Free Falling for Max by Shannon Stacey

What
can
you tell me about Max Crawford?”
    “He’s a nice guy. Good cook. Has a comfortable couch.”
    Hailey’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? I’d like to hear more about that.”
    “About the comfortable couch? It’s a sectional. Leather that’s just right amount of beat up so it’s like butter. The corner is my favorite.”
    “And what did you do on the couch?”
    “I sat on it.”
    “Come on, Tori. Did you or did you not make out with Max?”
    She blew out a breath and shook her head. “I did not. I told you, I’m helping Max find a date. Ultimately, he wants to find a wife.”
    “You know...if you had a husband, then I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about making you be my friend and then falling for Matt.”
    And here it came. “I don’t want a husband. Marriage isn’t my thing.”
    “Because I’m your best friend—at least for now—it’s my job to tell you that swearing off marriage forever because your parents divorced is weird.”
    It went deeper than that. The most solid thing in her life had blown apart and turned her parents into two people who cared more about hurting each other than they did making sure she was okay. It was a betrayal of everything she’d believed about her life and she was
not
okay.
    “I don’t believe in happily ever after anymore” was all she said. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation and Hailey knew how she felt.
    “But what about Matt and me? You did a pretty good job of pushing me toward him for somebody who thinks we’re going to turn on each other someday.”
    How she’d gotten herself in this no-win conversation, Tori couldn’t remember, but she wanted to kick herself. “It’s different for you two. You’re perfect for each other, and you’re both good people. Even if, God forbid, you did break up, you’d never use your kids as weapons against each other.”
    “If it can be different for me, it can be different for you.”
    Obviously there was some logic to Hailey’s statement, but Tori shied away from analyzing it too closely. If she thought about committing to a man and allowing him into her life and her heart, she felt almost physically ill. The thing about a couple being together for twenty-five years is that they knew the soft spots—where to hit to inflict the most emotional hurt.
    “I’m enjoying my life the way it is” was all she said, and it was the truth. “And I won’t find a new best friend just because you went and fell in love. I draw the line at wearing camo, though.”
    “Okay. How do you feel about blaze orange?”
    * * *
    After much deliberation, Max decided to contact Tori at six that evening. She was the one who’d suggested that time for their dinner, so he felt he could safely assume that would be the time least disruptive to her work. He was taking a chance on interrupting her dinner, but he’d get right to the point if that was the case. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, he pulled up her number and hit Call.
    “Hi, Max.”
    He liked cell phones. They removed that awkward need to announce one’s identity to avoid the embarrassment of being a minute or two into a conversation and hearing
Who is this?
“Hi, Tori. Am I interrupting you?”
    “Nope. I just finished eating, so I’m cleaning up before I go back to work for a few hours.”
    “You said you prefer texting, but phone calls for longer conversation. I don’t want to tell you how much time I spent going through how I thought our conversation might go to determine if it would constitute
longer.
”
    When she laughed, he leaned back against the sofa and got comfortable. It was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but when she laughed at him, it’s because she thought he was funny. There was nothing mocking or scornful about the sound.
    “There’s no mathematical formula,” she said. “Just don’t be offended if you go to voice mail. If I’m at the diner or working at my computer, I don’t usually answer phone calls, but