by L A Cotton
I knew. Shit, I knew that Lo had lost her mom and brother. I knew it was still raw for her. Even though she rarely let her walls down, I knew she still carried the pain of her losses.
“And then to watch her clean you up like that. Like it wasn’t killing her on the inside. If you were anyone else, I’d be telling you to keep the hell away from her. She deserves better, so much fucking better than this. But I know you, Rick. And I know something happened to make you agree to fight that animal. So, you’d better start talking, and you'd better have a good fucking reason. Or you are going to lose the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
His eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe he’d just said all that, then a small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And no, I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about Lo. Just so we’re clear.”
Fucker.
“I’ll tell you,” I said. “But then I need you to do something for me.”
He cocked his eyebrow, leaning back in the chair. “I’m listening.”
This was it. The turning point. There would be no going back after this, but he was right. If I didn’t open up—reveal my deepest darkest secrets with someone—the darkness would consume me, and I’d lose Lo before I ever got a chance to really make her mine.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
~
“Hello? Maverick?”
Just the sound of her voice relaxed me, seeped into my bones and made breathing easier.
“In here,” I called, shifting up the bed. After coming clean to Kyle, he’d left me to go and do damage control with Lo. The fact she was here… well, my debts owed to him were stacking up.
“Hi.” She appeared in the doorway, her eyes running over my face. “You look better than you did last night.”
“I—” My throat closed up, and I swallowed hard trying to find the words. “Please.” I flicked my head to the chair, and she nodded.
“Kyle needs to work on his persuasion tactics.”
My eyebrows shot up, and she smiled. It was small, uncertain. But fuck if it didn’t settle something in my soul.
“He didn’t kidnap you, did he?”
“Not quite but let’s just say he wasn’t entirely honest.”
Okay, so maybe I needed to retract my statement about owing him. But whatever he said or did to get Lo here, I was grateful.
“We need to talk,” I said, not wanting to give myself time to think about it. If I paused, even for a second, I knew the words would escape me and I’d close down.
“Okay,” Lo said shifting uncomfortably. “But usually when people start a conversation with ‘we need to talk’ it’s only going one way.”
“I guess that’s up to you.”
Confusion furrowed her brows. “I… I don’t understand.”
“I want to tell you the truth. About why I fight. Why I went there last night. I guess I should have told you this from the beginning, but I didn’t want you to look at me with pity in your eyes.”
“Maverick,” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
I shuffled to the edge of the bed and sat in front of her. “Just hear me out, okay?”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded. I wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss her; to capture her mouth with mine and lose myself in her. But this needed to be out in the open. Before we went any further, Lo needed to know the truth.
Lo
My stomach lurched as Maverick inhaled deeply, the intensity in his eyes pinning me to the spot. Whatever he was about to tell me would change things. I realised that now. Maybe it’s why he’d held back, pushed me away. Because he was scared of how I would react.
“When I was younger, my dad was my idol. I thought he hung the fucking moon. He was rich, successful. My friends’ dads all wanted to hang out with him. Play golf. Go for drinks. People respected him. Or so I thought. In ninth grade, I heard some kids talking about how they’d overheard some of their dads talking about Alec Prince. How cold and merciless he was. It made me sit up and notice things. Because I realized they didn’t respect him, they were scared of him. I knew you didn’t get to where he was without being ruthless. But he was a good guy. He worked hard. Provided for his family. For me and Macey and his other kids.
“A few weeks later, I heard Mom arguing with someone. I thought it was Gentry but when I snuck downstairs, I realized it was Dad. It wasn’t the same man I knew. He was aggressive. Up in Mom’s face, yelling and shouting. I froze. I didn’t know what the hell to do but then Gentry arrived home and I was so relieved. Things between us have never been easy—he replaced my dad. A man I worshipped.” He stared off at nothing, lost to the memories.
“What happened, Maverick?” I pulled him back to me.
“I expected Gentry to put my father in his place, to defend Mom. But he didn’t. Instead, he told my mom—his wife—to calm down. That’s when I realized he was also scared of Alec Prince. I could barely look at him after that. What if Dad had gotten violent? Would he have stepped in? Protected her? At the detriment of pissing of the mighty Alec Prince?
“Things went from bad to worse. Dad noticed my behavior change toward him. Gentry too. But I couldn’t process it. And then Macey said she overheard Beatrice and August talking about Dad and his temper… about what Mom had to put up with when they were together. It just felt like they were all keeping things from us. Lying not only to protect us, but to protect him.”
His voice was raw, and it gutted me. “Do you…” God, how did I ask this? But I had to. “Do you think he used to hit your mom?”
Pain flashed in Maverick’s eyes, worse than anything I’d seen last night during and after the fight. “I know he did.”
“That night you found me at the party, I’d finally confronted him. We were at his house for the summer. Maxine and their kids were visiting their grandparents upstate. So it was just me, Macey and him. He took us to some business function. Left us to make our own fun while he schmoozed with business associates. He got drunk, and we had to wrestle him out of the bar with everyone watching. He was spouting all this shit about Mom, about how she’d turned me against him. Macey was so confused and upset she locked herself in her room. But I saw red. I wanted the truth. It was long overdue.
