Postcards From…Verses Brides Babies And Billionaires. Rebecca Winters

she was doing: using Max as a security blanket.

      She threw her phone onto the couch and sat beside it, her head in her hands.

      She was such a mess. Her career was over, she had no idea what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, and she’d embarked on a hot, breathless love affair with one of her best friends as a bizarre form of coping mechanism.

       You can’t keep running. It’s all going to catch up with you eventually.

      Maddy sucked in big mouthfuls of air, trying to slow her frantically beating heart. Her body was filled with adrenaline, responding to ancient fight-or-flight instincts triggered by her bone-deep fear of the future and the vast sorrow inside her.

      “Get a grip, Maddy. For God’s sake,” she muttered into her hands.

      Tears had squeezed out of her eyes but she wiped them from her face and stood, shaking her hands to try to relieve the tension banding her body. She needed to do something, to get out of the apartment, out of her own head. She needed to—

      She closed her eyes then as she understood what her body and soul wanted, needed, demanded. She crossed to her dance bag and pulled out her pointe slippers. She found an old leotard in the bottom of the bag.

      Calm washed over her as she dressed and tied her slippers and walked to the center of Max’s work space. It was still essentially empty, since he’d begun work on his first piece beside his workbench near the wall. She had room to move. Room to dance.

      She didn’t need any music. It was all in her head. Head bowed low, she struck a position and slowly unfurled, arms rising even as she came up en pointe. Eyes closed, she let the music in her head and the memories in her body guide her.

      She danced. She spun. She soared. She sweated. She ached. She burned.

      It was heaven and hell—the thing she was born to do, but was no longer free to pursue.

      MAX ROLLED his aching shoulders as he walked into the kitchen of his sister’s apartment. She was busy making sandwiches, but glanced up.

      “You owe me. Big-time,” she said.

      He raised his eyebrows.

      “Excuse me? I thought I was the one who just shifted around fifty tons of antique furniture,” he said.

      “I had to stand in line for half an hour for those macaroons you wanted for Maddy,” Charlotte said, indicating a white-paper-wrapped parcel on the bench. “In the cold. With a bunch of desperate macaroon lovers who would have killed me to take my place if they could have got away with it.”

      “Maddy will be eternally grateful. I will make sure she knows that sacrifices were made to secure these macaroons,” he said.

      Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Don’t try to charm me. It doesn’t work, I’m your sister.”

      Still, she was smiling.

      Max checked his phone messages as Charlotte slid a plate his way.

      “Thank you for helping out today,” she said as Richard entered the kitchen.

      Thin and wiry, Richard stood a full foot and a half taller than his wife. He stopped to drop a kiss onto the crown of her head before leaning over her to snare a sandwich.

      Max put his phone away. No messages from Maddy. He felt a ridiculous sense of disappointment. They’d been apart a whole three hours. Unless the apartment had caught fire, there was no reason for her to call.

      Unless she missed him the way he missed her.

      When he looked up, Charlotte was watching him knowingly.

      “What?” he said.

      “Have you told her how you feel yet?”

      “Charlotte…”

      “You might as well answer her,” Richard said around a mouthful of sandwich. “You know what she’s like. She won’t let up until you’ve given her name, rank and serial number and the keys to Fort Knox.”

      He slid his arm around his wife as he spoke, and she leaned into his embrace.

      “Maddy and I are fine, thanks,” Max said.

      “Perhaps,” Charlotte said.

      Max narrowed his eyes. What the hell did that mean? Had Maddy said something to her about him, about them? The two women had gone shopping together the other day. He could only imagine the interrogation his sister would have subjected Maddy to.

      He forced himself to take a bite of his sandwich and chew slowly. He’d regressed to high school for a full twenty seconds there as he teetered on the brink of pumping his sister for information. It was vaguely disturbing, but so much of his thinking where Maddy was concerned was off the charts. He loved her more every day, the warmth and size and scope of it expanding never-endingly. He adored her. Worshipped her. Craved her. And his fear of losing her grew exponentially at the same time.

      “I’ve been worried about Maddy,” Charlotte said.

      He frowned, all his good intentions flying out the window. “What do you mean? Has she said something?”

      “No. It’s just that when I’m with her, I always get the sense that she’s covering. She’s smiling and laughing, but I can feel the sadness inside her.”

      Max put down his sandwich and pushed the plate away.

      “She misses dancing,” he said. “But she’s getting over it. Transition is a hugely difficult time for dancers. That’s why there are counseling services in the U.S. and the U.K. to help dancers come to terms with life after dance, to retrain and find a different path. You’ve got to understand, it’s not just a job Maddy has lost. She’s lost her identity, her community, her routine. It’s going to take time.”

      “You sound like a brochure,” Charlotte said.

      “I’ve been reading up on it,” he admitted.

      “Have you ever thought that this is probably the very worst time that you two could get together?” his sister asked.

      Max frowned.

      “It’s true, you know it is. She’s a mess. She needs you. You love her. Not exactly the best basis for a relationship.”

      “It’s not a relationship,” he forced himself to say.

      “You want it to be. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

      He reached for the parcel of macaroons. “Thanks for these. I’d better get home.”

      Charlotte reached out a hand to stop him leaving.

      “Max. I know you think I’m being an interfering cow, but I love you. I want you to be happy more than anything. I think Maddy is great, you know I do. I would love for things to work out between you.”

      “But?”

      “But she might not be ready. She’s in crisis. In mourning. Confused, anxious about the future.”

      “You don’t think she’s with me for the right reasons?” Max asked.

      “I don’t think she knows up from down right now. She’s surviving from day to day. So just…I don’t know. Take it easy.”

      He laughed humorlessly. “Right. Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.”

      He decided to walk home rather than take the Metro. Buds were starting to appear on the trees lining the Seine, and there was a definite hint of warmth in the air. Winter was drawing to a close, and soon it would be spring. The tourists would flood back into the city, and the streets would be full of bikes and pedestrians.

      Would Maddy be here to see it?

      He wanted to pin her down so badly it hurt. He wanted to declare himself and commit himself and have her do the same, to end the doubt and uncertainty forever. Ten years