They both slept in the next morning, exhausted from the events of the previous day. Fran rolled over in her bed, the bear still in her arms, to check the time on her clock. She better not let herself fall back to sleep, she thought. She yawned and stretched, and squeezed the bear close. He still smelled like the cologne, and it made Fran happy. She looked out the window at the sunlight shining in, and it felt good. It felt positive.
She began to think about the night before. She really missed Max. She hoped he was doing okay. She needed to hug him, not just to make herself feel better, but hopefully to help him feel better, too. She wanted to do everything she could to make him feel better. And make him happy again. He deserved to be happy.
Thinking about him made her wake up more quickly, so she decided to go ahead and get up and get showered. She wondered if Max was awake yet.
Max went back into the bathroom after he had dressed and after the steam had cleared from the mirror. He was still worried his eyes might be red and puffy from crying the night before. They did seem slightly red, so he put some eyedrops in just to be safe. He headed back into the bedroom and retrieved a pair of boots he hadn't worn in a while. They reminded him of Fran's "Eliza," and her punky style. He liked the idea of dressing more casual and trying a different look. He checked himself in his full-length mirror to see how his jeans and black button-up shirt looked with the shoes, and was satisfied. He headed out of his room and down the front staircase, then went out the front door to retrieve the newspaper. He brought it to the kitchen with him and set it on the table, then went to fill the coffee maker and get it started. He saw the box of apple fritters that Fran brought home sitting on the counter, and smiled. He remembered to the previous afternoon when he and Fran hung out in front of the TV, sharing an apple fritter, and having a nice time. He realized he was feeling much better than he had the previous night, when he cried his eyes out. Maybe he really needed that, to help him get all of that stress out of his system.
He set the box of fritters on the table and went to get two dishes from the cabinet. He set them on the table next to the box, then sat down at the table. He figured he would read the paper while he waited for Fran to come down. He wondered how she was doing, and if a good night of sleep had helped her, too.
He opened the newspaper and began looking through the articles. He mostly read the headlines, because he didn't feel the need to read about anything negative going on in the world. He wanted to stay positive, he didn't need any more worries on his mind. He finished looking through the main news sections and folded them up and set them on the table, then picked up the arts section and began to look through it. Maybe there was something going on in the city that he could take Fran to. He would have to keep his eyes peeled.
A short time later, Fran came tiptoeing down the back staircase into the kitchen, and once she got to the counter, Max heard her and turned to look at her. She was smiling, and he felt a huge sense of relief.
"Good morning," he said. She came up behind him, leaned over him and wrapped her arms around him, then kissed him on the cheek.
"Good morning!" She said. He put his hands on her forearms and held her to him. Her hug felt good.
"Did you sleep good?" He asked.
"Well, eventually, you know…"
"Yes…" he said softly.
"You manage to get some sleep?"
"Yes, I guess you could say I was pretty wiped out. But at first, yeah, it was a bit hard. But I do feel much better now. How are you feeling?"
"I think I'm pretty good. I had a cute teddy bear to squeeze the daylights out of, so that helped. And I'm glad you feel better. I was kind of worried I pushed you off to bed a little too fast. I just thought, you know, that maybe we should take a break from talking and, you know, let things settle in for a while. I mean, I didn't really want to leave you alone, but I didn't feel like it was right for me to smother you right then, either. I hope that was okay."
Max squeezed her forearms and turned towards her. "Hey, come here a minute," he took her hands and moved her around from behind him and moved his chair out from the table, then motioned for her to sit on his lap, which she did.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. They rested their foreheads together and closed their eyes for a moment. They both loved the feeling of holding each other like that. They both opened their eyes just enough to look at each other through their eyelashes, and Fran reached for his cheek and softly stroked it with her thumb.
"You smell good," Max said softly.
"So do you," she whispered, and grinned. He smiled and closed his eyes again, enjoying the caress of her hand on his cheek.
"I think you did do the right thing, last night, so please don't worry about that. I know it was a lot to deal with, for both of us, so I do think it was good for us to take a break. Let it settle in. That was a lot."
"It was. And I'm proud of you for making that effort, to talk to me about all of that. I just never knew how much you really had weighing on you. I just appreciate it so much that you finally told me."
"Really? I just… I wasn't sure if all of that might be too much for you. If you might… I don't know… if you might need to keep your distance after hearing all of that."
Fran leaned back slightly to look at him, and held his face a little tighter. "Max! I don't want to keep my distance from you! Not if you don't want me to. Because if anything, you telling me all of that, and getting to know so much more about you, and understand you so much better… if anything, it just makes me love you more!"
Max smiled as he looked into her eyes. "Really?"
"Yes! And yes, I do love you, in case you were wondering. That's one of those things I know with absolute certainty."
