Max narrowed his eyes, then turned to Liam. “Did I ever tell you about the time Chloe told a guy she actually had a twin, and the twin and her had been swapping with him and now she had to come clean—just to get him to dump her?”
Liam raised his eyebrows. “A twin, hey?”
Chloe flushed. “Look, it wasn’t that bad, I just…”
And with that, Max took his exit. He caught up with Josie and reached out to take her elbow before she could clock him. She stumbled a little and when she looked up at him, color flooded her face. She wrenched her arm from his a little forcefully.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I just…Can I talk to you for a second?”
She hesitated, studying his face like she was deciding something, then gave a single, jerky nod. “All right.”
She followed him to the nearest corner, one where the light barely reached. To lead her downstairs might be a bit too suspicious. Once there, she crossed her arms, waiting, and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, that makes two of us,” she said.
“I just…” Jesus, get a fucking grip, Max. “I wanted to apologize for how I left things with you.”
Her eyes stayed cold and even, but when she nodded slowly, her expression flickered. “Yes. It wasn’t ideal, I’ll admit.” He winced at her tone.
“I just…” he tried again, but she shook her head to cut him off.
“Look, it’s all right. It was just a bit of fun, wasn’t it?” She sighed. “And OK, maybe I got caught up in the romanticism of it all, but it was really only a fling, wasn’t it?” She dropped her arms to her sides and straightened her shoulders. “You don’t owe me anything, so don’t worry about it, OK?”
He scowled, tried to think of something to do with his hands that wasn’t balling them into fists. He wanted her to be angry at him. Somehow, this ambivalence was worse—because if it had only been a fling, then why couldn’t he get her out of his damn head? He took a breath, tried one more time. “I wish—”
“Look, Max, we’ve both moved on, haven’t we?” She gave a pointed look across the room and Max saw Erin gliding over to Chloe, who was beckoning her over, clearly trying to keep her distracted.
Max looked back at Josie and frowned. “You haven’t moved on. You’re moving backward.” He was trying to get a rise out of her, but other than a slight tightening of her lips, he got nothing. He wanted to shake her, to snap her out of this weird composure and back to the real Josie, the one he’d met at Christmas, not this cardboard cut-out version who he couldn’t get a read from.
Josie shook her head firmly. “You might think that, but I don’t.”
“What?”
She lifted her chin. “I haven’t moved backward. I’m living in New York, aren’t I?” She gestured around the room, then cocked her head in that way of hers. “As I seem to recall, you thought I was secretly the adventurous type. So, maybe you were right.” The way she said it, it was like he could hear the shrug in her voice, but then their gazes locked and he wondered if she remembered that evening as vividly as he did. The cocktail bar, her eyes dancing in the candlelight. The taste of her when he’d kissed her later.
“Is that her?” Josie asked abruptly, glancing again at Erin, almost like she couldn’t help herself. When Max frowned, she added, “The girl who broke your heart?” He stared at her for a moment. Well, what had he expected her to think? He’d allowed her to think that he’d had his heart broken, as an easy and less complicated explanation for why he’d been so off with her at the start. He remembered it in excruciating detail, the weight of what he’d been feeling, and how she’d pulled him out of it, even though he’d been downright rude when he’d first met her. He started to shake his head, to explain that yes, she was his ex but no, she wasn’t the reason he’d been like that. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Chloe sneaking glances over at them, and he could almost hear her telling him to leave it alone. Then Josie raised a hand to someone across the room, smiled, and nodded, and Max turned to see Oliver looking over at them. Just like that, his time was up.
Josie curled a strand of hair around her ear and took a step away. He saw her hesitate, turn back. She blew out a breath. “Look, Max, I can’t say it’s not a little strange, seeing you here. But honestly, just so you don’t feel bad or whatever, you leaving, in the way you did, was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.” Her gaze flickered over to where Oliver was waiting for her. “It made me realize what I had with Oliver,” she said firmly. “Made me realize I wanted to give it another go.”