I pulled my hand back and shoved it into the pocket of my oversized pants, trying to ignore the tingles in my fingertips.
Our horse-riding adventure pretty much ended after that. As soon as we were finished getting dressed and awkwardly avoiding each other’s eyes, Mr. Wyatt called Maxx over.
“Just give me a minute. Let me see what he wants and then we can get out of here,” Maxx said. I nodded and watched him go over to his boss, who had lowered his head and spoke to Maxx with an apologetic look on his face.
Maxx’s face shadowed and his mouth turned down. Whatever Mr. Wyatt was saying, it didn’t make him very happy.
What was going on?
After a few more minutes, Maxx came back, not even trying to hide the look of frustration on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, after thanking Mr. Wyatt for letting us use the facilities.
Maxx didn’t answer until we were in his car and driving down the long driveway away from the stable.
“It seems that he doesn’t need me at the stable as much as he thought. He’s cut my hours. Which means I either need to find another place of employment or take on a third job if I want to keep my electricity on,” he said resentfully, jerking the steering wheel as he drove through the streets back toward town.
“Maybe the coffee shop could give you more hours,” I suggested. He looked deflated, and I knew this had to be a major blow for him. I could see how hard he was trying.
“I doubt it. They’re scraping together hours to give me as it is.” He gave me a pained smile. “I’ll figure something out. I always do,” he said.
We didn’t say anything else to each other. The surprisingly enjoyable day appeared to sort of fizzle out, as neither of us seemed in the mood to try to continue making useless conversation.
“Do you want to come over for a while?” he asked, and I found that the suggestion didn’t irritate me in the slightest. It was actually almost appealing. But I knew that I couldn’t. No matter how much fun I had with him today. I shook my head.
“I should get back. I have homework I have to get done for tomorrow’s class,” I said as an excuse. Maxx’s face darkened briefly before smoothing out. He gave me a short nod and didn’t say anything else.
A tension radiated from him that made me nervous. I opened my mouth several times to say something to dispel the uneasy energy, but could never think of anything to say.
I was relieved when he pulled up in front of my apartment building. Maxx’s change in mood reminded me so much of the man that I remembered.
I turned to say thank you for our day, when he reached across the seat and cupped his hand around the back of my head.
I pulled back from his grip, ready to push him away. My heart slammed in my chest, and my breath came out in short, erratic puffs.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. Why was he ruining our perfectly good day?
Maxx’s hand curled around the back of my neck, his fingers threading into the hair at the base of my skull, the slight pressure causing my pulse to race.
“Don’t tell me to stop. I just want to remember what it feels like to get lost in you, back when it all made a crazy sort of sense,” he begged, pulling me toward him, capturing my lips before I could object.
I startled in response, tensing, ready to pull away again.
“Please, Aubrey. You can deny what’s between us later. You can tell yourself that you’ve moved on. That you want nothing to do with me. But you and I both know that’s not the truth. And I had hoped we had finally stopped lying to each other,” Maxx murmured against my mouth.
Then he was kissing me again, and I didn’t stop him.
The fight left me. The anger, the bitterness, the purposeful isolation disintegrated instantly.
Kissing Maxx was like waking up. Like stepping through the mist into a clearing. It was love and lust and passion. It was pain and anguish and gut-wrenching turmoil.
It was everything.
My lips parted almost involuntarily, and his tongue swept in, tangling with mine. He moaned, intense and low, and wove his fingers in my hair, burying deep. I couldn’t help my body’s response as I melted into him.
My lips had missed kissing him.
My fingers had missed touching him.
My heart missed beating only for him.
I gave up fighting the inevitable and wrapped my arms around him, holding him as tightly as he held me.
The feel of him in my mouth was familiar and intoxicating.
This is what oblivion tasted like.
Slowly, his lips became less frantic until he stopped kissing me altogether and he rested his forehead against mine.
“I know you’ve said you don’t want this. But I’m all in, Aubrey. I always have been.”
I closed my eyes and tried to get my breathing under control.
“I have to go,” I whispered, trying to move and failing. Finally, I was able to unwrap my arms from around Maxx and pulled myself away.
With shaking hands I opened the door of his car and got out. I walked up the steps to my apartment building, escaping to the safety of my own four walls.
Escaping the truth that reverberated through my body.
I loved Maxx.
What was I going to do with that?
chapter
twenty-one
maxx
i didn’t want Aubrey to go home. I knew that if I let her leave when I felt like this, I couldn’t trust myself alone. Having my hours cut at the stable had left me reeling—I had no idea how I was going to manage to scrape by without that money. My immediate thought after receiving the unwanted news was that I wanted to get high. Really fucking high. And forget about how much my life sucked.
I could have called a hotline or one of the numbers the counselors at Barton House had given me. But I didn’t want to call a fucking hotline.
I only wanted Aubrey.
And so I’d kissed her like a man drowning. And she hadn’t pulled away. She took everything that I gave her.
I felt it. That moment when she surrendered herself to me all over again. The taste of it was sweet on my tongue as I took exactly what I wanted.
