Max presses his face to Juliana’s hair. “Sorry I couldn’t do more. I had good intentions.”
“My dad is determined to see me as a little girl. That’s his fault.”
“His loss,” Max says. “if you worked for me, I’d make sure to give you every opportunity to make business better.”
She snuggles against him. I stretch. “Anything else on the list for today?”
“Stay alive,” Juliana murmurs. “All three of you.”
“Are we going to talk about your slip earlier?” Konstantin puts himself back in the conversation.
Juliana looks from me to Konstantin, realizes he means the ‘boyfriend’ comment, and blushes. “I um ... Well ...”
“I’m not hurt.” Konstantin smiles and I feel that golden-retriever energy rolling off him.
“I think it means I’m allowed to call you my girlfriend now.”
“Oh?” Max says. “Did you decide on one of us?”
“No!” Juliana rushes. “No. I kind of referred to Kon and Gio as my boyfriends and .... and that’s how I think of you three. We’ve all had date-like things. We’re definitely not just friends. We’re not professional and ...”
“You look flustered, doll,” Max smirks.
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you this red.” I tease.
“Hey! No ganging up on me. You all just got upgraded to boyfriend. Bask in that while I start working on a business model and get Patricia onboard. Apparently, everyone knows the location, so you can’t stop me.”
She goes to her room and slams the door.
I chuckle and can’t stop the smile. Juliana could have picked worse guys. That’s for sure. Max may be an old man as far as I’m concerned and Kon isn’t exactly who I expected him to be, but we can find some common ground other than the girlfriend we share.
This might just work for longer than a month or two. Even with some of the boundaries erased. Now we just have two major hurdles before we can focus on our relationship and untangling all the complications so we can put them in line.
We need to get John Booker out of the picture – without Juliana involved. And we need to take care of Monday. Juliana has already been more on edge than normal and I’ve noticed she looks exhausted, even if she tries to cover it. She’s going to have a hard time, and that’s before her father’s involvement.
It’s going to be a mountain of a day and we still have to keep his hands off her. Considering he’s perfectly aware of her and Konstantin and I’m sure he has some suspicion about her and Max, I have a feeling he’s just waiting to punish her.
If I go off of past years, he’s going to be most raw and unreasonable on Monday too. He may not know how to grieve, but Aunt Rose’s death has been eating him up from the moment she was put into the hospital. He covers it with alcohol and orders, but at least once a year he breaks.
If he breaks while with Juliana, there’s no telling what he’s capable of.
But I know I’d be willing to risk everything to keep Juliana safe. Shaking my head, I try not to worry about that.
“Get some sleep,” Konstantin says, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I’ve watched you go from smiling to frowning to vicious in under a minute.”
“You’re right. We’re going to have to get on a solid rotation,” I murmur.
“Sure. But right now, get some sleep.” Max insists. “I might just nap too. Can you hold down the fort, Konstantin?”
Kon nods, waving us away. Max stretches on the couch after Konstantin gets up to do dishes and I head to the guest room. I pause just before going in. “Hey, Max.”
“Yeah, kid?”
“Have you ever applied for a job as a body pillow? You’re just the right height.”
“Is that an invitation?”
We both chuckle before I ease in for better sleep.