“No. I’m definitely not okay.” He held up his hand. “I haven’t … I haven’t told anyone else, so if you could keep this between us for the time being?”

Wes took what was left of his beer into the living room to join Max.

“You mean, I shouldn’t let it slip while I’m on CNN tomorrow?” He glanced over at Max with a grin on his face, and Max just glared at him. Wes held up a hand.

“Right, sorry, I’m being an asshole, aren’t I? You’re not at the ‘let’s joke about this’ stage yet. Tell me what happened.”

He didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t want to even think about that day. Even though he’d done nothing but think about it for the past week. But before he realized it, he was telling Wes the whole story.

“And please don’t tell me I shouldn’t have called on her in front of the world, I know that, trust me, I know that. If I could only go back to that moment, if I could just take that back, everything would be different. Because that’s the thing that made her break up with me, that was her last straw.” He told Wes about rushing to her house, and then their fight, and then the moment when he’d—just for a second—thought she’d forgiven him. “She said she loves me, but we’re too different, I’m too impulsive and public, and she’s too measured and thoughtful and private—she didn’t use those words, but that’s what she meant—and we’ll never be happy together.”

He sank back into the couch cushions and drank his beer. There. At least that was over. Maybe now that he told someone about it, he’d feel better.

He doubted that, but it was worth a try.

“And then what did you say?” Wes asked him.

Max just stared at his friend.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said after a long moment. “She told me I’d better go, so I left.”

He didn’t want to think about that moment he’d left Olivia’s house ever again. Or that nightmare of a drive home.

“Have you reached out to her since then?”

Max shrugged.

“I sent her cakes. That first weekend after. With messages on top. I thought … But I was wrong. She texted me and told me to stop.”

Wes started to laugh, then looked at Max and stopped.

“How … how many cakes did you send her?”

Max pushed his fingers through his hair.

“Four or five, I don’t remember now. Does it matter? It didn’t work.”

Wes folded his hands together.

“Well? What are you going to do next? Nothing? Are you just going to give up?”

Max slammed his empty beer bottle down on the coffee table.