“Yes, well. All I’m saying is, be careful with him. He starts off strong. He’ll love bomb you. He’ll make you feel like you’re his everything, the center of his world, lavish you with affection and gifts. Then he’ll turn. A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.” Tess sighs heavily and reaches up to rub at her temples. “I’ve been on the phone with my lawyer all day. She’s going to see about getting a court date set to establish permanent custody. What you say there, what you want, it will hold importance with the judge. Just … keep in mind what Justin can be like.”
What I say, what I want? Like when I went to court and pleaded to stay with the Banks, and was essentially told no, that the DNA inside my cells was more important than my own wants and needs? Bullshit. I call bullshit on all of this. Nothing that’s happening now has anything to do with me. I might be integral to this power struggle between Tess and Justin, but neither of them cares about what I want.
“Okay.” Just that. The easiest, most universal word in the entire world. Apparently, Coca-Cola and corona (like the virus) are the next two. Go figure.
Tess gives me another odd look before turning and heading back down the hall, the sound of her heels loud against the bamboo floors that cover the entire second floor. I spin back around to see Maxx making his way toward the house.
Maxine is still there at the end of the driveway, but she’s slowly drifting away. Her eyes lift up, scanning the ugly cube-like house with its myriad windows. Somehow, even though it seems impossible from this distance, I feel like she sees me.
She stops walking, and the two of us stare at each other—or at least in her case, the general direction of one another—and my heart breaks. I press my hand against the window, knowing that Delphine will have to clean my prints off and not caring. I just want my sister back. I want to talk to her so desperately that it becomes a physical pain, starting in my toes and traveling up to my scalp.
Miss you and love you fierce. Miss you and love you fierce. Miss you so goddamn much and love you so fucking fierce.
“Kota.”
It’s X.
I peel my hand away from the window, my gaze remaining on my sister until she finally—unfortunately—turns away and starts to walk back down the block toward her car. It’s a white Nissan Altima, 2006 I think. She inherited it from our great aunt after she passed. Like the car I was supposed to get from Saffron, a family heirloom.
Maxx opens my nightstand drawer, withdrawing my phone before snatching the Tess-phone from its tripod. He dumps them along with his own phone in Parrish’s room, clearly getting ready for an intensely private conversation with me; the book bag is still in the bathroom thankfully. He then collects the bug detector, shuts the curtains, and does another sweep of both the room and the closet.
When he snatches my hand, I let out a small sound of surprise at the strength in his grip—and the fire that rushes through my veins at his touch. He yanks me into the closet and shuts the door.
It’s mostly dark in here. There’s a series of small windows against the roofline, but they’ve got these special shudders on them—according to Tess, it’s to keep the sunlight out to preserve the integrity of my wardrobe—and they’re all half-slitted. Some light comes in, but not a lot.
Also, it’s absurdly bare in here. My clothes take up about a fourth of the massive space. The shoe racks are mostly empty, the jewelry cabinet in the center of the room filled with costume jewelry from back home, a few heirlooms from Grandma Carmen, and that’s about it.
“It was Maxine,” X confirms, his face a broken, twisted thing. He won’t even meet my eyes, running his tongue along his lower lip again, across that bite mark I left in the heat of the moment and now regret so bitterly that I can taste it. “She brought a letter for you.”
“No,” I snap, and then finally, blessedly, he flicks his eyes up to mine. We can’t hide from each other nor can we hide from what happened between us last night. Even though I really, really want to. “I can’t read it. What if Justin finds out? I’m not risking Parrish, especially not after …”
Maxx exhales, reaching up to tousle his hair as he leans his back against the wall. It occurs to me that last night was his first time, and guilt sweeps over me yet again. This isn’t fair. Your first time should at least be fun, even if the sex isn’t good (it was for us, but I’m just saying). It should be something you can laugh and joke about.
“What if I read it to you?” he suggests, but I’m already shaking my head violently.