Max hugged her tightly to him. It felt like his heart would burst, but this time in a good way. A very good way. Fran stroked his hair and kissed his forehead.
"If you want me here, Max, then I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, okay?"
Max nodded, and held her for a bit longer. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Fran… I know some things, too, with absolute certainty. I don't think we got a chance to fully finish that part of our conversation last night. I think- I think I just needed to talk about all of that other stuff first, you know. So you knew everything that happened before. But things I know for certain are… that I want you to be part of our lives, always. Part of my life. Because we all need you, terribly. I need you. I know that for a fact. I need you to stay. Because I know that you are my best friend. And I know something else, Fran. Because I feel it, every day. The signs are all there. I just needed to admit it to myself," he looked into her eyes. "I love you, Fran! I know I love you. But before I could… before I felt I could tell you that, I had to tell you all that other stuff. You had the right to know. And then decide if it was something from my past that you could deal with."
"Oh, Max! Of course I can deal with it! Things happen in life sometimes. Good and bad. We never know what it will be. But I don't want you harboring any guilt over all that, none of it was your fault. It wasn't. You can't even be completely certain of why it all happened, and even if you could, it still wouldn't be your fault. You are a wonderful man, Max. You would never put anyone at risk. Who could have imagined that series of events happening? It just happened. You didn't cause it. And if there was any kind of warning you could have been given ahead of time, you would have heeded it. You know you would have. It was just one of those things that happened. And it hurt. It hurt bad. I don't want you hurting anymore. Not like that. We'll talk about it, okay? For anything that may come up. We'll talk. And I'll hug the daylights out of you and kiss you all over your gorgeous face! I want to make you happy, Max!"
"You do make me happy, Fran. Very happy! You make all of us happy. And I want you to be happy, too. You deserve to have everything in your life that you've ever dreamed of. And I want to give you as much of that as I can. I really do. And I know… in the past… maybe I scoffed a bit if we got into one of our- our arguments, when I pushed you away. I pushed back against the idea of being in a relationship with you. I knew you wanted to be married, and have children. I was scared, I'll admit that. I thought all of that was in the past for me, that it was over. I wasn't sure I could ever have another relationship again, ever love someone again. But then you showed up, and I started falling for you. And I never really dealt with all of that other stuff very well. And then I realized, it was something I needed to tell you. It was the biggest thing in the way of us figuring out what our relationship was going to be. I know I have three children already. I never thought I would have more. But Fran, you deserve to be a mother if you want that, if you want to have your own children. And I want it for you. You're already a wonderful mother to my children. And they love you dearly. So… I know you've been wondering about that. That if we get into a relationship, if I would be open to having children with you. And Fran, if that's meant for us, as part of our relationship… then the answer is yes. I'm open to it. Because the thought of any other man being the father of your children is just something I can't stand. Because I love you!"
Fran was about to burst into tears. She clutched his face and kissed him hard on the lips, then kissed him again and again. "Max, I love you so much! Do you mean that? Really?"
"I do! I want a life with you, and everything that comes with it. I need you, Fran. And thinking about you with a baby, your baby, it does something to me. It melts me."
"Aw, Max!" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his face, then his lips. Max held her close and clutched her back. They continued kissing each other for a while, so happy that that was something they could do now. When they began to separate, they gave each other several more soft kisses.
"Mmmm…" Max sighed. "It feels good to have a best friend," he said, as he opened his eyes.
"It sure does…" she smiled. "You know, I'm gonna be kissing you a whole bunch now…"
"Promise?" He smiled and she kissed him again. "Following along with that idea… there's something I wanted to ask you."
"What's that?"
"Will you go out with me? On a date? Maybe for dinner tonight?"
Her eyes lit up. "On a date?! Of course I will! I would love that very much, Max!"
"Wonderful! We can go wherever you want, if you want to do casual, or get dressed up. As long as we can get a table. Whatever you want."
"It might be hard to get a table on a saturday night, though. How about we keep it casual, stay relaxed a bit. Maybe we can find some place not too loud, so we can hear each other."
"Alright. We can think about it for a little while, maybe think of what kind of food you'd like to have, and we can go from there."
"Okay," she smiled. "I can't believe I'm going on a date with you!" She got excited and held his face in her hands.
"It's about time, huh?" They both laughed and she hugged him.
"Hey, you know I love sitting on your lap like this, but I'm nervous this chair isn't made for holding the both of us for so long. I better get up before this chair gives out under us." Max helped her stand back up and she went back around behind him to hug him. "You hungry?"
"I am. And the coffee should be ready, too."
"Well, stay right there, I'll get us some coffee. You want to get the apple fritters out?"
