“Oh, come on, Max, really?” She stood, keeping the sheet tight against her body and picking up the robe she had discarded on the floor earlier. “None of this means—”
“Sadie,don’t,” Max said, and now he looked a bit anguished, but he quickly covered it up—and her heart sank. He looked distant and cold. It was an expression she hadn’t seen since they were in Nashville together. It was a Max she didn’t understand. A side of him he didn’twanther to understand. The walls were going back up—and she knew it was partly her fault.
“I always knew I had to go back. And I was planning to. You didn’t need to bother coming all the way out here. Should have saved yourself a trip, sweetheart. Now, I’m going out to the shed to start locking things up.”
“Fine,” was all Sadie could say.
But Max was already gone, the door of the cabin slamming hard behind him.
17
Max
Nashville, Tennessee
December 19
The next day, Max arrived at Cruz McNeil’s recording studio a few minutes early. He decided he’d wait for Sadie before heading in, and stood in front of the enormous Christmas wreaths—gaudy, if you asked him, because of both the size and the spray-painted gold greenery—that hung on the building’s front doors.
It took everything in him not to turn around and get back in his truck. Spending the entire day traveling had been exhausting enough, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Cruz’s text to Sadie (...you were right that Max’s only true talent is the one he comes by genetically. He’s Holden Brody’s son...) and how badly he had misjudged her intentions. How much of her coming to get him in Fox’s Corners had been Cruz’s idea? It madehim ill, thinking of Sadie and Cruz in cahoots, and it took him back to the night of the finale, when he’d seen them huddled together.
However, there wasn’t time to wallow. In true Max fashion, he planned to ignore the problem (and that damn text), in the hopes it would just go away. He would put on thatgenetically giftedBrody smile and pretend like what Sadie had said to Cruz hadn’t cut him up inside. Like he wasfine. Which he most certainly was not.
“Mornin’,” Max said to Sadie, who had just gotten out of a black town car.
Sadie barely nodded at him, though she gave Patsy a nice scratch under her chin. Max couldn’t see Sadie’s expression behind her oversized sunglasses, and wondered if her thoughts were as scattered as his were. She’d been upset, too—but he couldn’t figure out if it was because he’d seen the text, or because of what it implied.
She was wearing two sweaters and cozy sheepskin boots—it was balmy compared to the weather in Fox’s Corners, but Nashville in December was cool enough to require layers. He asked if she was cold—obviously, Einstein,Max thought to himself, but damn, he was just trying to make conversation, because they had to work together—and she shrugged, saying nothing. It was hard to fathom that only a day ago they had been in Max’s bed, together, wearing no layers at all.
Guess this is how we’re going to play it. Max fought the urge to make some snappy comment about her frosty reception, like, “Well, aren’t you a grey sprinkle on a rainbow cupcake today.”
“After you,” Max said instead, opening the door and letting Sadie walk through first. The bells chimed their arrival—someone had set the tone to “Jingle Bells”—but the reminder that it was almost Christmas only made Max’s anxiety increase. He had pushed things too far, staying so long in Banff. They were quite nearly out of time to write their song.
Sadie stepped into the warm lobby ahead of him, which smelled of cinnamon sticks and clove-studded apples. “Thanks,” she said, her voice coming out in a strangled croak.
“Whoa, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Sadie said, but clearly that was a lie. She sounded like she’d swallowed sandpaper. “Look, I don’t need this today, Max.”
“Need what?” he asked, confused.What the hell had he done now?She was the one bad-mouthing him to Cruz.
“This,”she replied, waving her arms between them. Then she grimaced as she swallowed, and Max’s irritation evaporated. Clearly, she was not well.
“Don’t take this the wrong way—but you sound like a frog with laryngitis.”
She set her sunglasses atop her head. “You always knowjustwhat to say, Max.” Sadie pushed past him as she headed toward the elevators, which were outlined in rows of red and green twinkle lights. Whoever had been in charge of the holiday décor at the studio was clearly a fan of Christmas.
“Hey,hey,” Max said, reaching for her arm before she got too far. “Seriously, are you sick?”
She gave him a worried look. “Maybe? It started at the airport yesterday. I must have caught some sort of bug?”
“Do you have a fever?” He set his coffee on the floor and lay a hand on her forehead, the way his mom used to when he was sick. She did feel a touch warm... and it reminded him of how her body had felt when she was on top of him.Pull it together, man,he thought.
Sadie shifted away from his touch. “This is bad, Max. I can’t sing like this.They are going to freak out,” she whispered, meaning their managers—and, of course, Cruz McNeil. It was just over a week until showtime, and today they were supposed to lay down opening tracks with Cruz for theStarmakerChristmas song.
Max ran his hand through his dark hair, trying to think. Then he set his fingers under Sadie’s chin, lifting her eyes to his. He was on an emotional roller coaster, but now was not the time to get off the ride. Max pushed down his hurt feelings, focusing instead on this more pressing issue. “Do you trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?” she croaked out, but granted him a genuine smile.