“No.” I put both hands up, palms out. Knowing that Maxx has a letter on him from my sister, I … God, I want to hear her words so bad, even if he’s the one reading them to me. I turn away and pretend to be interested in the three hoodies hanging up beside me, reaching up to rub the sleeve of one between my fingers.
He moves up behind me, and I could seriously scream.
I spin around to look at him, but all that does is put us far too close together.
“How did … what did you say to her?” I ask and his face falls as he glances off to one side, the guilt I’m feeling more than apparent in his own expression. I’d give up my pinky finger to talk to my sister right now, yet I also can’t imagine how crushing that guilt would be in her presence.
“She wants to see you. She says she won’t ever give up on you. Never.” X grimaces again, and then takes a step back, turning away from me and brushing at his hair again. I can see the faintest edges of his angel wing tattoos peeking out the sides of his black tank. He glances back at me. “Maxine knows something is going on. She thinks it has to do with Tess, but still. She’s determined to ‘save you’.” He makes finger quotes and then sighs, turning away yet again and then reaching up to grab the pull on the shutters. He yanks it, flooding the room with light.
“And?” I choke out, watching as he reaches into his back pocket. There’s a glittery pink envelope there that is, like, so my sister that I nearly fall to my knees. My fingers itch to snatch it away from Maxx, just so I can look at her handwriting, so I can close my eyes and imagine her speaking the words written there.
If Justin … if he takes my proposal today, I may never see her again. It’s a distinct possibility.
“She hugged me,” he says, looking down at the letter. It’s sealed with a sticker in the shape of red lips. A kiss. A sticker kiss since she can’t give me an annoying big sister one right now. Knowing her, it’ll be a scratch and sniff sticker, too. She loves those, has since she was a little girl. We used to plaster them all over each other’s arms and then spend time sniffing ourselves and laughing.
I clamp a hand over my mouth as X glances back at me.
“She … said she was sorry for breaking up with me,” he adds, his voice so sad that it nearly breaks my heart. “That we should talk. And that’s when she hugged me.” He rips open the letter, and I cringe. He reads it quickly, eyes scanning across the page, across the pretty, loopy scrawl of her handwriting. He shudders, like the letter is too painful to bear, and then opens the closet door, just to make sure we’re still alone, I think.
Maxx closes it again and turns around.
“You know what I did? I told her that I didn’t want to see her anymore either.” He purses his lips into a flat line. “That I cheated on her with another girl.”
“No you didn’t,” I whisper back, but he nods.
“Anything less than the truth wouldn’t be fair.” He looks down at the letter again. “I told her that you knew she was at the gate and didn’t want to speak to her. That she should leave you alone unless you contacted her again. She asked if you were the girl that I cheated on her with.”
“No!” I yell back, and then I do end up sitting on the floor with my legs crossed, pressing my hands to either side of my face but careful not to cover my ears. I want to hear whatever it is that he has to say. I manage to lift my gaze up to his face as he moves over and then sits down in front of me, the letter still clutched in his hands. “You told her, didn’t you? You told her.”
&nbs
p; “She said she doesn’t care about that. I’m just a boy, but you’re her sister,” he says with a slight smile. It fades as quickly as it came, but I’m honestly surprised he managed a pleasant expression whatsoever. I want to puke. “Let me read this to you. We’re alone. There are no cameras. The directive, remember? He said no contact. He didn’t say you couldn’t hear me read a handwritten letter that was given to me.”
“I can’t believe you told her,” I choke out, looking away from him, wondering what my sister must think of me now. I lift my thumbnail to my mouth and chew on it. Maxx reaches out and takes my hand gently in his, pushing it back into my lap. His touch wakes me up inside, stirs something deep in my soul. I wish it didn’t, but it does. There’s nothing I can do about that.
“Was it better to lie?” he asks softly, and I sense something else behind his words, something desperate, almost pleading. “I had to tell her—for both of us. Eventually, when we kick the Slayer’s ass—which we will—we can explain the situation. She may or may not forgive me, but she will absolutely forgive you. That’s what’s important.”
