Wanting to Remember,Trying to Forget(2)

Okay, that was a lie. He was good looking. Actually, he was very good looking. But he was just such…a dork!

“I’ll have you know,” Max said when her laughter subsided enough for him to be heard, “this one dimple attracts a lot of women.”

“So what you’re saying is that it’s your personality that eventually has them running in the opposite direction? Maybe if you had two, they’d consider staying more than a week.”

“No, I’m content with one.” He stretched his arms arrogantly and clasped his hands at the back of his head. “Statistically, they say men with one dimple – on average – have bigger penises.”

She abruptly stopped laughing, as if she had just been slapped with a wet mop. She took a moment or two to recollect her thoughts. “What?”


Max watched how the confusion played with her face, how the words came to her lips, but froze on the tip of her tongue. Cute, he thought. She was so damn cute.

Her one eyebrow lifted and her mouth dropped slightly. “Okay, that has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

And there it was. She said it. The incentive for him to say anything so undeniably stupid was simply to hear her say that. It wasn’t so much the words, but the look on her face that accompanied that statement. After six years, he knew every single facial expression she made, but this particular one was his favorite. A very close second was seeing her smile. She had one tooth that overlapped another at the corner of her mouth that could be seen ever so slightly each time she smiled. Everything about her was so adorable, so loveable, so…perfect.

And she had just moved in with him. What the hell was he going to do now?

* * *

Danny walked out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth and headed straight to the kitchen. All she wanted to do was climb back into bed, but her brain instructed her feet to move in the direction of the heavenly smell of coffee. She stopped in front of the living room and took a step back to admire the view.

The puppy-dog face had not completely lost its mojo. She had managed to convince Max to take down those dreaded beige blinds and replace them with elegant lace curtains. The sunlight came streaming in now, washing over the furniture, painting the room with a warm glow. She smiled triumphantly. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nevertheless.

She had also managed to steal a moment to sneak her Egyptian vase into the living room cabinet and as predicted, Max had not noticed it…yet.

A week had passed since she moved in and it wasn’t as bad as she originally expected. She still missed the smell of her old apartment and she still had to get the hang of adjusting the water in the shower to the right temperature, but that was the end to her list of cons. The list of pros were much longer. This apartment had the most magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean and she was definitely getting used to the distant sound of the waves breaking against the shore before she fell asleep at night.

The apartment was an adorable little place with just enough room for the two of them. A medium sized kitchen was situated just right of the entrance and the open-plan living room to the left. There was a round dining table behind the two-seater sofa in the living room. However, eating at it was not its main purpose. Max only used it for work. The table was his idea of fine art—boring and lifeless.

She wouldn’t mind it as much were it not for the fact that it was the first thing she saw when she walked in. She definitely needed to go shopping for a tablecloth.

Max’s bedroom was at the end of the short corridor and her bedroom and the bathroom were neatly placed on either side of the hallway, standing right opposite each other. The pro was the short distance between the two that definitely helped when she was running late in the morning.

Her favorite restaurant, Rocko’s Pizza and Pasta, was down the road, but having Italian food at such convenience would definitely turn into a con as soon as her butt started jiggling.

Oh! And let’s not her forget her new roommate. She did have trouble adjusting to coming home to an apartment that was not empty, but she had to admit that having a hot meal waiting for her was worth the small sacrifice of having complete solitude. Max was phenomenal. She had always known that he was a neat man, but living with him had really opened her eyes. He never left dirty clothes or wet towels on the bathroom floor, he never left the toilet seat up, and he never went to bed unless every last dirty dish was washed, dried and packed away.

They had settled into a comfortable routine of doing their chores. She did the dusting and sweeping, he took care of the laundry, and they both took turns washing dishes on alternate days. He cooked every night, except Friday nights because some daft paranormal series that he never misses was screened every Friday night. She didn’t mind, though. Friday nights presented the perfect opportunity to brush up on her culinary skills. One lesson later and she was already feeling like she was on the path to becoming the female version of Jamie Oliver. It was working out pretty well…so far.

She walked into the kitchen and saw Max. From the lack of stubble that had been on his jaw the night before, she could tell that he had already shaved and showered. How did he always mange to look so fresh? It was a Saturday morning. Why would he willingly wake up early on the weekend? Freak!

“Good morning,” he greeted, extending a hand holding a steaming mug. “I made coffee for you.”

She smiled. That was another pro. He made her a cup of coffee every morning. She took a sip and groaned her pleasure. It was sweet and creamy, just the way she liked it. She took a seat on one of the barstools next to the island counter on the opposite side of Max.

The kitchen was relatively small, but the island counter allowed for freedom of movement. All the cupboards had a light oak finish and the counter tops were an off-red sort of color. It was hideous, but at least it was a break from beige.

Max took a sip of his own coffee and resumed finishing the crossword puzzle he had started.

“Did you see the living room?” Danny asked. She was just about to start bragging about how much better it looked with curtains instead of blinds when he looked up at her, and he did not look very happy.

“It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie,” he said. “You know; the blinding light that the aliens come out of before they take over the world. We have to change it back. It’s just too bright…”

Oh, no. He was rambling again. He always complained excessively if he didn’t like something, but if he did like something he would limit it to just one word like nice or fine. He was so hard to please.

“Okay, Spawn of Dracula, would you just chill? It’s not like you’re going to melt or burst into flames. The curtains are nice.”

He quietened, silently accepting defeat. She waited for the vein on the side of his neck to stop twitching before she thought it safe to speak again. “So…you didn’t say anything about dinner last night.”

“It was…edible,” he replied cautiously. “It was a bit salty and way too creamy but the cheese was a nice touch. I’ve never had mashed potatoes topped with cheese before.”

Her face dropped in absolute horror. “It was macaroni!”

“Well…” he began, choosing his words carefully so as not to upset her further, “I guess that explains the cheese.” He placed his hand over hers and smiled reassuringly. “Look on the bright side. At least from this point on, you can only get better. I don’t think it’s possible for you to get much worse.”

“Thanks,” Danny said sarcastically. “You always know just what to say. Maybe—”

She was cut off by a knock at the door. She stood, walked to her bedroom, and pulled her robe on over her Winnie the Pooh boxer shorts before she made her way to the entrance to answer it.

“Hey, Lauren,” she greeted chirpily when she opened the door. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

Lauren Banner was the senior editor at Banner and Coopers by title but in actual fact she was the senior editor, team builder, guidance counsellor, unofficial matchmaker, and receptionist when Charlene called in sick. She was probably the nicest person ever. As in ever! Perhaps a little too nice, like if you slit her wrist, she would probably bleed pure honey.

She was twenty-seven years Danny’s senior yet even with pushing fifty-two, she was still the most elegantly beautiful woman Danny had ever seen. She had absolutely flawless skin and the perfect posture. Her sandy brown hair was always neatly pinned up and she had a presence that could dominate a room. She could draw all eyes on her without even realizing it.

Lauren was the only person at B&C that had ever cut Danny any slack. As a junior intern fresh out of college, she was assigned the fascinating job of working the photocopier for her first three weeks. Dazzling. Though as mindless as the job appeared, she had not known how to work the damn thing. She had come top of her class in journalism, but learning how to print on both sides of an A4 page was like nuclear physics to her. But Lauren had taken her under her wing and gave her assignments that had eventually earned her some credibility.

“Morning, Lauren,” Max said as he stepped out of the kitchen into the hallway.

“Good morning, Maximillian.”

“Please refrain from calling me that.” Max leaned over Danny and kissed Lauren on the cheek once she stepped inside.