Page 79 of Maximus

“What wasn’t?”

“This. Us. Whatever we are. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for you. I can’t just get over things, like you suggest. I’m not wired that way. They eat at me. I dwell on them. Hell, I’m even worried about Ms. Wyman back in Florida getting her groceries since I’m not there. I overthink everything. So what happens when you’re done with me? When you walk away, where does that leave me?”

Finally some truth. Some openness.

“I can’t predict the future and I do not make promises I can’t keep. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, or a month from now. But I can tell you that right now in this moment, I want to know you better. I want to travel a road with you I’ve never been on—a path that might dead-end in five feet, or it may just be a beautiful voyage. Either way, I want to walk it with you.”

“I think I’m too scared to walk that path with you.”

“Then I’ll carry you.”

“Don’t say that.” Eva’s eyelids slowly closed and her head tilted down.

“Eva, take this chance with me.” My hands moved from the edge of the countertop to the soft skin of her neck. My hands framed her pretty face and I waited for her to open her eyes.

“Max, I don’t know how to. I’ve never had a healthy relationship with a man. I’ve never even had a friendship that wasn’t layered with lies or dysfunction.”

“Tell me the one thing you’re most afraid of,” I asked.

“What?” Eva’s lids opened and her eyes locked with mine. “I don’t understand.”

“That one thing that’s deep inside of you that scares the piss out of you—your greatest fear,” I explained, and waited to see if she’d actually answer.

“That I’ll turn into my mother,” she whispered.

“What about her don’t you want to be like?” I pushed.

“Everything. She’s a drunk. Her and my father both. That’s why I left at fifteen. Not that they noticed. The two of them had each other and their booze. I wasn’t even an afterthought. I was nothing to them.”

At some point, Tex had told me that when I got to know Eva better I’d find we had a lot in common. He was wrong, we didn’t have a lot, we had damn near the same childhood. Hers was filled with alcohol, mine was filled with fists, but the results were the same. Both of us were the product of a horrendous environment. Neglected by the very people who should’ve loved us but didn’t.

“So what you’re telling me is, your mother’s a piece of shit.”

“That’s putting it nicely. Why did you ask what I’m scared of?”

“Because I wanted to know something about you.” I shrugged. “And people’s fears tell more about them than they think. But actually, your answer plays into what we were talking about before I asked. You say you don’t know how to have a healthy relationship with a man because you’ve never had one.

“Yet you’re a great mother without having had one yourself. So just because you’ve never had a good example of something, doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“Both of us are messed up.”

“Yep.”

Then the conversation I had with Declan came racing back, and with great clarity I understood why he was seeing Autumn. He’d said it was the only time he could be himself. But it was more than that.

“Maybe we’re perfect for each other,” I told her. “Two people who know that life can be cruel and heartless. Two people who have lived through the savagery and made it. Two people who know enough that they’ll appreciate honesty and peace and not forget to value it.”

“That’s awfully wise, Max.”

I didn’t know if it was sage or not. What I did know was it was the damn truth.

“Take a chance, Eva, give me a chance to learn to trust.”

Her lips twisted and she snorted. “Is that the same as: help me, help you?”

“Huh?”

“Jerry Maguire.”