“How about this, I don’t want her to tell you,” I answered him. “We’re supposed to be out having a good time, enjoying the scenery and the food, not trying to have a contest over who can emotionally scar me the worst. And if it makes you feel any better, Melanie, you’re currently in the lead.”
She went quiet and slouched back in her chair.
“I just want to have a good time,” I added.
“We are,” Max said, and draped his arm across the back of my chair. I felt his hand rise up and touch the back of my neck, softly rubbing his palm against my skin and then twirling one of my loose hairs around his fingertip. The gentle pull conjured up a million goosebumps all over my back and neck and I had to refrain from letting my eyes roll to the back of my head. I turned my gaze toward him and he was smiling, still playing with my hair and curling more behind my ear. I was surprised at his very public display of affection.
I tried to pretend his touch wasn’t affecting me so greatly and attempted to scoop up some of my spaghetti to eat, but I caught Melanie staring at the two of us in a way that was so unlike her. I was used to seeing her look irritated or repulsed by anything I did, but in that moment, her eyes were softened, she wasn’t smiling nor was she frowning, and her head was tilted ever so slightly to the right. I don’t think she was even aware of the faces she was making at Max and I, but underneath that forced expression that tried to display a complete indifference, I sensed something in her eyes that implied otherwise.
It was envy; not envy for who I was with, but envy for what I had. I recognized that look all too well, having experienced it myself for many years before Max, so when I saw that slight shine to her eyes and the quiver in her lip that fought the frown, I just knew.
It was the first time in my life I felt I truly related to my cousin. Funny how that would happen in a moment where no words were ever spoken between us.
***
After dinner, the four of us decided we had spent enough time together and it was best if we ended the night apart. I think that meal was enough to last us a lifetime.
Max and I decided to walk back from the restaurant, and I was pleasantly surprised to see him take my hand as we walked together. It was such a beautiful night, too. Even though we were getting further and further from the beach, I could still hear the waves in the distance and the soft chitchat of the folks eating as their silverware clanked on their plates.
It was so dark out, it was like we were the only two people in the entire area.
“I think I owe you a thanks,” he said as he swung our connected hands.
“What’d I do?”
“We were eating spaghetti and you didn’t try that Lady And The Tramp shtick.”
“Oh, shoot, I wasn’t even thinking!”
He chuckled and said, “Figures.”
“It’s probably for the best, anyway. I’ve been humiliated enough tonight as it is, I don’t need spaghetti sauce going up my nose in public as well.”
“You act like your cousin telling me strange things about you has changed my views on who you are. I always knew you were weird.”
I scrunched my brow. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
“So, you’re a nerd for Star Wars and you dated a crater face? Who cares?”
“It’s not like I went out with him because of his skin. I liked him. He was nice and he had all the seasons of the ninja turtles cartoon series on VHS. We used to chill in his basement watching them and eating pizza. It was good times.”
A smirk crawled out of the corner of his mouth as he peaked over at me. “This is what I’m talking about. None of what you tell me is really surprising. I may not have known you watched cartoons in a basement, but it makes perfect sense.”
“Ha, ha, laugh it up. Must be nice knowing so much about me while you remain a complete mystery.”
“My biggest secret you already know,” he said, referring to his curse.
“Yeah, but not the little things about your past that helped build you into the adult you are now. All I know is you had a dad who was a hardass. I don’t know much else.”
Max stopped walking and stood in place for a moment, lowering his head like he was in thought. I assumed he was angry at first, until he pulled my hand to his chest and said, “All right then, we’ll do it your way. Follow me.”
We got in his car and headed back to the compound, and while I wasn’t nervous of what he had intended for us, I was a bit perplexed. What exactly could he be showing me? We went inside and headed upstairs and it only took me a couple seconds before I realized we were going to his bedroom. Usually, when a man says we’re going to do something my way and then directs me to a room with a bed, it’s not for the purest of acts, but I trusted Max.
It never dawned on me until we were inside that I had never been in Max’s bedroom before. It was always my room we were in, regardless if we were making out or just talking.
His room was a typical bachelor’s bedroom and a lot smaller than the one they had put me in. The bed was a queen size with dark browns and greens for blankets, the flooring was wood with a throw rug at the foot of the bed that had a grizzly bear’s head attached to it, and he had a dresser pushed up against the wall with a television mounted on top of it. It was all very simple and cozy, aside from that bear head, but I assumed that was fake.
Max headed straight for his closet and reached up to one of the top shelves to retrieve a shoe box. As soon as he pulled it down he said, “Mind shutting the door?”
“Oh,” I said and then closed it behind me.
Max sat down on his bed with the box in hand and gestured for me to join him. I promptly followed and sat down, but the mattress was so firm, I bounced for a moment before being able to settle in and get comfortable. My mattress was definitely a lot squishier in comparison, but his blankets were ten times softer. It made me want to curl up in them and fall asleep.
