Page 33 of Always, in December

She grinned. ‘I’ll look you up if I do . . .?’

Liam turned his snort into a cough this time – an overly obvious one – as Max said, ‘Max.’

She nodded. ‘Max. I’m Amy.’ Another smile.

Coffee in hand, they stepped back out to where the first drops of rain were starting up. Though at least that was at the end of their lunchbreak rather than at the beginning. Liam shook his head. ‘You don’t even have to try, do you?’

Max ‘hmm’d’ in an innocent way, and took a sip of his coffee.

‘You know it’s only because of the sexy English accent, don’t you?’

Max shook his head in mock judgement. ‘Don’t be so obviously jealous, mate, it’s not an attractive quality.’

Liam held his coffee up. ‘Just making sure you don’t get too big-headed, that’s all. Figure it’s my job as your only friend out here.’

Max snorted, but when Liam said nothing more, found himself staring blankly at the pavement as they walked the last stretch to their office, caught in a what-if moment. What if he’d joked, flirted back with the pretty redhead, told her he’d take her out for a drink and give her all the tips for a holiday to London? It would’ve been so easy, something fun and light. A year ago – presuming it was in the ‘off-again’ portion of his relationship with Erin – he would’ve done just that, but now he couldn’t even work up the energy to feel bothered one way or another.

‘You ok?’ Liam asked as they reached the slim brick building that was home to their office. It had been named a New York landmark in the early nineties, having been designed by some fancy architect back in the day, and now had come full circle, housing its own architecture firm.

They stepped through the glass doors to reception and Max took another sip of his coffee, then nodded, pulling himself out of pointless introspection. ‘Yeah. Just thinking about this meeting. Should be a laugh a minute, don’t you think?’

Liam didn’t get the chance to answer, because a woman in her late twenties, dark-haired, slim and toned, wearing tightly fitting gym clothes that left nothing to the imagination, stood up from where she’d been flipping through an architectural magazine on one of the sofas in reception and walked directly over to them. Liam, quite literally, stopped in his tracks as she closed in on them, her dark eyes glinting. She was there to yell at him, Max decided. Perhaps she was pissed off because she’d come out of her way to see him, and he’d not been here. Max had always been able to tell just what she was thinking through those eyes, and she claimed the same about him. They’d become so good at reading each other’s minds growing up that their mother had on more than one occasion said that there must be something supernatural going on, and that maybe there was a way they were actually twins – something about an egg separating and remaining in her womb for the four years between them, though the idea had been sufficiently gross to him as a kid, thinking about his mother having eggs and a womb, that he’d tuned out the specifics whenever she went into that rambling theory. They looked nothing alike, though, despite the twin theory. While not short, per se, his sister was petite, and there had always been speculation over why she’d turned out as such, given both Max and their parents were all a bit taller than average. Given she was all dark hair and eyes to his lighter tones, you wouldn’t really be able to tell they were related at first glance.

She came to an abrupt stop in front of them, tilting her head up at Max in a way that made the angles in her face even more pronounced – all sharp cheekbones and pointy chin. She’d amped up the look recently by cutting her dark hair short, though Max was pretty sure that she’d done it in part to annoy their mother, who had immediately complained that it made her look boyish. But there was no way you could look at Chloe and think her boyish, whatever she did to her hair – if anything, it had made her looks even more striking. One quick glance at Liam told Max he was thinking along the same lines right now. The narrowed eyes came automatically to Max, and caused Liam to cough and quickly rearrange his expression.

Max could sympathise, to be fair. Chloe had this effect on men, something which had caused him to get into some difficult fights over the years, in order to defend her honour or punish heartbreak, as was the expectation of the big brother. This had culminated in a big argument where he told her to stop putting him in situations where he had to keep confronting people, and her telling him it was their honour that he should be worried about. A tacit agreement had then been reached where he looked the other way while she made it through streams of men, leaving a trail of heartbroken bodies in her way when she declared that they just weren’t what she was looking for.

‘Hello, Chloe,’ he said evenly, swigging the last of his coffee. ‘Nice of you to drop by.’

She jabbed a finger towards his chest. ‘It is bloody nice of me, I’ll have you know. I came by ages ago, and when you wouldn’t answer your phone I had to just hang around waiting, didn’t I?’ Max frowned and slipped out his phone. He saw that she’d rung him – barely twenty minutes ago. ‘Luckily,’ Chloe continued, gesturing towards the reception desk and the college kid who was currently sat there, ‘Steve here was nice enough to let me wait for you down here, though he had no idea who you were – you must not have made much of an impression.’

Next to him, Liam bit his lip, and Max got the distinct impression he was trying not to smile. ‘Better than your alternative,’ Max said, keeping his tone deliberately light to combat her rage, well used to the mini-tantrums that inevitably cooled down as quickly as they flared up. ‘The only reason people remember you is because you make the wrong impression – hardly something to celebrate.’ She waved a hand in the air as if to say ‘whatever’ and Max sighed. He grabbed her elbow to manoeuvre her to the side and away from the doorway. ‘What are you doing here, Chloe?’

She huffed. ‘I’m here because Mum has been trying to get hold of you for, and I quote, “the whole damn morning” and you refuse to answer her, so she bribed me with a free spin class at one of those fancy Tribeca studios near here. And so here I am. Doing the loving, daughterly thing and coming to check that a) you are still alive and nothing terrible has befallen you – that’s a direct quote again, she actually said “befallen” – being as how she couldn’t get you on your mobile and the office told her you weren’t there when she called them and—’

‘Jesus, she actually called the office?’

Chloe ignored him, carrying on in that way of hers, one word tumbling into another without the need to take a breath, ‘And b) to see what time Erin is landing because she’s flapping that the house might not be ready in time, and is worrying that you might forget to pick her up from the airport.’

Liam made a sound halfway through a cough and a laugh, and Chloe’s attention shot to him. He actually flushed under her gaze, for Christ’s sake, then cleared his throat hurriedly when he saw the look in Max’s eyes. One that, he hoped, quite clearly told him he was being pathetic. Chloe, however, gave Liam a little smile, making no secret of the fact that she was weighing him up.

Max took a breath, trying to dredge up some patience and remember that he dearly loved both his mother and sister, and could not blame them for treating him with kid gloves, even though he’d hoped they would have stopped by now. Because, though she’d never admit it, he knew very well that it would not have taken much for their mother to persuade Chloe to come and ‘check up’ on him, though she’d do her best to hide that under sharp words, as she always had. Which, to be fair, suited them both. Neither of them were exactly great with all that touchy-feely crap.

‘Well,’ Max said, ‘you can tell our mother that I am indeed fine, nothing evil has befallen me, that Erin doesn’t get in until this evening and won’t care in the slightest what the place looks like, and that I will go and get her myself. And—’

‘Oh here we go,’ Chloe muttered.

‘That even if I wasn’t going to get her myself, Erin is a fully grown, intelligent woman, who is more than capable of finding her own way from the airport.’

‘And boy, is she lucky to have you.’ Liam took an ever-so-subtle step back away from them, though that only made both of them glance towards him in unison, before looking back at one another.

‘Is that all?’ Max asked sweetly.

‘Will Erin be needing her own bedroom?’ she asked sweetly.

Max scowled. ‘Go away, Chloe.’

‘What!’ Chloe exclaimed, shifting her gym bag further up her shoulder. ‘That’s a genuine question! And if she isn’t sharing a room with you, then that means I have to stay on the sofa, which is just so—’