“You loved her, too,” I say, turning back to him. He grimaces yet again, letting his head fall back. X is clutching the letter in his fingers so hard that the page crinkles in his grip. “You wanted to get back together with her. This isn’t fair to you.”
“It isn’t fair to you either. Or to Parrish. To Chasm. To the fourteen dead kids that the Slayer murdered. To the … however many more people he plans on killing.” Maxx sits back, putting one palm on the floor to brace himself and extending his long legs beside my folded ones. “I need to talk to you, Kota.”
“Now?” I ask softly, because I’m already processing a lot today. Tears brim, but I flat-out refuse to let them fall. Maxine is the one who’s hurting most right now; I have to stay strong for her.
“Now.” X closes his eyes and lets his head fall back, still holding the letter in his left hand. It’s draped across his lap, tempting me more and more with each second that I stare at it. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
Um.
What?
I blink at him, but I can’t make myself talk. Not right now. I just wait.
“When I first saw you at the coffee shop, I knew right away who you were.”
I stay silent, still staring at him. My pulse starts to pound in my head like the shushing of the ocean waves against the shore.
“What?” The word is whispered, so quiet that I’m surprised he can hear it.
He opens his eyes and lifts his head to look at me again, green eyes blazing.
“You know, I’m worried about my parents actually. They’ve been acting weird as fuck lately. I mean, like, really weird. They demanded I come to the track yesterday even though they knew Tess was having a press conference and that I’d want to be there. I asked myself why they’d do that. They’ve known Parrish since he started kindergarten; I was in second grade at the same school.” Maxx taps his foot, staring at it instead of my face. I’m wondering if this is a non-sequitur or if he plans on segueing back into the fact that he fucking lied to me. The truth is important, he says. Important enough to tell Maxine about us.
So what is this about?
“They’re back in town all of a sudden, even though they rarely leave Portland anymore. All of that plus they’re staying at Seamus’ cabin. Doesn’t that seem odd?” I don’t know his parents, but I assume that he does, waiting for him to get to the point. I have a feeling that whatever it is he’s trying to say to me isn’t easy; he feels it requires explanation. “Did you know there’s a party on Friday?”
“Uh, okay?” I reply, feeling the minutes tick by. With each one, I get closer to seeing Justin again, to making my proposal, to … whatever comes after that.
“A big one. All the who’s who of Medina will be there.” He turns to look at me, an apology clear in his face. Even before he tells me what this is all about, he’s apologizing. I once said that Maxx was the sort of person who never apologized, but that only applies to his existence, to his taking up space, to being who he is unfiltered. When he’s wrong, he has no problem admitting it, no problem saying he’s sorry. “My parents are going to that. That’s why they’re here.”
“Maxx, you’re killing me,” I whisper back, shaking out my hands to keep myself from grabbing that letter. “What’s going on?”
“Justin is having a party on Friday. It’s the official launch party for Milk Carton. And my parents are planning on attending.”
Hmm. Well, that’s interesting news. And it might be relevant somehow to our situation with Parrish, but what does that have to do with him lying to me at the coffee shop?
“Anyway, when the news about your and Tess’ story first broke, it was actually my parents who encouraged me to seek Maxine out. They’d heard she attended U of O with me. They made it seem like they just felt sorry for her. Plus, we’re really close with the Vanguards, so it all made sense to me. I found her on campus, and we clicked.” He releases the letter, leaving it to lie on his lap, and crosses his fingers together. My heart seizes in my chest, but the reasons for that are complicated, so I choose to ignore them. “I really, really liked her. More than any girl I’d ever met before.”
I exhale sharply, shifting uncomfortably in my position and then finally uncrossing my legs. I stretch them out, mirroring Maxx’s pose, just in the opposite direction.
“But then I met you.”