"Sure." Max scooted his chair back up to the table and reached for the plates and box of fritters he set there earlier. He set a fritter on each plate and moved the newspaper out of the way as Fran grabbed mugs from the cabinet and poured the coffee. She grabbed a spoon and cream and sugar and brought it all over to the table, then sat down next to Max. They both sorted out their coffee and then went in on the fritters.
"Mmm! So good! They have to have some kind of secret ingredient in these, they're so much better than the usual apple fritter I've had," Fran said, then stuck another bite in her mouth.
"Yes! It's almost like it's smoother, and maybe there's some kind of spice they added to the cinnamon and brown sugar. Would these have butter in them? Could it be a special kind of butter?"
"I suppose it could be, maybe a spice and a special kind of butter… like a sweet cream butter or something. From magical cows!" They both laughed. They continued eating their late breakfast and enjoying their coffee. Max picked up the arts section of the newspaper.
"I was going to look through this and see if there might be something going on that we could do together today, if you wanted to go out, that is. Find something we can get into?"
"Sure, we can go out and do something. What were you thinking of?"
"Are you feeling sore at all from your run yesterday? And all that running around Coney Island?"
"I stretched a ton this morning, but I'm feeling pretty good. I don't think I overdid it too bad. I'm fine for doing some walking if we need to."
"Alright, good. That's good. I don't really have any ideas of what to do. But last night was fun. It was kind of fun to act like young kids running around the park, going on the rides, winning prizes. I mean, we don't have to do something quite so radical. And we don't have to pretend to be Jack and Eliza this time. But we could still act like kids, maybe…"
"You really had fun with that, didn't you?" She elbowed him.
"I did. I guess it helped me, you know, 'chill out,' as the kids say," he grinned, then sipped his coffee. "It was strange how that little exercise worked so well. So maybe- maybe another day similar to that, running around and getting into things we don't normally do… That might be fun."
"It would be. I'd love to go get into something with you! So now we have to figure out what kinds of things there are that we don't normally do," she said.
"And it can't be something Niles does for us. It should be something fun. Maybe it could be something one of us does, but not usually with the other person. What about shopping? You and I don't normally do a lot of shopping together. What if- what if we went shopping for something we never shop for? Like, oh, I don't know… maybe something we don't even need? That could be the pretending part. Hey, haven't you upset a lot of salespeople before? Make them think you're going to buy a lot of things and then you don't? That's a bit like… being troublemakers…"
Fran laughed. "Yeah, that can be fun. But it only works if they make a commission off the sale, and not someplace where the salespeople might really be struggling to get by. I don't mess with them, because they're already depressed enough. But a higher end place- sure! And especially if they're following me around like they can't tell if I might buy something or steal something. Then they're just asking for it. But I doubt you'd want to go shopping for clothes or shoes or anything. What's something maybe a bit expensive that neither of us shops for?"
"Expensive? Well, we don't go around shopping for new cars. But that's not as easy to do, and we might get stuck with one salesman for hours. Maybe-" Max looked around the kitchen, trying to come up with an idea. "Um, appliances? They can be expensive. But that might not be much fun to shop for."
"Well it doesn't have to be appliances, exactly. But…" Fran looked around, "Furniture? What about furniture? They get commissions, don't they? The salespeople?"
"Um, yes, I believe they do. If they have salespeople walking around, trying to point you in certain directions, and then helping you if you have to order something. You want to go look at some furniture? Where would we go?"
"We could go over to that furniture district- with all the warehouses, or factories? The really old buildings. There are a lot of stores over there, with furniture, and stuff to decorate homes with. I'm certain all the designers and decorators go there. I know there are a few huge places that make the furniture, and they have big showrooms. And there should be at least one of those warehouses that is filled with separate smaller stores, selling all sorts of stuff. Ooh! Lighting! And bedding, and pillows, and…!" She was grinning ear to ear.
"I guess that means we're going furniture shopping, then!" Max smiled at her.
"Yea!" She patted him on the leg and then hugged his arm. "Now how mean and pretentious are we gonna be?"
"Well, we don't need to be very mean. Maybe just indecisive and frustrating. And, you know, if we see things we actually do like, we could get them. That way, they'll see that we aren't complete commitment-phobes."
"Oh, goodie! And that sounds like a good idea. This is gonna be so much fun!"
"Is there any place around there to get something to eat, do you think?"
"Sure, there have to be some kind of cafes there. I mean, I'm sure there are the usual pizza and hot dogs and all that around, but they must get a steady volume of customers there all the time, and they must spend quite a bit of time there. Are you thinking of having our date out there?"
"Oh, no, I mean, unless you want to? I was just thinking maybe we could grab a light lunch somewhere while we're out. And if you want to come back here before we go on our date, we can do that. Whatever we need to do."
