Free Maxed Out by Kim Ross Page B

talking to you if we
divorced and you wouldn’t get fired,” Max cuts in.
    He’s right, of course, but I’m not quite ready to think about
it on those simple terms. “My opinion of myself would go down, though, because
that’s influenced by—“
    “You’re just scared of commitment,” he says. “That’s okay.
Can we talk about this in person?”
    “Fine,” I say. I’m tired of hearing that from everyone, but
I want to get this sorted out. “Where? When?”
    “Brunch at the usual place?”
    “No romantic crap,” I tell him.
    “Fine,” he says.
    Renee crawled out of bed at some point during our phone
conversation. She’s staring at me oddly. “Who ends a phone conversation like
that?” she says. “No romantic crap? You’re going out to talk about marrying
this guy.”
    I ignore her. We’ve been over this already.
    “By the way your thing finished,” she says. “Whatever your
computer was working on.”
    “What?”
    “The fans were going nuts around 2 am. I didn’t like, look
or anything, I just checked to make sure it wasn’t hanging. When I checked
again this morning it was done.”
    I had forgotten the sort I was running on likely locations
for Jeremy’s vault. “Can you print it off?” I say. “I need to handle this Max
thing before I chicken out.”
    Renee looks at me funny. “Whatever,” she says.
    I get out of her apartment in record time. Normally I’d have
been ten minutes hunting for my keys and figuring out which shoes to wear but
right now I’m like a cartoon character and I dash out of frame for a split
second and come back in fully dressed and ready. I’m actually really excited
about taking this next step with Max. At some point in the last day I decided
I’m going to let him marry me, and I can’t wait to get that started. I feel
like I’m in high school waiting to get picked up by my prom date, except we’re
in a mature relationship instead of me just dating him to make my best friend
jealous and we’re having great sex instead of fumbling around in the backseat
of his parents’ car.
    He hands me a rose when he meets me at the café.
    “I thought we agreed—“ I start.
    “You were just putting on a show for Renee,” he says. “I
know you get embarrassed by big over the top public gestures but we’ve talked
about this before and you appreciate flowers.”
    “You just spent like five bucks on something that’s going to
die in a few days,” I say.
    “I spent five bucks on making you smile,” he says. “Even if
it only works once it’s totally worth it.”
    Max already got his money’s worth when I first saw him. I
can’t help myself here and I get a big silly romantic grin again and we share a
kiss before we get our food. None of the stuff I’ve been thinking about and
lecturing at Max on the phone matters right now. It’s nice to just be with him
for a few minutes.
    The subject of marriage finally comes up when I run out of
eggs.
    “I had some unrealistic expectations about marriage,” I say
as an icebreaker.
    Max is silent.
    “I enjoy spending time with you, and if getting married
allows us to spend more time together, I think it’s something we can do, with a
few conditions.”
    “You realize you’re the woman and I make more money than you
so you’d make a large profit off of a divorce, right?” he says.
    “That’s not what I meant,” I say.
    “Then what is?”  
    “I want –“
    “Wait a sec,” he says. “Can I say something first?”
    “I suppose,” I say.
    “I want to apologize for what I said last night. I’ve been
doing some thinking. If you don’t want to marry me but you still want to be
together, I’d be willing to quit my job for you.”
    I’m stunned. I wasn’t expecting this.
    “Granted, it’s probably not as big of a sacrifice as you
want, because I got an offer from Riverside to coach next season, so I’ve got a
bit of security if we don’t work out,” Max continues.
    I shake my head. “It was perfect