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“Breakfast? Sounds damned good.”
“It’s gonna be,” Max said, cracking another egg. “Gotta have some reason to get up this early.”
“Talking to your best friend isn’t enough?”
“Not even close, dude. Fucking sun isn’t even up yet.” He’d rolled out of bed before dawn to give Mitchell an update—and to assuage a tiny bit of guilt that he’d agreed to Kelsey’s request.
“I’m only eight hours ahead of you,” Mitchell said. “It’s two in the afternoon here.”
“I know you. You leave the office early. Many English pussies await.”
“They do seem inclined toward the American accent. Seems crazy to me, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“You sure that’s the part of them you’re looking at?” Max flipped his eggs over, opening the oven door to check the bacon, his eyes watering with the burst of simmering heat. Almost ready.
“On occasion—when I require certain specific, ah, services.”
“Man jets off to merry ol’ England, banging steady succession of British trim, and leaves me to keep shit running back in the old country. Good thing you’re my friend. I should charge you.”
Mitchell laughed. “Wouldn’t want a dude like you over here, too, you know? That’s competition I don’t need, pal.”
“Asshole.”
He could almost hear the smile in Mitchell’s voice as he changed the subject. “Kelsey making your hair fall out?”
Max tapped the corner of the countertop with the spatula. “Not quite that bad—yet. But she’s, well, she’s a lot to handle.”
“Feel your pain, bro. Oh, hell, do I.” Mitchell’s voice softened. “Look, I… I want you to know how much I appreciate it. All the help you’ve been giving her. Volunteering to fix her truck. You know… it’s really cool of you to do that. She is so thankful, too—even if she isn’t the best about expressing gratitude sometimes.”
“Most times.” But Max smiled as he said it.
Mitchell sighed. “Need to work on that, I guess.”
“Way ahead of you, dude.”
Mitchell didn’t say anything for a moment, then he almost murmured the question. “Tell me straight. She doing okay? I mean, really—you don’t need to bullshit. It’s me here, Max.”
“As far as I can tell, the world is her oyster. Judging by how much she pushes the limits, I’d say she’s feeling pretty fucking good about things. Especially her ego.”
Mitchell chuckled. “Head so swole, one of these days she won’t be able to enter a room. But I love her that way.”
“Pain in the ass is what she is. Don’t deny it.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
He didn’t want to talk about this part, but he knew he needed to, uncomfortable or not. “Something else I wanted to run by you, other than this stupid auction shit.”
“Thank you for doing that, too, my friend. I’m sure you made a lot of points with Kelsey agreeing to that sort of torture.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see how it goes. With luck, it’s short and sweet, and I get home in time for a beer—or three.”
His friend didn’t need to know a small part of Max was looking forward to the auction night. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure why.
It was likely to be lame, maybe even boring, but it would be a chance to see Kelsey ‘in her element.’ He had always wondered what happened in sororities, and while he knew it would be quite tame—probably damn near scripted to keep people from being scandalized—he was still curious.
More to the point though, he wanted to make sure Kelsey was doing okay there. He wasn’t sure he could pinpoint exactly why that mattered to him, but inside him there was a decided undercurrent of protectiveness toward her. Maybe something that might bear some resemblance to the word territorial.
The whole point of doing this is to head off going down those sorts of rabbit holes, dude. Knock it off.
