Page 34 of Always, in December

Max ran a hand through his hair. ‘God, you’re annoying. Why did you decide to come out here for Easter again?’

‘For the better weather obvs.’ She actually said it – ‘obvs’ – like she was some kind of teenager.

Both Max and Chloe snapped their attention to Liam when he let out a low laugh. He immediately straightened his face, looking slightly alarmed by the combined force of their gazes, and Max sighed. ‘Sorry about this, mate.’ He glanced at his watch, gestured to Liam to say that they should just carry on around Chloe to get to their floor.

But Chloe shifted position, making that impossible. ‘Yeah, sorry. About Max that is. He’s clearly too self-involved to introduce me, but I’m Chloe – his sister.’

Liam nodded, and when he spoke, his voice was ever so slightly huskier than usual. ‘Yeah. We’ve actually met, last year. Your parents’ wedding anniversary.’

Chloe gave him an appraising look, then pursed her lips. ‘That’s right. Sorry, I remember you now. You’re my mum’s old schoolfriend’s son, or something like that, aren’t you?’

Liam nodded again, giving Max a sort of helpless look. Max wasn’t sure if he was asking to be rescued, or asking permission to dive in head-first. Generally, Liam needed no help when it came to women, despite his comments about it being too easy for Max. He also had no idea if Chloe had genuinely forgotten meeting Liam – he could just imagine her playing some sort of game right now, all too aware of the way Liam was looking at her. The problem was, Chloe was good at that bit – too good – but she protected her heart fiercely, so that it made it almost impossible for men to actually get close to her, though she’d no doubt start hissing at him if he ever dared to voice that opinion.

Figuring he’d better move Liam along and out of harm’s way, Max groaned. ‘For God’s sake, mate, pull it together – you’ll make her worse, looking at her like that.’

Chloe huffed, swinging her gym bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘Stop being deliberately obnoxious and embarrassing. Poor Liam.’ She flashed Liam a look that made him clear his throat. ‘Next time you try to chat up a girl in front of me, brother mine, I’m going to point out all your flaws in front of them. In excruciating detail.’

Max gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘Honey,’ he said with a fake, sarcastic drawl, ‘I don’t need to chat them up, they all fall at my feet, you know that.’ They grinned at each other – both challenge and solidarity. And in all fairness, her arrival had well and truly pulled him firmly out of his self-imposed melancholy. She could be annoying as hell, but Chloe was also the one person who could drag him out of a mood – self-imposed or otherwise. So he kissed her on the cheek to say goodbye before heading through security with Liam.

‘Jesus,’ Liam said, running a hand along the back of his neck.

Max couldn’t help but laugh, and he gave Liam a friendly pat on the back. ‘Don’t worry, mate, you’re not the only one to react like that, trust me.’

Liam shook his head. ‘That doesn’t actually make me feel better, funnily enough. Not that I . . . I mean, I know she’s your little sister and all.’

‘Yeah. Just make sure to leave out the “little” if you ever talk to her about that. But don’t worry, you’ll have the chance to make a better impression tonight.’

Liam frowned as they started up the stairs – a conscious effort on Max’s part to try and regain some kind of fitness. ‘Tonight.’

‘Yeah. I’ve just decided I need backup, if I have to deal with both my ex and my sister at dinner.’

Liam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘I thought you said she was just a friend?’

‘Well, whatever. You’re coming.’

‘Alright. As long as your mum’s cooking, I’m in.’

As they let themselves into their office on the third floor, Max admitted to himself that what he’d thought down below wasn’t actually quite true. Chloe wasn’t the one and only person who could drag him out of himself. Whether she knew it or not, the other was the one who had, quite literally, fallen at his feet four months ago.

Chapter Twelve

‘Erin, let me get you some more. You must be famished after that flight.’ Max’s mother was already halfway to her feet, her gold necklace swinging with the movement, and was reaching to the middle of the table to the bowl of Spanish rice that had accompanied the roast salmon she’d served. Max resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and deliberately did not look at Chloe, in case he caught a similar expression there. His mum had been trying to force-feed Erin basically since she’d walked through the door, having even gone to this special biscuit shop bloody miles away to get some biscuits that she ‘thought Erin might like’.

Erin shook her head. ‘No, honestly, Valerie, I’m fine.’

His mum pursed her red-painted lips, then turned to Liam, who was sitting opposite Max, black jacket over the back of his chair so his red shirt was firmly on show, and already had a full second helping on his plate. ‘Are you alright, Liam?’ Her American accent seemed to become stronger when she spoke to Liam, like just being in the same vicinity softened the English edge she’d picked up. She smiled at him fondly when he choked down his food hurriedly to answer, and Max wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d crossed the room to pat his lips with a bloody napkin. Honestly, it was like Christmas for her, with Liam and Erin in the same room – like having her own two children over from England couldn’t possibly compare.

Their mum sat back down with clear reluctance and exchanged a look with Max’s dad, who smiled at her a little indulgently from where he was sitting at the head of the table, hands resting on his stomach as if it was painful. He worked hard to keep himself fit, Max knew, but despite that there was a slight pouch starting to appear around his midsection, though it was something the rest of the family tacitly avoided speaking about.

His mum’s gaze was still flicking between Erin’s empty plate and the remaining food on the table, and Max could just see she was about to try and get Erin to eat more, having already told Max twice in the two hours that Erin had been here that she was looking ‘very slim’, as if that was some kind of cause for alarm, rather than something Erin clearly worked hard at. Before he could interject, Erin got there first.

‘That was just amazing, Valerie, thanks so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t eat more – my body clock is all messed up and I ate on the plane – I wasn’t sure that we’d be eating here as I got in so late.’ She said it all graciously, but something about it made Max squirm in his seat.

Which wasn’t helped by the fact that Mum shot him a glare out of those green-gold eyes – eyes that she claimed he’d inherited and ‘made his own’, the gold-rimmed irises darker in his than hers. Jesus, it wasn’t his fault that she’d decided to host a bloody gourmet feast, was it? All he’d said was that Erin might be hungry when she got in – which also clearly meant that she might not be. How was he supposed to know the inner workings of someone else’s internal hunger cues, for God’s sake?

‘You ate on the plane?’ His mum’s perfectly plucked – not by her – eyebrows furrowed. ‘You did fly business class, didn’t you, Erin?’

Max’s dad reached out to give her hand a squeeze on the table, at the same time as Max said, ‘Mum.’