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The food wasn't going to arrive for another half hour, and after Max brought me water and retrieved the painkillers Cinder had packed in my bag, he finally sat at the other end of the couch. He left enough distance between us that I could've stretched out without touching him, which somehow made me more conscious of his presence than if he'd been pressed against my side.
For a while neither of us said anything, and the silence was surprisingly comfortable.
I'd spent years avoiding quiet moments with other people because silence created gaps, and gaps had a habit of filling themselves with questions. Max seemed perfectly content to sit there and let me decide whether anything needed to be said, even though I knew there had to be a hundred things he wanted to ask.
Eventually I looked at him.
“Did you grow up somewhere big?”
He glanced around my apartment as if checking whether I'd suddenly changed the subject. “Big how?”
“Your house, I suppose. You have this thing about space, and your apartment is huge, so I was wondering whether that's what you're used to.”
Understanding slowly replaced his confusion. “The house wasn't particularly big. We had land, though, and I grew up around horses.”
That wasn't what I'd expected.
“You grew up with horses?”
Max smiled at my expression. “Why do you sound so shocked?”
“Because I've met you.”
“I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.”
“You own shirts that probably cost more than my couch.”
His gaze moved deliberately toward the couch beneath us before returning to me.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were thinking very loudly.”
His mouth twitched. “Fine. Yes, I grew up with horses. Happy?”
“Not remotely, because now I have more questions.”
“Apparently you don't have the same philosophical objections to interrogating me that I have to interrogating you.”
That shut me up for approximately three seconds. “Do you still ride?”
The change in his expression was immediate. “I do. I have six horses at the moment.”
I stared at him.
Max waited.
“You have six horses?”
“That's generally what I have six horses means.”
“Where the hell are you keeping six horses? Because I've seen your apartment garage and I'm reasonably sure I would've noticed.”
He laughed, and there was an ease in the sound I hadn't heard all night. “I have a farm.”
I wasn't sure whether the painkillers were beginning to affect me or Max had just casually announced something completely ridiculous.