“I confronted him, came right out and asked him why they really got a divorce. He didn’t answer, but I saw the truth in his eyes and I realized the Alec Prince I knew was a lie. A fake. He didn’t exist. Things got nasty, he said some things, I said some things…” Maverick’s voice trailed off and a feeling of dread slithered around my heart.
“Maverick, did he hit you?”
The anger.
The fighting.
Although I prayed it wasn’t true, it made sense.
His head dropped, breaking our connection, and I had my answer. Tears burned my throat as I slid off the chair and kneeled in front of him, taking his face in my hands, careful not to touch the worst of his injuries. “Maverick, look at me,” I whispered.
Slowly, his head lifted, so many emotions shining in his eyes, it shattered my heart.
Eyes half-closed he breathed out, “I’m not done yet.”
The pain in those four words cut through my heart like a knife and I braced myself.
“He’d already made it clear he wanted me to follow in his footsteps and attend Cal State East Bay. He said it was my ‘destiny’. But it was never what I wanted. I wanted to play basketball. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. So, I told him to stick his offer. I wanted nothing to do with his legacy or his alma mater. He lost it. Before I knew what was happening, he had me pinned against the wall. I managed to wrestle him off, and I was this,”—he pinched his fingers together until they were almost touching—“close to hitting him. I just exploded. It was only his smug smirk that made me pause. As if he knew, knew we were the same. I shoved him away and punched the wall. And then he hit me. His fists rained into me until something in me snapped. I shoved his drunk ass off me and got the hell ou
t of there. I drove and drove not knowing where I was going until I ended up at the party.”
“Maverick, I’m—” I was speechless. I remembered how I found him that night—broken and bruised, clutching the bottle of beer as if it was his lifeline.
“Don’t,” he said with a defensive lilt. “Don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t bear it. I don’t want pity or sympathy. Lo, I just want you.”
I closed the space between us and gently pressed my lips to his. Maverick winced as I traced the seam of his mouth with my tongue with featherlight touches. He didn’t want my pity, but I could be strong for him. But he didn’t let me in. Pulling back, he stared at me in awe. “There’s more, Lo. I have to get all this out.”
“Okay.” I swallowed, my mind working overtime at what else he could possibly have to say.
“Mom called me that night. He’d rang her after I left. She was hysterical begging me to go back, to smooth things over. I couldn’t believe it. She wanted me to go back to that piece of shit, the man who used to abuse her. It took me a couple of hours to calm down, but I finally went. I’d left Macey there, and she was scared. When I got back to the house, he was a different man. Sober. Calm. My head was reeling. He asked me to sit down and talk. And stupidly, I thought he wanted to apologize.”
“He didn’t?” I asked.
“Not even close. He said he needed me to do something for him. A favor. If I agreed, he would forget my outburst—my fucking outburst. I told him I wasn’t interested. That I never wanted to see him again. But then he said if I didn’t do as he asked, if I didn’t do as he wanted, he’d see to it that I’d never get to play college-level basketball and if I ever needed a reminder of exactly how much power he had, he’d destroy Gentry’s company quicker than I could blink.
“It all fell into place after that. The way Gentry cowered that night years before. Why me and Macey knew a completely different man to everyone else. He’d threatened them, bought their silence.”
I’d known Alec Prince was a real piece of work, but this seemed inconceivable.
“He wanted you to date Caitlin, didn’t he?” I whispered.
“Her dad is an important player in town. Owns a lot of land. Land my dad’s company wants to acquire. Caitlin had always had a thing for me and Dad saw an opportunity to align our families.”
Maverick looked so tired. The emotional exhaustion etched into his face. I traced my fingers over his jaw and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips. “You look tired. You should rest,” I insisted.
“We should talk about this, Lo. There are still things—”
“Ssh.” I shut him up, stealing another kiss. “We can talk later. Sleep. I’ll be right here. And when you wake up, you can tell me the rest.”
“You’ll stay?”
I nodded.
“But what about my mom? Your uncle?”
“They know I’m here, Maverick.”
“They do?” His brows drew together.
“There are things I need to tell you too,” I said, pushing to my feet. “Come on, get comfy and make room.”
A smile tugged at his mouth as he shuffled back on the bed, the first one since I arrived. It lifted my heart. There was still a lot to talk about. To confess. But he needed time. And I would wait.
I would always wait for him.
~
“Hi,” I said as Maverick’s eyes fluttered open. He’d slept for over an hour before he started to murmur in pain. “I think it’s time for more medication.” I went to move but his arm shot out and trapped me to the bed.
“Wait, let me enjoy this. Just for a second.”
“Maverick, come on, you need your pills.”
“No, I need this.” He shuffled closer, grunting under his breath. “Fuck that hurts.”
“Which is why you need your painkillers.”
“Spoilsport.”
