“I hate that I’m the reason you cut ties with your folks,” he said soberly.
“You’re not. They’re being judgmental assholes. In time they’ll get over it and we’ll patch things up as best we can. Or they won’t. In the end, they’re the ones missing out. After all, we’ve got Michael and Uncle Lou, Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim...” I paused long enough for what I was saying to sink in. Yes, your family is mine, too. “Plus we have some incredible friends. And more important...we have each other. We’ll never be alone, Max.”
He studied my face with layered, curious intensity. “Are you sure you won’t regret giving up so much to be with me?”
“Are you sure you don’t want someone prettier, who looks like she belongs at your side?” Yeah, I went there.
Rage flared, before he understood what I was getting at. A slow smile formed at the edges of his wonderful mouth. Even pale and thin with eyes like he’d been to war, he was still the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. I carried both his hands to my lips and kissed the palms one by one. He shivered a little.
“Don’t make my heart race,” he complained. “They’re monitoring that shit.”
I grinned. “Sorry.”
“No, you aren’t. Not remotely.”
“Guilty.”
“So tell me about this master plan of yours.”
Compulsively, I stroked his fingers, reveling in the warm roughness of his skin. “You want to hear what you missed out on by getting stabbed?”
“Duh.”
“Well, step one—enlisting Angus to spell out messages of love on the fridge.”
“Like what?”
“Lines from poems. Song lyrics. Simple groveling for Wednesdays. It’d depend on the day, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Max agreed with a faint smile.
“Would it have worked?”
“Probably. Though if you make this sound too awesome, I might change my mind and let you make this up to me Courtney-style. What else was in the works?”
“Well, nothing was solid, but...I was going to see if Nadia could get you to go to one of our shows. I talked to the guys in the band, and we’ve added a new song to our set list. I was going to sing ‘Amazing’ to you. See how well I had it planned out?”
“I don’t know that one.”
“It’s by Johnette Napolitano. From Concrete Blonde,” I added, thinking that might connect for him better.
He tilted his head back, seeming pensive. “Yeah?”
“What’s that look about?”
“I was just picturing what it would’ve been like. If you’d gotten Nadia to drag me out to a club somewhere to see a show I didn’t want to watch and then suddenly, you’re onstage, dedicating a song to me.”
“Max likes this, check yes or no.”
With two fingers, he etched a check mark in the air. “Yes.”
“I still can, just not as part of the big reconciliation effort. This way, it’d be because I’m crazy about you.”
“That’s even better. Would you...sing it now?”
I had the song in my phone, actually. If I played it on low, I could sing along quietly without bothering the other patients. Since the nurse just came in on rounds, we wouldn’t see anyone until they brought his breakfast in an hour or two. So I nodded.
“At this point, you can have whatever you want. Choose wisely.”
“Just the song for starters.”
Incredibly embarrassed but also pleased, I found “Amazing” in my music player, knowing it probably wasn’t the romantic ballad he expected, but I didn’t have the voice to carry one off. The song was dark and raw, but the chorus was absolutely spot-on. Closing my eyes, I hit Play and gave it everything I had. A cappella singing was tough, and singing along with my phone probably didn’t help a whole lot, either. But hopefully he wouldn’t laugh.
When I finished, it took me forever to open my eyes. He wasn’t even smiling, and my stomach dropped. “Was it that bad?”
His voice came out husky. “Thank you for feeling that way about me. Until I met you, it never even occurred to me that I could be sunshine to somebody else, like you are to me.”
I felt a goofy smile forming. “You haven’t said it back, you know.”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“That’s only four letters, how can it be big enough to describe how I feel about you? I don’t love you, I worship you. I want to carry you on my back for five hundred miles, build a bridge and then name it after you.”
A soft, giddy laugh burbled out. “The Courtney Kaufman Bridge does have quite a ring. But can’t I have a highway instead?”
“Maybe Courtney Kaufman-Cooper?” Max suggested.
Both my brows shot up. “Are you proposing?”
“More like telling your fortune. You will marry a dark-haired stranger.”
“I will not.”
“Sure, you will. Who’s stranger than me? I broke up with you for being rich.”
“No, that was because you trusted me, and I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m over it. Your priorities realign at light speed when you get shanked.”
“Since when do mechanical engineers build bridges?” I wondered aloud.
Max grinned. “I didn’t say it was a realistic goal.”
Breakfast arrived then, the usual post-op diet, so it took me half an hour to get Max to eat anything. In the end, I had to feed him while his eyes twinkled devilishly. It wasn’t like I minded, plus he was so cute pretending his side hurt too much to move his arms.
“I’d kiss you,” he said. “I really want to. But I taste like not-brushing-my-teeth and hospital food. Honestly, we should’ve planned this whole thing better.”
“Agreed, F+ at perfect reunions, but as long as we’re together, it’s good by me.”
“True. Do you know what I’ve been doing?”
“Taking meds?”
“No, since you’ve been gone.”
I shook my head.
“Class, projects, the odd shift at the garage. But mostly I’ve been working on your car. I can’t wait to show it to you. I was kind of obsessive, actually.”
“Are you kidding? I figured you went at it with a hammer.”
“I was planning to put a stupid red stuffed heart in the driver’s seat when I got it in drivable condition. Then I was going to make a speech about how this car is like me, we’re both kind of fucked up and you can’t see the shape of my heart—my heart was a metaphor for the car engine—just by looking, but we’ll always get you where you need to go, no matter what.” He let out a long breath. “Man, I’m glad I didn’t do that. No wonder Angus laughed when I told him.”