It had been a while since I hadn’t asked permission to fucking breathe. I grabbed her, and I held on like my life depended on it.And maybe it did.
But then it was over and she was leaving and I was left alone.
Always alone.
I drove home, feeling depressed and not entirely sure what the hell I was going to do and whether I had the energy to try.
I walked up the stairs to my apartment trying to figure out my next move. Finding another job seemed like the most sensible plan. But the thought of pounding the pavement attempting to find someone who would be willing to give me a chance made me want to smash stuff.
I thought again about the art gallery and how royally I had screwed it up. I had been holding the golden goose in my hand, and I had lost it. And now here I was trying to find a way to survive without falling back on the easy solution. The club. The drugs. Quick cash in my pocket.
But what would be the price?
“Where the fuck have you been?” a voice growled from the shadowed recess beside my door. Marco stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor and gave me a look that could break bones.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, wondering about my chances of knocking his ass out and getting into my apartment. The last thing I wanted was to deal with Marco and whatever he had come here to say.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that you dropped off the fucking Earth and Gash is ready to roast your ass on a pike?” Marco shouted, his voice echoing down the hallway. My meth-head neighbor opened his door a crack and peeked out. I could see one bloodshot eye watching Marco and me as we squared off outside my apartment.
“I’m not doing this shit out here,” I replied, shouldering past the guy who had been my friend for over five years, and put my key into the lock.
“Then we’ll
talk about this inside. But I’m not fucking leaving until you give me some goddamned answers!” Marco roared, pushing past me and into my apartment.
I flicked on the light and figured I might as well have this out with him now. I had avoided it long enough, and I knew Marco wasn’t going anywhere until he got what he wanted.
And right now that was a small dose of truth.
Marco tossed something at me and it smacked my chest. I grabbed it before it could fall to the floor. I held it up and saw that it was a plastic bag with a dozen or so pills of all different colors.
My only salvation and my greatest nightmare.
“I don’t want this shit, Marco,” I said, holding out the bag for him to take.
Marco shook his head. “I figured you needed some incentive to tell me what’s been going on with you,” he said, sitting down on my couch and putting his dirty boots up on the clean coffee table.
My hand shook as I held the pills. My ears buzzed, and I couldn’t see anything but the drugs in my hand.
“Have you become a housekeeper or something? Your place is seriously clean. I’d be impressed if I didn’t want to rip your nut sack off and shove it up your ass,” Marco was saying, though I barely heard him. My mouth had gone dry, and my heart started to pound.
I’m right here, Maxx. I’ve never really left you. Not like everyone else. You can always count on me.
The goddamned voice was back. I heard it as clear as if it were a real person whispering in my ear.
I could barely control my fingers as I twisted the bag into a knot and shoved the pills into my pocket. Nausea erupted in the pit of my stomach, and I felt bile crawl up the back of my throat.
“Have you gone deaf as well as stupid since I saw you last, fuck face?” Marco threw a pillow at my head, and I didn’t even bother to catch it.
“I don’t have time for your crap, Marco. Say what you want to say and get the fuck out.” I gritted my teeth and swallowed the urge to punch him in the face. This guy had been my closest friend for years. But it wasn’t what you’d call a “healthy” friendship. Our relationship had thrived on the worst of each other. He was the one who could undo everything I was trying to accomplish. And he didn’t even realize it. And I doubted he’d even care.
Marco’s face darkened, and I knew that we were dangerously close to coming to blows.
“You’re a dick, Maxx. You disappear for over a month, leaving me in the fucking lurch. You took off with Gash’s money and his fucking drugs, and then you don’t answer my calls? I’ve been by this shithole every week since you up and took a trip to la-la land and this is the crap I get from you? I’ve had your fucking back for years, X. You and me, we had an agreement. And you flaked. Pretty hard core, too. I deserve some answers as to where the hell you went.” Marco swung his feet to the floor and sat up, no longer lounging like he owned the place.
I thought about telling him where I had been. That I had almost died and had gone to rehab. I probably should have. It would have been the smart thing to do. To be honest with the only pathetic excuse for a friend I’d ever had.
But Marco wouldn’t get it. And more important, he wouldn’t give a shit, because in the end, I had bailed. There weren’t enough excuses in the world to make him okay with that.
“I had stuff going on with Landon,” I lied, hoping it would be enough of an answer to let me off the hook without going into specifics.
“What was up with Landon?” Marco asked, as cold as ever. Of course he knew my brother. He had spent time at my house before I had graduated high school and Landon had been much younger.
“It was a bunch of drama with David. You know how it goes. I had some things to sort out and square away.” I had forgotten how good I was at lying. It was effortless, like sugar on my tongue.
Marco’s face smoothed out marginally, and I knew he had bought my story. “Well, you’d better get your kneepads ready, because you’re going to have to do some serious sucking in order to make it up to Gash. And I hope like hell you have his money. Otherwise you’ll be eating out of your asshole for the rest of your life.”
It was good that I had put the wad of cash from that last night at the club in my dresser before heading to rehab. I had sold the entire supply Gash had given me to sell. I had made the fucker his money before taking enough smack to stop my heart.