I poked my tongue out at him as I got off the bed to fetch his medication. I’d laid beside him, watching as he slept, my stomach churning with the reality of his confession. Hatred burned through my veins at what he’d been through. All at the hands of Alec Prince—his father.
God, there had been times over the last few months when I’d hated my own father, but it made our issues seem so insignificant. Because for as much as I’d tested Dad’s patience and pushed his boundaries over the last few months, he would never lay a hand on me. Ever.
“Here you go.” I returned to Maverick’s side and handed him the pills and a glass of water. He chucked them back and swallowed.
“Thanks.” He handed me back the glass, and I placed it down on the desk. “You’re still here,” he said.
“I told you I would be. I’m not going anywhere, Maverick.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Stop.” I reached for his hand, entwining it with my own. “We owe ourselves this. A shot at something real and good.”
“I love you, Lo.” He said the words as if they were easier than breathing. “I know I’m fucked up and should let you walk away but I’m not sure I can.”
He loved me?
Maverick Prince loved me.
He noticed my hesitation and a slow smirk broke over his face. “You caught that, huh?” His eyes glittered with emotion as he pushed up on his elbows. “I think I fell in love with you that very first night. An angel in the darkness.”
“Maverick,” I gulped over the lump in my throat.
“It’s okay.” He reached out to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I don’t need to hear the words, yet. Just knowing you’re here, that you didn’t run, it’s enough.”
I nodded, too speechless to reply.
“I guess you want to know the rest?”
I nodded again, getting comfortable in the chair.
“I dated Caitlin for nine months. It wasn’t so bad, at first. But as the weeks went by, I started to resent her. JB noticed. Kept asking me what my game was. Obviously, I could never tell him. She started making all these plans for our future. I was only a junior for fuck’s sake. I panicked. We had a big argument, and I knew I had to end it. So I went to my father and sold my soul. I told him I’d go to East Bay without a fight; that I’d give up the dream of basketball if he promised not to go after Gentry’s business.
“I ended it with Caitlin the next day. She played the heartbroken girl, but she didn’t love me. She loved what I represented. Popularity. Money. Things had been tense with JB the entire time we dated, but that threw him over the edge. We got into it and he accused me of using his sister and since I couldn’t tell him the truth, I didn’t deny it.”
“So that’s it? You have to forfeit your dreams to protect my uncle? To be the bad guy in all of this? That isn’t right, Maverick.”
“I don’t think he’d really do it. Alec Prince is a lot of things but ruin a man who raised his kids? Even I can’t believe he’s that fucked up. He rules with fear, Lo. Control. As long as I thought he would do it, he had me where he wanted me. But when Coach found out I wasn’t applying to any of the colleges interested in recruiting me, he hauled me into his office and demanded answers. I gave him the short version: my place at East Bay was already a given. He refused to accept it, said he had a contact at UCLA Bruins, the only college I’ve ever wanted to attend.”
“But what will you do if you get accepted? What if your dad makes good on his promise to ruin Gentry’s business?”
“It doesn’t matter now, anyway.” His voice was flat as he stared off into space.
“Maverick?”
“Coach called me into his office after practice on Tuesday. He got a call from the head coach at Bruins. Acceptance letters aren’t supposed to go out for another five weeks, but he wanted to give me a heads up that someone had been digging around into my transcripts.”
“What… I don’t understand.”
“I’m dyslexic, Lo. It’s pretty well managed in class but I struggle with tests. My SAT score was not where I needed it to be for UCLA but with my athletic record and Coach’s connecti
ons, they were prepared to grant me special admission. It shouldn’t have mattered.”
“But they have to make allowances for that kind of thing, right?”
“They don’t know.”
“What do you mean, they don’t know?”
“I didn’t tell them.”
“But… why?”
“Because I’m Maverick Prince.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “But if it’s the difference between getting accepted and not, surely it doesn’t matter who knows?”
He hung his head in defeat. “It doesn’t matter now. The admissions board know, and they’re not prepared to support me since my score was already lower than it needed to be.”
“But I thought you said you didn’t tell them?” Confusion swarmed my brain.
“I didn’t. My father did.”
Maverick
“Maverick, what is it?” Lo glanced back at me.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” I flicked my head to the kitchen door, and she let out a heavy sigh as she spun around and came toward me.
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
Gentry could skin me alive, for starters.
My eyes dropped away but Lo was there, gliding her fingers underneath my jaw, tilting my face to hers. “Come on.”
“I need a minute.”
“Okay.” She pressed her lips to mine in a lingering kiss. “But don’t disappear on me.”
As if I could.
I owed her. I owed her so fucking much. But I needed a second to catch my breath. Lo disappeared inside and my eyes shuttered. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t hurt. But since coming clean to Lo about everything, I felt lighter somehow. She’d hung on my every word as I revealed my deepest secrets. And she was still here.
There had been no pity in her eyes or tears of sympathy. Her strength knew no bounds. And then she blew my mind, explaining that before she came to the pool house she stopped by to talk to her uncle and Rebecca. Just like that, she’d told them about us.