Sitting on the very bed that Max slept in every night gave me a sensation I don’t know if I could describe. I was oddly…turned on, I guess you could say, knowing that my body was touching the same blankets that Max was in during the moments where his guard was let completely down and he was quiet and at peace. I kept imagining myself in this bed with him, and every time the image flashed in my mind I felt a chill trail up my spine.
“You say I have leverage over you, so let’s make it even,” Max said, putting his hands on each side of the box, ready to pop it open.
Wearily, I asked, “There’s not a decapitated head in that box, is there?”
He ignored me and tore the top off. Inside was a scattered pile of old photos. Some were family portraits, others were children posing for school pictures, and a lot were of a little boy fishing and riding his bike. A little brown haired boy to be exact. Was that Max?
Max stared at me, waiting for me to say something. I complied and asked, “Are these you?”
He nodded and replied, “Most of them, anyway.”
I picked up one photo of Max when he looked to be about eight years old. His legs were long and scrawny in a pair of jean shorts, and his blue shirt was way, way too big for his skinny frame. His brown hair was short, but still hanging over his eyes, like the little boy version of himself knew he wasn’t cut out for short hair, and in his hands was a fishing pole that had a large fish hanging from the line.
“Look at your little chicken legs,” I said and giggled. “I guess you were always a hunter, huh?”
“You spent your time eating pizza in a basement, I spent it at the river, fishing.”
“You make me sound so cool, Max,” I sarcastically remarked.
“Believe me, I would have killed to sit around eating pizza when I was a kid. I didn’t have much of a choice. It was either go on hunting trips or have him bitch about how I’ve let him down for a month straight.”
“Maybe after I get out of here we can waste a day eating pizza and watching a movie.”
“Yeah,” he responded unconvincingly and then returned
his eyes to the stack of photos in his box. Did he not think I was going to be let go? Or did he not think we were going to be together when this was all done? The half-assed way he agreed with me didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
He scooped up one photo, handed it to me, and added, “Here she is. My mother.” It was an image of her in an oversized gray sweatshirt, knelt down in front of a Christmas tree. Her blonde hair went a little passed her ears and was puffy like a little marshmallow, and her glasses were huge and the rims were red like Sally Jessy Raphael’s. It was obviously a picture taken during the 1980’s.
“Where is your mom now?” I asked. I was afraid by the vintage quality of the picture he gave me that she had died a long time ago and this was all he had of her.
“California,” he replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s been there for over fifteen years now. I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“How come?”
“I’m not good at keeping in contact with people.”
“And here I thought you ignoring me made me special,” I teased and elbowed him.
He shyly smiled. “After my parents split, she decided to get into law, and living in California was about the last place I wanted to go. It shows how much I hate it if I’d rather stay with my old man.”
“But there were good times, right? You and your dad couldn’t possibly have hated each other every single day.”
“It wasn’t hate, Cora, it was… indifference. He wanted to shape me up into something I wasn’t, and because I’m me, I fought him every chance I got.”
“So, he wanted you to be a man who hunted? Look at you now, it sounds like he got what he wanted.”
“It wasn’t always that way,” he said cautiously, and then dug to the bottom of the shoe box and pulled out a picture. It was a school photo of a gangly little boy with a buzz cut, giant glasses that resembled Max’s mother’s pair, and he flashed the biggest, goofiest teeth filled smile you could imagine. There was a horse quality to it.
After careful speculation realization settled in. “Is this… you?”
He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and said, “Puberty was… a strange time for me.”
I threw my hand over my mouth as I stared at the picture. “Oh, my God, you’re so damn awkward.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“I mean look at this nerd bomber.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” he said harshly and ripped the photo out of my hand and shielded it from me behind his back.
With the image still burned into my mind, I said, “Wait a minute… are you wearing a Han Solo shirt?”
He peaked at the picture real quick and added, “I sported it, yeah.”
My face lit up and I smiled bigger than nerdy kid Max in that photo. “You were a Star Wars geek, too! I’ve never felt so close to you in all my life,” I joked, and wrapped my hands around his arm, pulled him close, and snuggled into him. He just chuckled.
“Liking Han Solo does not make you a geek, all right?”
“And I suppose having your fave be Luke makes you a geek.”
“Well…” he trailed off with a shrug.
I opened my mouth to speak, but immediately choked when one of the photos in the box caught my eye. Actually, it was much stronger than a simple catch of the eye. It felt like there was a spotlight coming down from the heavens to shine on it. That’s how jarring this picture was.
Just sitting there in the mix of vacation photos, shots of Max fishing, old dogs and cats, a cottage by a lake, and baby pictures was one photo of a man who looked eerily familiar to a young version of the actor Lance Henriksen.
It hit me like lightning through the chest that not only had I seen this man before, but I had met him as well. He had spoken to me right outside my hotel room, and his face had caused me so much uneasiness that I could never forget it.
This was the man who had been searching for Max.
“What are you doing with a picture of him?” I asked, and heard my voice tremble. I was just so taken back at this that I didn’t put the pieces together in that moment. “You know him?”
“Know him? Of course I know him. That’s my dad.”
My breath hitched and I felt my head spin. What the hell?
