Complicated Ch. 09-10

Chapter 9

The next day we set out early to finish our dealing with the sales agent. We figured if we managed to wrap up things quickly enough we could head back to the city the same day and use the last vacation day to do something fun.

Unfortunately the estate agent got delayed and it was noon by the time we were finally able to leave Max's hometown, Shelby. I was pretty sure he was never going to return to that place ever again- he had no reason to anymore- and yet, I was a little surprised that he didn't turn around to look back even once, not even when he pulled out of the driveway of his old home for one last and final time.

Traffic crawled at a snail's pace on our drive back and it was past midnight when we finally reached the city. Max was wiped out by the time we finally reached his place. I wanted to take a cab back to my apartment but he refused to let me leave alone that late and insisted that I spend the night at his.

"You already have your bag with you." Was the reason he offered, for why I should stay the night.

I woke up the next morning cocooned in Max's arms, feeling wonderful. It was early, too early for him to be awake yet. I thought I could go to my apartment, water my plants and return with a change of clothes before Max awoke.

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After spending three days with Max, returning to my apartment all alone felt weird.

You miss him.

That didn't make any sense because it was barely an hour ago that I had woken up beside him.

I watered my plants, showered and changed. I packed a small bag of essentials and headed back to Max's place.

When I rang the buzzer to be allowed into his building he sounded sleepy and confused about how I came to be outside instead of in his bed.

I entered his apartment to be immediately I confronted, "You left, without saying anything."

"But I'm back now."I said.

"That's not the point. You left."

"Just to clean up and..."

"Move in with me."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I did... What did you mean?"

"Just, what it sounded like."

"I can't just move in."

"Why?"

"Because."

"... because?"

"Just because."

"Is there someone else you'd rather be with?"

"No." I said without any hesitation.

"Don't you like being with me?"

"No. I mean yes. Yes, I do."

"So, what's the problem?"

"It's complicated."

"What is?"

"This is." I said pointing to the vacant space between us.

"I don't understand."

"Me neither."

"Nayana," he cooed in a soothing tone, "we already spend so much time together. We have fun together. Having you live here will just be so much more convenient."

You're convenient.

The word bothered me more than it should have.

"You don't have to decide now. Just think about it, ok?"

I nodded mutely.

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We tried ignoring the elephant in the room but by the time we finished lunch Max couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay, just spill whatever it is you've got running around in your head."

"I can't move in with you." I whispered.

"Why?"

I didn't answer, so he drew me to him and pulled me to sit in his lap.

"Nayana, why don't you want to move in with me?"

"Because that would complicate things." I said softly.

"Complicate things? How?"

I looked at his face and his questioning blue eyes and considered telling him that he was not my type that he was not Indian, that he was younger than me, that we had nothing in common but physical chemistry.

I considered telling him that moving in was a bad idea because he was still on the rebound and I couldn't invest any more of myself in this non-relationship. I thought about telling him how I had missed him after being away from him for only an hour and how much it affected me when he was affectionate towards me. I was in over my heels and unfortunately unlike him I had not been trained to be fearless of messy situations.

I did the only thing that made the most sense for my well being, I stood up, gathered my stuff and walked out. Max ran after me. He was saying something but I wasn't listening. My mind was building a fortress around me and was securing my safety- Max was the perceived threat that needed to be kept out.

Chapter 10

I stopped answering Max's calls. I called Kylie and gave her some bullshit excuse about my apartment being too noisy because my neighbours were renovating and checked if it was okay for me to stay at her place for a few weeks till they finished. Kylie is smart so I'm sure she must've known that I was lying but she's also a really good friend, so she didn't turn me away. A few days later I came clean with her. Thankfully she understood and approved of my course of action.

I caught a big break during my two week stay with Kylie. After months of hard work my boss had finally acknowledged my contributions and signed-off on my promotion. The bump in my pay meant that I could finally look for an apartment in a nicer and safer building than my current one.

Throughout my stay with Kylie and the weeks that followed my friends made sure that I had dates lined up for every night I was free. I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of eligible Indian men that had suddenly cropped up in the city.

