Page 65 of Highlands Summer Wedding

“I didn’t expect you to come here.”

“Have you got a girlfriend waiting in the car? You might want to bring her in. The lightning’s not safe.”

Max let his head fall back before refocusing on me. “Are we really back to this old fight?”

“I guess we are.”

“You trust me now, don’t you?” His eyes roamed my face, searching.

“Should I?”

His shoulders slumped. “Abby, I have missed you since the day you left LA. Not only did I lose my fiancée, I lost my best friend.”

I bit my lip to keep it from quivering as I tried to find a reason he would bullshit me. His blue eyes, blinking through the raindrops that fell from his shaggy hair, looked sincere.

“Abby…” He caught sight of the notebook beside me. With two columns and a line drawn down the center, it was clear that I was making another one of my famous pros and cons lists. His hopeful expression darkened, and he pressed his lips into a tight line. “Back to deciding the pros and cons of being with me?”

I glanced at the list and shook my head. “The pros and cons of going back into film.”

“Oh.”

He was creating a puddle on the floor, so I motioned for him to sit. He stripped off his raincoat and stepped out of his boots, leaving them lying in the growing pool of water.

He held out his hand for a towel, and I tossed him one without thinking. He wiped the floor, then reached for a mug. I stepped around him and pulled out a packet of hot chocolate. He didn’t like tea.

We’d always been in sync with the small things.

It was only ever the film stuff that was a problem.

Max took his hot chocolate and settled in at the small kitchen table. His eyes lingered on my notebook still open on the counter. “You’re not sure? I thought you were excited?”

I shrugged. “I’ve made a new life for myself. Weddings are real and joyful and nobody pulls funding at the last minute.”

“Weddings go over budget. Weddings get ruined. Mothers of the bride are notoriously?—”

“I know all of that. But let’s say Shane comes through with the funding. I get a proper visa. We finish the film. It does well enough that they greenlight the next two. After that, people will start sending you prestige period scripts, and me more of the same. I don’t want to spend the next decade producing films I didn’t choose.”

“Okay… but we’d have at least five years?—”

“I know. I get that. That’s been the problem the whole time. We’d have five years or so together. But then what? Say the dating worked out, and we fell back in love?—”

“Back?” His voice was tight.

I looked up, and his eyes told me everything. There was no falling back in love for him. He already loved me.

And then I started to break. My eyes began to sting, and the words caught in my throat. I poured myself more tea while I collected myself.

My voice, nearly a whisper, trembled. “And then those years would be up. I’d have lived, breathed, and worked with you nearly 24/7 that whole time, and then you’d be gone again. And there I’d be, reading through stacks of scripts that I didn’t love, looking for the one I could commit to for another three years…”

Max twisted his mug between his hands. “Are we still talking about scripts?”

“Dating and screenwriting have been mixed metaphors with us for years.”

He lifted his eyes to mine. “What if I gave it up? Became a wedding videographer?”

I nearly choked on a laugh. “Max, you’re a renowned Hollywood filmmaker.”

“What do you want? How can we make this work?”