“You okay?” I asked his chest even though I knew the answer.

“No,” he answered honestly.

“I’m so sorry, Max,” I whispered.

“Me too,” he whispered back.

We stood there awhile silently holding onto each other. I was staring at Max’s view and I knew he was too but he was doing it with his cheek against my hair.

It was then I wondered if things would have felt differently if Max had been around when Charlie died, if I’d have had this, maybe not the view, but his strong arms around me, his cheek to my hair, if I’d had him to hold onto.

I figured it wouldn’t have hurt less, losing Charlie, but it would have hurt less, knowing after I did that I wasn’t alone.

And I realized then that losing Charlie was when the loneliness crept in and I had been in such grief, I hadn’t been able to beat it back. So when I met Niles not long after and he’d been kind and in his way attentive, I’d fixed myself to him because with him I was no longer alone.

The problem was, I never stopped being lonely.

Max broke the silence when he asked softly, “This how you feel all the time?”

I tipped my head back to look at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Charlie.”

I closed my eyes then opened them and nodded the truth.

“Honey,” he whispered, his face getting soft, his eyes getting warm but there was something else there, an understanding that rent my heart.

“But you have a different ending, darling. She’s going to be okay,” I promised him.

“Yeah,” he replied, giving me a squeeze.

“Nina’ll freeze to death, you keep her on the porch much longer,” Cotton called and we both turned to see him leaning out the front door. “Anyways, we got pictures to hang, son, get your hind end in here.” Then he pulled back but left the door open.

The moment was broken so I decided it was high time to lighten the mood.

Therefore as we walked, our arms around each other, to the open door, I said, “I think Cotton is trying to singlehandedly increase your gas bill by two hundred percent.”

“Did I say he was a pain in my ass?” Max asked loudly as we moved into the house and Max closed the door.

“I give him my pictures, he calls me a pain in the ass,” Cotton complained to my mother who looked alarmingly like she was cooking and I hoped the mood to concoct was assuaged at breakfast because she’d also been to the grocery store which meant her ingredients could easily have taken a creative therefore alarming turn.

“Children these days,” Mom said back, “no gratitude.”

“Max, Mom called you a child again,” I told on my mother even though Max heard it himself.

“Yeah but she’s making her Mexican casserole,” Steve said, I sucked in an excited breath, Steve grinned at me then looked to Max. “Nina likes her mother’s Mexican casserole.”

Max stopped me at the end of the counter and I looked up at him and explained, “You will too. You taste it you’ll think nothing but ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’.”

Max smiled down at me and I was relieved to see this one was a little bit more like Max’s normal, beautiful grin.

“Never thought those four words in my whole life, Duchess,” he informed me. “In fact, I don’t even know what one of them means.”

“Food of the Gods,” I informed him.

“Then what you’re sayin’ is your Mom’s casserole is good.”

“The best.”

“And, it was one of my concoctions,” Mom put in snootily.

I got up on my toes and informed Max in a loud whisper, “A rare hit.”

“I heard that!” Mom snapped.

Steve intervened by saying to Max, “We’re gonna have to rig up some kinda hoist, you want that picture over your bed. It isn’t gonna go up those spiral stairs.”

“No problem, had to do the same with the furniture,” Max replied and concluded. “I’ll go to the barn, get my tools.”

“I’ll go with you,” Steve offered and slid off his stool.

“I’ll stay warm,” Cotton declined participation and slid on a stool.

“I’ll frost the cake,” I announced and started to pull away from Max’s arm but it tightened then I started to tip my head back to look up at him but stopped when his lips hit my temple.

Goodness but I loved it when he did things like that.

“Be back in a second, baby,” he said softly, giving me a squeeze with his arm.

I loved it when he said things like that too. And when he gave me a squeeze.

He let me go, Steve joined him and I watched as they walked away.

“He’s a keeper,” Mom noted, her eyes on the space where we last saw Steve and Max.

She wasn’t wrong but I was too emotionally depleted to deal with that fact right now or to process what I was going to do about it.

“Sweetie,” Mom called, I looked at her and my hand came out to clutch the edge of the counter at what I saw in her face.

“Come here, Neenee Bean,” she said softly.

“Mom.”

“Before you frost that cake, I want a hug.”

“Mom, you know –”

“Come here, Nina,” she demanded firmly and I did what I’d done since I was a child and I heard that tone from my mother. I obeyed and walked into her arms.

They came around me and the tears hit my throat, slid up my sinuses and then leaked out my eyes. I couldn’t control them and in the safety of my mother’s arms I didn’t try.

“Mom,” I whispered, holding on tight.

“Lots of bad stuff coming up for you today and you can’t hold it in, darling, you just can’t.” She held back just as tight and went on, “So you have to give it to your Momma.”

I stuffed my face into her neck and like I’d done countless times before from falling off my bike to getting over terrible boyfriends, I gave it to her.

However this time was different for about halfway through me doing that, her arms went loose, her hands went to my shoulders, my head came up in surprise but I didn’t see much partly because she was blurry but also because she turned me and I found myself in the safety of Max’s arms.

Yes, the jury was now out. Verdict: Mom liked Max for certain.

Max’s arms were different mainly because they moved, they lifted me, they carried me across the room and they settled me into his lap when he sat in the armchair.