“This is your dad? This man in the picture right here?” I inquired while poking at the photo with my finger.
He looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Uh… yeah. Why are you acting so freaked out?”
“Max, this is the guy who came to my hotel room looking for you. This is the guy!” I didn’t mean it, but I was practically shouting. I was just so relieved and excited to know that I hadn’t been running from someone truly dangerous.
“Hold up, hold up,” he said while waving his hands around. “You met my dad?”
“Yes! Only I didn’t know it was him, but he’s definitely the guy in this picture.”
Max stared at the old photo in his hands like he was waiting for it to respond to him with a proper explanation. His forehead was crinkled, his mouth frowning, and he was silent for a good long minute. After what looked like a mental conversation with the picture, Max quietly said, “So he found me.”
Confused, I asked, “You knew he was looking for you?”
“I didn’t tell him I was moving to the city. I figured it’d stop the calls.”
“So, he does know about…?”
Max nodded. “He didn’t buy the cover up and started to do some digging. I warned him something bad would happen if he didn’t keep his nose out of my business, but he didn’t listen.”
“This is good news then. It means no one is after you.”
He stared at me quietly.
“Isn’t it?”
Max scoffed. “Yeah, some news…” he said and crawled off the bed to create distance between us. He dropped the photo and ran his fingers through his hair, keeping his back to me as he looked at an undecorated wall in complete silence.
All this time, I thought it was only me Max had been running from.
Looks like I wasn’t so unique after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The shock hadn’t worn off even with a full night of rest. I had spent nearly two weeks terrified of this mysterious man at my hotel door, thinking he was going to hunt down someone I love and do God only knows what to them, only to realize that it was Max’s father, and to cap it all off, he knew the truth about everything. Everything.
I found myself trying to recall his father’s face in my mind, trying to make an almost 3D portrait of it, wondering if I could spot the tiny details that had been passed down to Max. Were their eyes a similar shape? Had his gray hair once been brown? Was his voice just as deep as Max’s? This was the man who had helped shape Max into who he was today, and I needed to know more.
When I headed downstairs that morning for breakfast, still lost in thought about the night before, I was startled to hear a loud commotion just out of my sight. I dropped to the lowest step and spotted Paul and Kat, standing in the doorway of the library, arguing as quietly as they could. Well, it was more Paul shouting and Kat standing there, wide-eyed and frightened. She kept shushing him and placing her hands on his chest, but it only seemed to provoke him further. Seconds later, he was pointing a finger in her face as the veins in his neck pulsated with rage. Something had happened. Something bad.
He eventually threw both hands in the air and stomped away from her, storming through the entrance hall and to the main doors, passing me along the way. I lowered my face and scratched the back of my head, pretending I hadn’t been attempting to eavesdrop or that I hadn’t noticed the black and purple bruises around his swollen right eye. It was jaw-droppingly dark in contrast to his pale skin. It looked like he had been in a pretty nasty fight.
As soon as the entrance doors slammed shut behind him, Kat came rushing across the room, chasing after him. My curiosity got the better of me, and before she was able to leave I stopped her and asked, “What happened to Paul?”
Kat’s black eyes flashed at me harshly. “Lincoln is what happened.” She didn’t divulge anything further and stomped off like a kid being sent to her room.
I wanted to say I was shocked to hear the news, but when I remembered the way Paul grabbed a hold of Brinly’s arm, sending her out of the mansion in tears, Lincoln hitting Paul made all the sense in the world. But I had to wonder what that meant for their pack. Paul was their alpha, and Lincoln had physically assaulted him. What was going to happen?
I was suddenly relieved to know Melanie and I only had one more day here and I wouldn’t have to deal with the resulting hostility that I knew would be out in full force. My stay was already awkward enough, and I didn’t think I could handle this on top of it.
The uncertainty of how the fight went down ate away at me, and I rushed back upstairs to get to Melanie’s room, hoping she had seen or heard something, or maybe Travis had given her all the juicy details. I had to admit I felt a little dirty knowing I was digging for gossip like I was Priscilla or something.
The excitement of Paul getting punched right in the face hadn’t faded when I gave Melanie’s door a quick knock and barged in. Pretty sure I was still grinning.
Unfortunately, Melanie wasn’t.
Melanie was still in her pajamas, sitting Indian style on her bed and wrapped up in blankets while an army of used, wadded up tissues circled her. I had walked in on her pressing one underneath her puffy, red, tear moistened eye, and at first, I thought she had caught something and was simply under the weather, but I quickly realized I was way off. She had been crying, and she looked quite upset.
What happened to Paul was no longer a thought in my brain as I whisked toward her and sat on the bed. “Are you all right?” I asked. I wasn’t used to seeing Melanie this bad off and it freaked me out, to be honest.
“It’s nothing,” she said, but she was trembling and clearly trying not to cry.
“Melanie, tell me. What’s wrong?”
She shook her head for a moment, and I could tell she was internally arguing with herself on whether she wanted to tell me. Eventually she caved and said, “Travis.”
Lunar City Page 29