When I finally moved to my apartment I was grateful to Kylie for having visited the place before me to remove any reminders of a certain someone. I had briefly mused over whether there had been messages on the answering machine or notes under the door and then laughed at my own silliness.

With the passage of time I came to realise that with determination and a li'l help from my friends it wasn't that hard to purge a person from my life. Of course sometimes in the nights when I lay in bed and touched myself, the annoying voice in my head would tell me that I wished it was someone else touching me. Fortunately, I had gotten really good at ignoring that annoying voice.

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"Dinner at Nomad bitches!" Kylie said yelling at me and Saira.

We were discussing her plans for her 33rd birthday the following week. My stomach did a flip at the mention of Nomad.

"Wow! I knew you were doing well just didn't realise you were doing that well." Saira said clapping excitedly.

"Nothin' bu de best fer ma grrls," Kylie replied.

It had been two months. I'd finally moved on I believed; I didn't see the point of ruining Kylie's day just to avoid the risk of bumping into Max. Besides, I told myself chefs worked in the kitchens and not in the restaurant.

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I was nervous, and ended up changing my clothes three times before I noticed the time and that I was late. I reached Nomad just as my friends were seated at their table.

"Wow! Whose heart are you planning to break tonight?" Eloise commented on my choice of outfit.

"Everyone's if I can help it." I replied with a wink sliding into the seat saved for me.

"Hey, you're not supposed to upstage the birthday girl." Kylie said faking outrage.

"No sweetie, you're not supposed to upstage the bride. And I swear when you get married," I said with my hand over my chest, "I'll wear the ugliest bridesmaid dress you can find."

We were soon laughing and poring over the menus deciding on what to order. Kylie had warned us that we were not supposed to touch the drinks menu. "I'm doing well, just not that well yet," was how she had put it.

During the course of the dinner the restaurant staff had discovered that it was Kylie's birthday and helped us celebrate by getting us one of the most decadent chocolate cakes that left us oohing and aahing in ecstasy. Kylie decided that she had to pay her compliments to the chef. My heart sank and I also felt a little anger at Kylie's callous attitude till I remembered that I'd very likely never told her that a certain someone worked here.

As I watched the Maître D disappear into the kitchen I considered my options at that point: ducking to the Ladies or ducking under the table to look for a spoon or a fork I had hopefully dropped during the course of my meal. I decided to just remain seated and brave whatever would come next. The Maître D returned with Max to our table. If he had noticed me, he certainly didn't show it.

"Ladies, let me introduce you to our Chef Williamson."

"Ladies," he nodded in greeting to everyone at the table.

All the women looked at him while I looked at the tablecloth.

"Chef, we wanted to pay you our compliments for a truly exquisite meal." Kylie said. "You really helped make my birthday extra special with that gorgeous cake."

"So you're the birthday girl? Well, I'm glad we were able to enhance your birthday celebrations."

"You know you look very familiar," said Tara.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same." Kylie and Saira piped in.

"Wait, you're that guy from the club," Eloise said almost jumping up in her seat. "Surely you recognise him, Nayana."

I was absolutely mortified, there I was trying to blend into the background and not draw any attention to myself and suddenly everyone at the table was staring at me. I finally looked up at him.

"Err, hi Max." I said awkwardly.

He nodded, "Hello. It's been a while."

"Yes, yes it has." I was back to staring at the table cloth; I couldn't bear to look into those blue eyes.

"Everything good, I presume?"

"Yes, yes. Thank you for asking." I kept nodding idiotically. "And you?"

This time I looked up, genuinely curious about his response.

"Good," he replied expressionlessly. "It was good seeing you." He turned to the rest of the group "Ladies, I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening." And with that he took his leave of us.

I sat there for a few minutes feeling numb. I couldn't believe how cold and indifferent he had seemed. This was exactly why I'd left, because I suspected that I mattered far lesser to Max than he did to me. So why was it that instead of feeling satisfaction at knowing that I did the right thing by taking a step back when I did, was I feeling absolutely gutted instead?

