Page 4

S ince when did the cleaning company come on Wednesdays? Max thought she came on Thursdays, but no, it couldn’t be Thursdays, because he was here last Thursday, and she hadn’t shown up then. Maybe she came whenever she wanted? She blasted her music like she owned the place. The craziest thing in all of this was that Max didn’t even know his house could play music like that; he didn’t even know the walls had a built-in sound system.

Somehow, he had fallen asleep, alone in his house, and woke up to a stranger treating it like her home. Did she not see him asleep on the couch? He was a massive, red-headed, grizzly bear of a man, surely she had seen him.

Max moved about the master bedroom fitfully, throwing on clothes. He slipped his feet into a pair of black Sk8-Hi Vans and bent to cuff his dark Levi’s jeans. Standing quickly, he began a mad dash to the garage in an effort to avoid the housekeeper altogether—that was easier than talking to her. She had just seen him practically naked; he could bet on his life that she didn't want to talk to him after that. His heart hammered erratically as he felt panic come on strong.

Reaching for the bedroom doorknob, he tripped over something on the floor he hadn't seen. Before he could catch himself, he fell into the bedside table. The heavy clay lamp hit the floor and shattered, the sound of it echoing throughout the house.

“Fuck,” he said, gripping onto the wall to try and center himself as he regained his balance. His eyes, glued to the shattered lamp, were still struggling to focus with the sudden loss of light in the room.

The bedroom door clicked open, and there she was, his housekeeper. Her face was panicked, her voice shaky with worry.

“Mr. Miller are you okay?” she asked, taking his hand in hers like a concerned old friend would do.

He blinked. And blinked. And blinked again . It didn't help.

She squeezed his hand. “Mr. Miller, should I call an ambulance? You don't look well. You’re really pale, and…”

He could feel her tiny hands sure on his body as she guided him to take a seat on the bed. It was his bed, though he couldn’t remember the last time he laid on the thing, let alone slept there.

“Mr. Miller,” she began, but he cut her off, hating how formally she felt the need to address him.

“Max. Just Max,” he corrected.

“Sorry. Just Max, okay,” she revised, her voice frazzled. “Just stay here, I’ll go get you some water,” she said quickly and then she was off.

Max stood; much too abruptly considering what had just happened, and his eyes strained against the dull lighting. Sitting back down, he accepted that he might need to stay put while this—whatever this was that was happening with his eyes—passed.

Sometimes when these “episodes” happened, he found it helped to close his eyes, take a few deep breaths, and re-center his equilibrium.

With eyes closed and his hands on his knees, he began.

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

“Max?”

Her voice, soft and gentle, as if not to alarm him, still managed to catch him off guard. Slowly opening his eyes, he found the housekeeper crouched in front of him. Handing over the cup of water, she wore a worried look on her face. His finger trailed over hers as he took the cup and electric currents surged through his body at this slight dose of human interaction that wasn't hockey-related; his body heating with some kind of longing. A longing he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He took a sip of the water while the woman watched, her head tilted to the side in wonderment, like he was some kind of science project.

“Hi there,” she finally said, her worried expression lighting up just a bit, replaced with a simple, encouraging smile. “I’m the owner of Busy Bee Cleaners. I don’t have any medical background, but I think, by the looks of it, your sugar might be low. I get like this too, when I forget to eat.”

He waited for her to go on, but when she didn’t say anything else, the silence grew just awkward enough to force him to speak. “I got dizzy,” he lied.

And that was that.

Words often escaped Max when he was around people, hell, words escaped him when he was alone. His knee began to bounce with anxiety and his upper lip collected nervous sweat as he waited for the woman to respond.

“I can see that,” she said, hinting at the shattered lamp. “Do you want me to get you some food?”

His eyes avoided hers, looking down at the mess of broken clay and glass from the lamp instead. It was easier to focus on it than the woman's piercing blue eyes. If he looked into them any longer, he might drown in the oceans of them.

“Protein bar,” he managed, and she nodded at his response. Following it up with a single word, he added, “Pantry.”

She stood quickly and left the room. Max looked up instantly to watch her leave, suddenly very self-conscious of himself, his home, and his cold, emotionless room. He looked around at the basic decor; everything about him, down to his bedroom was so uninviting.

She probably thought he was a creep.

When she returned, she had a protein bar in one hand and a broom and dustpan in the other. She handed him the bar and this time he made sure not to touch her—that felt dangerous—as she began to sweep up the mess the broken lamp had made.

Pulling down the wrapper on the protein bar, he began to eat, watching her anxiously as she cleaned up the mess he had created. He felt useless. He was useless. Just like he had been last night in front of the net, and the game before that.

Panic flooded him.

Would his career end with him on the bench?

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, very pretty, and Max couldn’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’s literally my 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, just Max, 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’ve lost 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 a team sport. 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.

It will pass.

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

“So,” she went on, “is it really just Max? 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 shoulders leaning 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.

It was the way she wore a t-shirt and tattered jeans like some women wore ball gowns. And the way her sun-bleached hair sat atop her head in the most perfectly imperfect bun. The way her skin looked like a walk on the beach when the sun was almost too hot, creating a warm inviting glow. And the way her cheeks had a faint hint of pink under her crystal blue eyes. She looked like the sun gods kissed her every morning when she woke.

He wondered if he got close enough to breathe in the scent of her, if she would smell like salt water and the cool ocean breeze.

Breaking his gaze, realizing how intently he was staring at her— really staring at her—he looked away. Remi shot him a sort of cocky, all-knowing smile before she left with the broom and broken lamp in tow.

“Finish that protein bar,” she called over her shoulder playfully as she made her way down the hallway that led to the kitchen.

He wondered if she would come back to check on him. Would it be presumptuous of him to sit on his bed and wait for her to return? Or, were they done talking? How do conversations end between two strangers?

His leg bounced anxiously. Under his breath, he began to count, “One, two, three, four…” If she wasn't back by sixty, he would leave. He didn't know where he would go, but he would leave. She could get back to cleaning his house in peace, and they could pretend none of this happened: The nearly naked encounter, the tripping over his own feet, the caring for him, the way his entire body heated at the simple brush of her fingers against his… “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.”

Of course they were done talking. Of course she wasn’t coming back. Max knew that talking to him was like talking to a tree stump. He stood slowly, pushed back his disappointment, and headed straight for the garage.