I walked back to my room and got the bundle of cash I had stuffed into a sock in the back of my drawer. I came back out to the living room and handed Marco the money.
He quickly counted it and looked relieved it was all there. “Shit, you actually did what you were supposed to for once. You’re damn lucky, X. Gash has been livid since you pulled your Houdini act. He wants you back at the club immediately. Like, now. He’s been on a hair trigger lately. He fired Randy and got rid of three of the bartenders. He’s tearing through staff like crazy. Someone’s lit a fire under his ass, and he’s ready to rip us all a new one.” Marco scratched the douchey goatee he had grown in my absence, looking as nervous as I’d ever seen him.
“I don’t think I’m going back to the club, man,” I said, ready for the fireworks.
And Marco didn’t disappoint. His face went molten red, and he looked like he was ready to spit nails. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Just what I fucking said! I’m done with the club! I’m gonna try to play it straight for a while,” I said, hating that I sounded like such a pussy. And hating that I wished I could take back the words as soon as I had said them.
“Why in the hell would you want to do that? We’re making a mint! So because you’ve developed some sort of sudden moral fucking center, I’m going to have to suffer because of it? You really are a selfish prick, you know that?” he yelled, kicking over my coffee table.
“Dude, if you’re going to break shit, go somewhere else and have your hissy fit,” I told him dryly.
Marco gave me a dirty look, but leaned down and picked up the overturned table. He sighed and pulled at the silver hoop in his lip. “Do you have something against cash, Maxx? Because I know you can’t be so stupid to think you can get that sort of scratch at a nine-to-five. We’ve got a great little operation going on. And now that Gash is cutting down on people, he’s less focused on what I’m doing at the door. He’s more interested in his other side projects. He’s been meeting a lot with those dudes from Mexico. He won’t give a shit about some money missing from the door every night. We could even increase the amount if we’re careful. This is the time to make some serious coin, man.” Marco’s eyes snapped, and he was a man with some intense conviction. He made it damn hard to say no.
Because he was right. I couldn’t make the kind of money I did at the club anywhere else. I’d had my chance to make something of myself and had blown it. My art, even school, had become nothing more than wasted opportunities in the wreckage of my life. I fingered the bag of pills in my pocket, feeling their familiar round smoothness.
“Just come by the club this weekend. Talk to Gash. See what he has to say. If you tell him what was going on with your brother, he probably won’t use your face as a punching bag,” Marco suggested, and I smirked.
“Golly gee, you make that sound so appealing,” I responded sarcastically, even as I was already considering his offer.
“Just come by. Don’t fuck yourself because of some newfound scruples. Screw that shit. That’s not who you are. You’re fucking X, dude. Don’t forget that.” Marco pointed at the bag of pills I had unconsciously taken out of my pocket and held between my fingers.
“You need to take the edge off. I can tell it’s been a while,” he said, and walked out the door.
I crumpled the bag in my hands and headed to the bathroom, before I could talk myself out of it. I lifted the toilet lid and held open the bag, watching as a handful of pills fell into the water. Before the last of them could fall, I quickly stuffed it back into my pocket.
I flushed the toilet and then hurried down the hall to my bedroom, shovi
ng the bag into the back of my drawer.
I slammed it shut and fell back against the dresser, breathing heavily. My skin was clammy with sweat, and my throat felt tight with the overwhelming urge to swallow the last two pills in the bag. I wanted them.
I didn’t think I had ever wanted anything so much in my entire sad fucking life. I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to crawl back to that, no matter how much I craved it with every cell, every molecule, in my body.
I’ll be here whenever you need me, they whispered.
I covered my ears with my hands and wanted to scream for them to leave me the hell alone! That I wasn’t that guy anymore! That I wouldn’t let myself be him! I had people who were counting on me. People who needed me to be someone different.
I slid down to the floor and closed my eyes. And then I leaned over and threw up onto my carpet. Acidic bile dribbled from my mouth, and I wiped it away with the hem of my shirt. My head was pounding and my ears were ringing as I forced myself to forget about the drugs I had stupidly hung on to.
The drugs, now that I had them again, I couldn’t let go of. I wanted to, but I had learned a long time ago that want and need were two entirely different things.
chapter
twenty-two
aubrey
i was confused. No, I was more than confused. I was disoriented.
Maxx’s kiss had thrown me. I should have predicted it. What had I expected would happen? That we’d sit around and knit a freaking sweater?
He had seemed so upset after getting the news that his hours were being cut at the stable, and I hurt for him. He’d pulled me in with his sad desperation, just as he always had. So much for my so-called hardened heart. Now here I was, several days later, still bothered by his sadness.
I showed up early to my Boundaries and Ethics class so I could have my weekly slip signed off for Dr. Lowell. I suppressed my abject humiliation at being treated like a naughty grade-schooler who has to have her work approved.
“Hey, Aubrey.”
I looked up to see April taking her now-usual seat beside me. I had spent the last few classes trying to ignore her to keep my distance from Evan intact, but I was too tired to maintain my active silence. “Hey, April. How are you?”
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