Because you hoped you were wrong.

"Oh, just shut up." I yelled out loud and walked out of the restaurant and on the street. I was upset and kept walking down the street trying to tune out my feelings. I don't think I realised I was crying till my vision got a bit blurry from the tears. I could hear my phone buzzing- my friends I guessed- but I wasn't ready to deal with anyone else as yet. After some time, walking on the cobbled pavement in my heels took its toll on my feet. So I finally stopped and took a cab home.

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I got out of the elevator with my keys in my hand and was greeted by a familiar sight.

Max!

I chewed on the bottom of my lower lip. I couldn't make out his expression. He didn't approach me or say anything. He didn't even move, just stood there as if waiting for me to make a move. I walked up to my door, unlocked it, stepped in and held the door open for him. He silently followed me in. I inhaled deeply and shut the door.

The next few minutes were a blur because I was still a little disoriented from my cry in the street and everything that happened next felt like a blur.

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"You left me." His words were measured and his face was contorted in pain or was it rage? I wasn't certain at the time.

"Why?"

The tears returned again.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?"

He slammed me hard against the wall. I didn't think that he even realised he was hurting me. He was just so mad.

"Answer me!"

"Max please, I said I'm sorry."I whimpered.

"Baby..."

"Don't."

"Max, please."

...

"No, it ends now."

...

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Max had taken me against my will and ejaculated while inside me even though we had used no protection. I was unable to hold back the tears as I felt his cock jerk and spasm while it filled me with its warm release. My body crumpled in defeat unable to hold myself any longer. I felt one of Max's hands hold me in place while the other ran soothingly along my side.

"Ssshhhh, ssshhhhh," he cooed against my neck. "It's all going to be okay now."

That's when I understood that this was what he wanted. I turned my head slightly to try and face him and for the first time he didn't try to stop me. I looked into his eyes and saw he was relaxed and calm. His eyes clear. This didn't look like the face of a man who had just raped a woman. There was no guilt or regret or remorse on his face. He looked like a man who had done what needed to be done.

Max put his hand under my chin and tilted my head up to him. He looked me straight in the eye and then ever so gently kissed me. I thought of everything that had happened and I kissed him back.

"Why did you wait so long to come for me?"

"I wanted to give you some time to realise some things for yourself. I had hoped you would come to me."

"So, why now?"

"Because I grew tired of waiting and when I saw you today I couldn't stay away anymore. I couldn't stand to be miserable just because you're too dense to realise that you're in love with me."

"You knew?"

"Yes."

"And you're okay with this?"

He nodded.

"This is real?"

"It has always been real, Nayana. At least for me it has."

"So, it's not just about the sex?"

"I'll admit I'm a kinky asshole, so it is a LOT about the sex. But, no, it's NOT just about the sex. I need you in my life to be happy. I love you Nayana and I have loved you for a long time now."

Straightening myself I spoke, "Max?"

"Yes?"

"If you want me to move in tonight you'll have to give me a hand with packing my clothes."

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It ended up taking us a whole week before I was finally able to move in with Max. We celebrated our moving in with a lot of kinky sex. I don't know how either of us managed to hold on to our jobs considering all the time we spend having sex like bunnies.

My friends were confused about our relationship because he was nothing like the men I'd previously been with but when they spend time with us they saw that as different as we were individually, together we just worked. Kylie was especially pleased with how things turned out as she credited herself with playing cupid in my life- turned out that she had deliberately picked Nomad for her birthday celebrations in the hope that I would be forced to confront my feelings if I saw Max again.

Miraculously I didn't get pregnant from those first few days of wild makeup sex and Max finally agreed to me going back on birth control when he was convinced that I wasn't going to leave him and that we could afford to wait a while before we started our family.

Speaking of family I realised that I would have to take Max home soon to introduce him to mine. I was nervous about how they would react on learning that I was living in sin with a white man who was younger than me. We decided that the next vacation the two of us would take would be to India. But that's another story.