“Please don’t say those sorts of things to me,” I warn him, but he’s on a truth bender apparently, and I’m not going to be able to stop it without fleeing him and this tiny, closed-in space. It’s packed with emotion in here, so dense that it’s almost hazy.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. I can’t help it. I tried to. Especially since I could see from moment one that you were into Parrish.” He exhales again and then rubs at his forehead. I can see that he’s sweating slightly. From nervousness maybe? “Maxine is an incredible person. She’s the kindest, sweetest, most honest person I’ve ever met. She just … isn’t you.”
“You’re just saying that because we had sex last night.” I force the words out, even though I’m choking on them. It is what it is.
“I’m saying this because it’s true,” he growls at me. Like, for real. He growls it, sitting up and leaning toward me. I have a feeling that I’ve just gotten myself into big trouble with Maxx Wright. “I didn’t want to add to your shit, not with Parrish missing. Especially not after the thing with Chasm. I can see that you guys like each other, too.”
I look away again, but I can’t help it. I’m drawn to Maxx. I end up turning right back to him.
“But I can never go back to Maxine now. You know that; I know that; she knows that now, too. So what’s the harm in being honest?”
“Maxx!” I snap, getting up on all fours and getting in his face. “Spill it. I am rapidly running out of patience here.” My heart is pounding as I snatch the letter from his lap, and he lets have it. I sit down again, this time with my back against the wall to his right.
“The things I liked in Maxine were the parts of you that were similar. It wasn’t fair for me to continue a relationship with her anyway. I was … relieved when she broke up with me, to be honest. Even though I knew you and I could never happen. That you’d never betray her like that. I didn’t want to do it either. But … there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
He takes another deep breath, glancing over at the letter in my lap.
“Before we even met, I was hearing all kinds of stories about you. From Parrish. From Chasm. From my parents.”
“Your parents?” I ask, because I don’t even know their names. How could they have had an opinion about me?
“I assumed they’d heard something from Tess or one of their other friends. But none of it was good. Parrish and Chasm were bitching, but there’s nothing unusual about that. My parents though, they kept saying how horrible you were. Maxine, on the other hand, couldn’t stop saying how amazing
you were.” He looks down at his hands in his lap, and I wonder then how he could’ve worried about our tiny age difference. He looks so young right now. When he lifts his head up to look at me again, I know we’re not done with the romance thing.
Just taking a break.
“I like to form my own opinions of people, so when you approached me in line, I didn’t tell you the full truth. I just wanted to see what you were like.” He releases a huge breath, like this is something that’s been bothering him for some time. “People have a tendency to be fake when they know they’re being judged. If you knew I was Maxine’s boyfriend right from the start, you would’ve been on your best behavior.”
“You know this makes you an asshole, right?” I ask, but I’m not even that mad about it. In the scheme of things, this is nothing. And the reason he feels so guilty about this is because he’s got a good heart. I’ve known that all along.
“I am an asshole,” he agrees, heaving yet another sigh. “I told you that. I know it. I try to stop myself from acting that way, but it happens sometimes. That’s one of the reasons that I avoided sex. It sort of opens you up.”
“Maxx, you were fine,” I tell him, and he lifts a brow.
“Fine?” he queries, his face squinching up slightly. “Just fine?”
A laugh bursts out of me, even though I don’t mean it to. I immediately feel guilty about it, but I can’t help it if he makes me laugh. I put my hand over my mouth and shake my head before dropping my hand back to my lap.
“You can tell me if Parrish or Chasm is better. It’s okay. Only my ego will hurt.” He hooks a slight smile, but it’s tinged with too much melancholy to take seriously. He’s trying to lighten the mood which I appreciate, but it’s like a drop in the ocean of my sadness.
“You’re all good. I heard guys your age suck. But not the three of you.”
“Mm. Well, I appreciate that,” he murmurs, and the low, softness of his voice makes my skin ripple with goose bumps.
I force my gaze down, and then unfold the letter.
Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2) Page 34