skin marvelling that this was him. Despite all of his imperfections, I was in love with this man, however unplanned it may have been. I had never given my heart before and didn't think that I ever would again. I was a one-time kind of girl and somehow I just knew that this was it for me.

"What's this one from?" I asked tracing a finger over a scar above his lips.

"Crazy ex-girlfriend" he chuckled. "Happened in my first year in the minors. She threw a beer bottle at my face."

"Are all of these crazy girl related?" I asked noting that he had several light scars on his face.

"No, they're mostly all hockey related. Don't worry, you're the only one I'll let bruise me now" he said kissing my forehead and making me laugh. He shifted to roll off of me but I tightened my hold around his waist.

"No stay. You're warm" I sighed snuggling down to rest my face in the crook of his shoulder and neck.

He flipped us anyway settling so that I was laying on top of him this time and pulled the covers up around us again. With our legs tangled and my face securely pressed into his neck where I liked it best, I fell back asleep.



The next time I woke up, I was alone in the bed with the sheets cool around me. It felt like Max had been gone for awhile and the rest of the house was quiet. No wonder, it's 11:30am. Max would have to already be up doing his workout at least. Even Sunday without anything to do still involved hockey somehow. I was half-tempted to just stay in bed until he found me again but I was hungry and still had a lot to do around the house.


"I was just going to come up and get your ass out of bed" Max said handing me a plate of eggs and toast when I walked into the kitchen.

"Oh my god. I do love you" I said eagerly taking the scrambled eggs from him.


"You're just saying that now because of the eggs" he said laughing. "You have an unhealthy obsession with these things."


He could say what he wanted, eggs were the best food ever. "So what are you doing today?" I asked now that my stomach was content and I had had my coffee.

"I don't know. I thought you would want to do more house stuff or something" he shrugged.



Since he had left it up to me and would be gone for most of the coming week, I decided to use him mostly for manual labor. Moving in and combining our stuff together was weird in a way because it had already been his house. He already had pillows on his couches and pictures on shelves. He claimed that he wanted me to give the house 'a womanly touch' but it was our space now. It couldn't all be pinks and peaches and cream like my apartment was. Plus the guys did come over and hang out, would they really want to hang out with flower pillows surrounding them?

Max wasn't really that helpful when it came to giving his opinion either. I suspected that he actually just didn't care.

"Seriously, if it bothers you that much, we'll go to a store and get new pillows" he said interrupting my questioning. "Or you can just put them out, they look fine."

The problem was, the TV room was done in all neutral colors- my bright pillows just didn't look right somehow, especially since the kitchen was right next to it and was decorated in much darker, richer colors. It's his house and he doesn't see that there's color streamlining going on in here.



After bickering some more, I finally agreed to head out to Pier One to pick up some pillows and other oddities for the house.

"Ohhhh! Coasters!" Max said holding up a little stack of squares.

"Max, we are not buying those. There are women being objectified on those coasters." Leave it to him to pick up the "artsy" coasters with half-naked women on the front holding glasses of wine. And yet somehow, I was still smiling. Amazing, right?



He distracted me with other ridiculous home items before we finally took the time to pick out some pillows. In the end he won me over with different beige silk pillows that had tree branches and leaves embroidered across them. They were neutral enough to fit the room and still had some of the same colors as the kitchen and looked slightly feminine. In other words, they were perfect.

"Your other pillows we can just use in our room or in a guest room. They'll work up there and that way you don't have to get rid of them."

He earned a kiss for that just for practically reading my mind and understanding that it was hard for me to give up a lot of my stuff or pack it away to sit in his basement.

After rearranging a few more things in the house and getting all of my things either put away or back in boxes to store in the basement, the house looked like a good mix of the both of us. It was still masculine enough to suit the guys that were in and out of the house all of the time, but also soft enough to still be comfortable for me, Vero and Emma to hang out in.

By the end of the day, both of us were in our PJ's and glasses watching the news and sharing leftovers that had piled up in the fridge throughout the week. It occurred to me that this was the most domesticated I had ever seen Max and it still amazed me that he had given up his party boy lifestyle from before to hang out on the couch and watch 60 Minutes with me.

"Are you sure that I don't bore you?" I asked watching as he raised his eyebrow at me.

"Are you still worried about that?" He asked rolling his eyes at me.

"I'm serious!" He held up a hand silencing me and the rest of my argument.

"Believe me, I'm not bored when I'm with you ever. I have to be on my toes when I'm with you, which is a good thing" he said when he saw the warning look on my face. "Besides, I'm 26 years old. I'm getting old, and it's not like I could do that shit forever."

It was about as poetic as I would ever get from Max but I knew that he meant it and I appreciated that he didn't mind reminding me every once in a while to ward off my insecurities about it.

"Okay, I just want you to tell me if you need time to go out with the guys and stuff like that. I want us to be completely honest and I don't want us to be that couple that doesn't do anything fun just because we live together."

"Hey, I've been the honest one all along. It was you that took forever to admit that you love me." Wasn't he ever going to let that go?

"And, I can think of plenty of fun things that we do together at home" he said suggestively taking my plate away from me and resting his hands around my waist instead.

He kissed me and I felt the familiar feeling of heat creeping up my spine. My body was responding almost as if it had been ready before I even knew it and even though I was still a little bit sore from the previous night, I knew that I wouldn't be stopping him or his idea of a good time. We were both moving so fast that I knew if I didn't get us both upstairs right away, the couch was going to see a hell of a show.

I broke the kiss and climbed off of his lap not even caring that I was going to be leaving food out on the coffee table all night. By the time that Max chased me up the stairs and dragged us both down onto the bed, I was too busy feeling to have time to really think anyway.
Boring, we are not.