“Of course I’m worried about this. I’m worried about you.”
“Really?” Max seemed genuinely surprised by this, which hurt more than Felix had thought it might. He knew their friendship had taken a bit of a beating recently, but surely Max knew he still cared about him? Why else would he be here?
Suddenly, that seemed to be the only thing that Felix could say. “Why else would I be here and not in Fiji, listening to my brother and his boyfriend have sex constantly?”
Max barely smiled, which was an indication that not all was right. “I don’t know, maybe because Leo asked you to? Maybe because you get paid out of the proceeds of the band I’m in, and it’s in your best interests to make sure I play with them again?”
Felix was shocked into silence. Fuming, angry, devastated silence.
“Or not, I don’t know.” Max ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment, he looked just as shattered as Felix felt.
“Not,” Felix finally said succinctly. “That whole idea is bullshit, and you know it.”
“Do I?” Max questioned, and there was a rawness in his voice that Felix wasn’t sure he’d ever heard there before.
“You should know better, you really should.” Felix walked over and put his hands on the bare skin of Max’s shoulders. It killed him, nearly, but he did it because the thought that Max believed that he was just there for money, for convenience, for anything other than friendship and love, whether it was platonic or romantic, killed him. “I fucking care about you. When you told us you were having surgery, I dropped everything. I didn’t go to Fiji, which—you owe me a trip, by the way. Which we will take together. We’ll drink too much and get sunburned and do nothing for a week. When this is all over.”
A tiny smile emerged on Max’s face. “You mean that, don’t you?” The question seemed more rhetorical than anything else.
“I do. Of course I do. You know I do.” Felix hated himself in that moment. He’d made Max think his friendship wasn’t valuable anymore and why? Because Felix wanted to get into his pants so badly he could barely control himself anymore?
“Okay,” Max said. “When this is all over. You and me.”
“You and me,” Felix agreed, and wondered how the fuck he was going to deal with any of this, now that he’d made that promise and so many others.
Chapter Four
In the end it didn’t matter if Felix set his alarm for three a.m. or didn’t—he was awake anyway. The couch wasn’t even particularly uncomfortable. Felix had dragged the butter-soft chambray quilt from the guest bed and used it to line the chilly leather couch, wrapping the over-sized blanket around himself like a cocoon. It had made for a surprisingly soft, plush bed, and he couldn’t actually complain about the sleeping arrangements, even though he was on the couch and not in the guest room—but sleep had eluded him anyway.
He’d lain awake for hours, every single shade of Max’s hurt expression flashing in front of his increasingly gritty eyelids. He’d probably fucked up their friendship irrevocably, by pulling away and not telling Max why, but telling him was completely out of the question. It wasn’t like he’d reject Felix’s friendship—the man spent so much time around two homosexual couples that he barely batted an eye at even pretty serious foreplay these days—but instead, Felix would be subjected to his sympathy. His guilt, even. Max would let him down so kindly, so sweetly. He’d probably even say that if he could be gay for anyone, he’d be gay for Felix. But he wasn’t ever going to be, and they both knew it.
Which would be worse? Losing Max’s friendship and the continued awkwardness or bucketfuls of galling sympathy, poured on heavy and thick, and Max forever apologetic that he hadn’t been able to give Felix what he really wanted?
Felix had always selfishly believed it was the latter. But now in the last two days his eyes had been opened, and he saw what he’d really done. The awkwardness between them was because Max didn’t understand what he’d done to lose Felix’s friendship. Felix cared enough about him that discovering that sucked. Maybe the only person he cared about more than himself was Max—and he’d let him down, big time.
Somehow, he resolved around three in the morning, listening intently for any rustling in the bedroom as Max woke up and took his medication, that he was going to have to discover a happy medium. Some way they could continue their friendship and keep his own heart guarded and safe. He had no fucking clue how he was going to accomplish that particular feat, but he needed to do it, because the alternative wasn’t something he could continue accepting.
Finally, he heard movement in the bedroom. A light flipped on. “Max?” Felix called out softly. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Max said sleepily. “Hurts.”
“Take your pill,” Felix retorted fondly.
“Already done,” Max said, and the light went off again. “Go to sleep.”
Felix huffed humorlessly as he stared at the black void of the ceiling. Sleep? What was that? He wasn’t sure he knew anymore.
Somehow, though, he must have rediscovered it, because a long while later he became aware of light and sound and smell?
That was definitely bacon cooking, and if anything could get a self-avowed not-a-morning-person out of bed, it was that distinctive, enticing, beautiful smell.
When Felix finally opened his eyes, the sun was streaming brightly in through the windows and there was definitely a figure in the kitchen, making breakfast. Sitting up, he groaned and grabbed his glasses from the coffee table. The figure was Max, wearing the same clothes as the night before, hobbling around on his crutches, making breakfast like an insane person.
“What are you doing?” Felix demanded, trying to unwind himself from his cocoon and only partially accomplishing it. He finally ended up waddling over to the kitchen and its lineup of modern barstools, still half-wrapped in the comforter. Max, while not great on the crutches yet, seemed a lot clearer-headed this morning. His eyes were bright and coherent, and he threw Felix a bright, sunny smile over his shoulder as he stood at the stove, scrambling a huge pan of eggs.
“Hungry?” Max asked. “Neither of us really ate dinner, and I woke up starving. Like potentially-start-gnawing-on-the-edge-of-the-mattress hungry. At first I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t want to wake Felix,’ and then I realized that I fucking had to wake you up, because I was going to die if I waited.”
Felix raised an eyebrow. “And why didn’t you?”
“Wake you?” Max asked distractedly. “You were sleeping so soundly and snoring so cute, I hated to. Besides, you’re not here just to wait on me.”
“I’m not?”
“Can you get the plates?” Max asked. “These eggs are just about done. And the bacon’s definitely smelling like it’s ready.”
Felix padded over to the cupboard with the plates and grabbed two, carefully skirting around Max and his crutches to set them on the counter next to the stove. “You okay getting it out of the oven?”
Max’s hesitation was all the evidence Felix needed to know that he probably could, but that they both knew he shouldn’t try.
“I’ll grab it,” Felix said. He reached over and grabbed the bright turquoise potholder from its hook. “Just . . .back up carefully. We don’t need you to break a leg on top of the knee.”