Page 4 of Out Of Time

His heart hammered in his chest. “You don’t have to do that. I can sweep,” he said.

“You’re still looking a little pale. Finish that protein bar and then we’ll talk about sweeping,” she said, looking back up at him with a gentle beam. Max tried and failed to smile back. He kept eating instead.

Her smile was natural and light. Her teeth were big and bright behind her full lips. She had the kind of smile that seemed like it never ended. She was pretty,verypretty, and Maxcouldn’t remember the last time he was in the company of a woman who made his body come alive this way. His face began to blush, his cheeks growing a deeper shade of pink, which was always an obvious thing on a redhead. Tapping his foot, he tried like hell to mask the weird rush of adrenaline he felt just looking at her.

“Besides,” she added, with the final sweep, “it’sliterallymy job to clean up after you. And this might honestly be one of the first legit messes I’ve cleaned up here. Why do you even have a housekeeper if you're never home and there's never any real messes?”

He thought about it and gave her the only answer he could come up with on the spot. “Dust?”

She stood up straight, pausing what she was doing to look directly at him before she began to laugh. And fuck, it was a good laugh. It made the depths of his empty stomach flutter with some kind of profound satisfaction. Her laugh was like hitting every green light on the Pacific Coast Highway. Her laugh was like eating dairy and not getting a stomach ache. Her laugh was an effortless save that won the game. Her laugh made his vision blur—or maybe it was just another episode coming on, he couldn’t be sure—but his eyes struggled to focus on anything but her smile while she was standing in front of him.

“I don’t think you need a cleaner once a week for dust, Max. But I’m not complaining either. Your house is the easiest part of my paycheck,” she teased with a wink.

She went to leave, the dustpan full of lamp fragments, when it dawned on him that he didn’t even know her name.

“Excuse me?” he called after her. She quickly turned back to face him. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

Leaning forward she stuck out a firm, yet tiny hand to shake. “I’m Remi.”

Max instinctually wiped his palms on the denim of his pants before offering up his clammy, anxious hand to her. “I’m Max.”

This made Remi laugh. “I know,justMax, right? You’re kind of a big deal,” she teased.

Shaking his head in disagreement, disappointment lined his face. “I’ve lost every game this season,” he said as he eased his hand from hers, unable to handle her soft touch a second longer. He wiped his nervous, sweaty palms off on his pants again and hoped she didn't think he was trying to wipe away the reminder of her touch, but he just couldn’t help it. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing. It made him… nervous. Holding her hand made his skin crawl, and not in a bad way.

“You’velost every game this season?” she asked incredulously. “Aren’t there like, seven other men on the ice that the puck has to get through before it gets to you?”

“You know hockey?” he asked.

“I know enough to know that you’re not the only one in charge of making sure the other team doesn’t score.”

“Yeah, but I’m the goalie.”

“Yeah, but it’s ateamsport. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’re just going through a rough patch. It’ll pass, you’ll bounce back, and Max Miller will live to see another win.”

Max looked down at the small remaining pieces of the broken lamp. It reminded him of how he felt; cracked, broken, obsolete—done?

It will pass.

Itwill pass.

It has to fucking pass, he was just getting started.

“So,” she went on, “is it reallyjustMax? Or is that short for something interesting like Maximus, or Maximillian?”

He noticed the way she was so effortlessly comfortable standing in front of him. Her hip popped out, her shouldersleaning back against the door frame as she waited for his answer, she was completely okay in his silence. It was oddly calming.

“Just Max, there's nothing interesting about me,” he said, because words were hard on a good day, but words around Remi with her subtle beauty and effortless confidence were like picking pennies out of dried concrete—impossible.

“Your color is coming back,” she said, hinting at his cheeks. “Probably from the protein bar. Must have been low sugar after all.”

He wished he could be that optimistic.

It had to pass.

“Yeah, probably low sugar,” he lied, then went on, “I’m sorry, I’m not great at… talking.”

Especially around women like you,he thought.

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