"Okay. Hey, let me grab the phone book real quick and look that place up, make sure we know exactly where it is and what's there." She hopped up from her chair and ran to the back of the kitchen to find the phone book. Max took his last bite of fritter and a sip of coffee, and Fran hurried back to the table carrying the giant phone book. She set it on the table in between them and Max moved his plate over, then helped her open the book up to the listings under "Furniture."
"Is there a store name you remember? Or the street that all of that is on?" Max asked.
"Um…" she flipped through several pages, looking at the larger store ads mixed in with the alphabetical listings. "Oh! This! Look!" She pointed out a full page ad for the furniture warehouse row, which listed brands and names of shops. "It's all connected! They must have done some remodeling! Oh, wow, I can't believe I haven't been back over there! The last time I was there was with my aunt after she got married again, she wanted to replace her new husband's ugly furniture with new stuff and she thought I had some taste and could help her pick stuff out. The only problem was that she didn't listen to a word I said and bought her own ugly furniture. But back then it actually looked like storage warehouses, and not much for showrooms. Look at this- it's a little map of each floor, divided up by types of furniture. Then here, upstairs, that's where all the little decor shops are. Oh, Max! I'm getting excited now!"
Max smiled and put his arm over the back of her chair and leaned over a little to get a look at the little maps, and the address of the whole complex. "I'm glad you're getting excited, Fran! This should be fun! I bet it's hard not to spend money there. Hey, if we're going to be pretending we want to buy stuff for the house, what's our back story going to be? I mean, if someone asks us? Are we moving to a new place? Or are we redecorating or something?"
"Well, why don't we say we're redecorating. Maybe we want to change out some outdated things or something. Oh, you know what? Maybe we should go measure some stuff and write it down so we sound like we know what to look for. Like the couch, or the living room space, stuff like that. Maybe have a piece of paper with measurements on it that we keep looking at. Ooh!"
"What?"
"Do you have a tape measure? Maybe we should bring a tape measure, and go around measuring stuff. Get the salespeople all riled up!"
Max laughed. "Sure! There should be a tape measure in here somewhere- maybe in one of those drawers back there. We can grab one of those little notepads, too, keep everything in that." He grinned as he looked at Fran, who was still looking over the ad in the phone book, and grinning herself. She turned to look at him.
"What? What is it?" She asked, elbowing him.
"I can't believe we're going to do this. It's like we're- playing house or something, and teasing strangers. I feel like we could get in trouble with somebody, like they might kick us out or something. But I know they won't. They have to be helpful. But what if we run into somebody we know? Do we keep up the charade?"
"We could. Or we could just be ourselves, say 'hi' and that we're just doing a little window shopping. Or, you know, if they only know one of us, then we'd introduce the other person, obviously. Try to keep it short."
"Introduce the other person… hmm…" Max wondered, giving Fran a teasing glance.
"You can just tell them my name, you don't have to say anything else."
"What if I want to say something else?"
"Well, would you tell them I'm Fran, your nanny?"
Max smiled and shook his head, then reached for her hand and held it. "Would it bother you if I didn't say you were my nanny? Maybe my friend… or best friend… or-"
Fran got a little bashful. "Or what?" She said softly.
Max shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know… maybe 'This is Fran Fine, my design consultant, we're looking at end tables…" Fran burst out laughing and pushed at him.
"Hey!" They both laughed.
"Well, technically we haven't been on a date yet, so… what would you call me?"
"I would say 'Hey, nice to see you, this is Maxwell Sheffield, my gorgeous man-friend, who I am crazy about."
Max smiled and put his arm around her waist, and slowly pulled her closer to him. "Well, then, you're my gorgeous woman-friend, who I'm also crazy about," he touched his forehead to hers and then kissed her on the cheek. She wrapped her arms around his middle.
"What if it did happen, though? I mean, we do kind of have a weird history. It might be too much information to try to explain it to somebody who might not know us that well."
"How about this, since today is the day of our first date, and I fully intend to take you out on many more- that is, if you want to- so I would be fine with you telling people I'm your boyfriend. If you want…"
Fran nodded. "I do want. Very much. And I do want to go out with you a bunch more, regardless of how this first date goes, because I know it's gonna be nice. And I would be fine with you calling me your girlfriend, if you want…" she rested her forehead against his.
"I do. I would like to do that very, very much." They smiled at each other, and then kissed softly on the lips.
"You want to go measure some things, and then get out of here?" He asked.
"Yeah. Here, let me put these dishes in the dishwasher. You sure you don't want any more coffee?" She got up from her chair and stacked the dishes together.
"I'm good. I'll grab that notepad and see if I can find the tape measure." Max got up and headed to the back of the kitchen and began pulling open drawers. As Fran got the dishes and coffee mugs into the dishwasher, Max found a notepad and the tape measure. He walked back to Fran and she closed the dishwasher, then took his hand and they headed for the living room.