“You OK?” he asked. “All settled?”
Erin nodded, blew on her tea, and took a sip. He started to rock back on his heels, remembered his father doing just that and stopped, clearing his throat. Why could he suddenly think of nothing to say? It never used to be this awkward between them—even when they’d been recently broken up they’d always been relatively easy around each other. But for some reason this time it all felt forced, like there had been some irreversible change. Maybe it was just that six months had passed with barely any contact. That, and the fact that the last time he’d seen her he’d barely been functioning like a human being, clouded with the weight of something he’d been told time and time again was grief.
Erin set her tea down on the bedside table—Christ, his mother had put flowers there, yellow flowers, no less, Erin’s favorite color—and turned back to him, taking his spare hand, the one not holding his own tea, in both of hers. Her scent drifted over to him. She’d always smelled the same, ever since university, some kind of lavender scent, which he presumed came from the same shower gel or whatever that she used.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” she said softly, with a fleeting glance at the open door.
“I know,” Max said, grimacing a little. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been in touch more. I’ve just been a little…distracted, I guess.”
She nodded vigorously, her hair, longer and lighter than when he’d last seen her, bouncing as she did so. “I get that, I do.” But it was said in a way that made him doubt it. Feeling his shoulders tense, he pulled his hand from hers, then patted the top of her hand to make the action less abrupt. He just wished that she—that everyone—would treat him normally again, would stop tiptoeing around him. He’d decided to move on from it, as much as he could anyway; the least everyone else could do was respect that.
She stepped toward him, hooked her hands behind his head so that his mug of tea was pressed awkwardly against him, the steam of it coiling in the space between them. She tilted her head, the way she always used to, when gauging his reaction. “I missed you.”
Her eyes were so blue. He’d almost forgotten that. He cleared his throat. “I missed you too,” he said, because it was true. He wasn’t sure he meant it in quite the same way, but he’d missed having her around. She continued to watch him, like she was waiting for some kind of decision. He hesitated for a moment, then leaned in, planted a whisper of a kiss on her smooth cheek. He stepped away from her, lifted his mug in a kind of toast. The corner of her mouth crooked up.
“Night, Erin.” With that he closed the door behind him and let out a slow, long breath.
Max ran his hand along the side of the bridge they were currently walking across, admiring the feel of the cast iron. Though he hadn’t spent much time here, he knew from an interest in the architecture of New York that this was Bow Bridge, and had been designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, like many other of the key architectural features of the park. It was actually pretty fucking cool, though the egotistical side of him slightly resented that he’d not had the chance to design something like this, something that made it onto the “top ten” lists—something that people came out just to admire. He sighed as he looked around him, a little bit in awe at the views from here. He was just able to make out some of the high-rise buildings of the city—a view that he imagined would become a little more obscured as the trees beefed up a bit in late spring.
“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “I had no idea how big this place was.” He’d walked through bits of Central Park before now, but never purposefully just to enjoy it. Chloe rolled her eyes at his statement, and he hunched his shoulders a little defensively. “Well, it’s been winter, hasn’t it? And it gets bloody cold here, I’m hardly going to spend all my free time exploring the great outdoors.” Chloe, very deliberately, said nothing and looked the other way, swinging the picnic basket and apparently admiring the trees that were just starting to show their colors again, but at least Erin gave him a sympathetic shrug.
Max glanced down at the lake below, which, thanks to the sun’s appearance, was glistening up at them, reflecting some of the green that was beginning to blossom. There were even two rowboats coming up under the bridge, a couple in each of them looking delightfully pleased with themselves. It would be beautiful in the autumn too, he thought absently, with all the trees changing colors.