by Ann Aguirre
“You don’t have to tell me a bedtime story,” I said gently.
“No, you need to know. So you understand what’s going on and why it’s so tense when we get there.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’ll set the stage.” His tone was brittle, uneven, and the bits of paper in his hands kept getting smaller. “I was sixteen, just got my license. My dad was drinking, acting like a fuckhead. Business as usual. When he started in on Mickey, I grabbed the keys. Figured I’d get us both out of there for a while. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but taking off is kind of my specialty.”
“Between your bike, the garage office and the place you showed me by the river, I’ve picked up on the pattern, yeah.”
“I thought I was doing the smart thing, you know? But I was driving too fast and some asshole blew the stoplight. T-boned us. Mickey got the worst of it...weeks in the hospital without knowing if he’d make it. Then, once he stabilized, we found out he’d never walk again.” He curled a fist and slammed it onto the table, making the pizza box dance. “Ironic, huh? I was worried that my dad would hurt Mickey but I’m the one who—”
“Not true,” I cut in. “That’s a textbook accident. Don’t tell me you blame yourself.”
“It’s impossible to do anything else. No, wipe that look off your face, Kaufman. I didn’t open up to make you feel sorry for me. I just want you to know the deal going in. I mean, my dad’s the biggest asshole I ever met and he hates me, too.”
“What about Mickey?”
“We weren’t talking much when I left. Every day I think, what if I’d put up with my old man’s shit for five minutes more? What if I’d picked a fight with him instead of grabbing those keys? I—” His voice broke on a shuddering inhalation.
Until this moment I hadn’t realized how much weight Max carried on a daily basis or how good a job he did hiding it. I came out of my chair and rounded the little table before I consciously decided to make a move. Standing beside him, I hovered, unsure what to do. He answered the question by wrapping both arms around my waist and pulling me onto his lap. Unsettled—unnerved, even—I let him press his face into my shoulder, resting a hand on his head.
His breath warmed the skin of my throat, rousing an inappropriate shiver. Now is not the time. It wasn’t like I’d never noticed his hotness; he specialized in a scruffy, soulful appeal that women of all ages seemed unable to resist. But it was so much better for him to call me Kaufman and confide in me instead of flirting. At the moment, Max needed a friend. I stroked his back for like five minutes before he raised his gaze to meet mine.
“Sorry. The closer we get to Rhode Island, the worse I feel.”
“It’s understandable. You have to be worried about how your brother will react when you see him.” The rest of his family sounded like jackwagons. Though he’d only told me about his dad, if he had any decent aunts, uncles or cousins, they would’ve stepped up when his old man went upside his head with a bottle. A scar like that would take eight or ten stitches, minimum. I imagined Max as a scared kid with blood gushing from his scalp, and all of my protective instincts roared to life. People had been calling me a bitch since I was fifteen, and I was ready to wade in against Max’s family. Yeah, the funeral might be tense and shitty, but if his family said one fucking word—
“You’re looking especially fierce.” Max was smiling slightly, his head cocked in apparent fascination.
It was interesting that my expression could distract him. “Just contemplating all the ways I can kick ass and take names.” With a last twirl of fingers in his hair, I slid off his lap. “Your leg must be asleep, huh?”
Max was on the lean side, and I suspected I weighed as much as he did, possibly more. In his case, the weight was also stretched along eight additional inches. But he just shrugged and shook his head. If I wasn’t mistaken, a touch of color also burned high on his cheekbones. Wow, never thought I’d see him blush.
Clearing my throat, I moved away, taking my half-eaten slice of pizza to the bed I’d dumped my backpack on. I bounced onto it, completely casual, as if we hadn’t just been sharing deep emotional stuff. Max silently threw away the napkin he’d shredded and went into the bathroom. The shower switched on, resulting in an awesome banging of pipes. I pictured them breaking through the wall and flooding the floor. By the time he came back barefoot, wearing a ratty T-shirt and sweats, I had the TV on, watching a bad action movie.
“Oh, this. I’ve seen it eight times.” His offhand tone told me we were good.
“Then line it up for number nine.”
“Hey, Kaufman...”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Stop. Your boundless gratitude is freaking me out.”
“Okay. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. So obviously I’ll proposition you instead, get us back on familiar footing.”
I grinned, wadding up a piece of paper from the pad next to me and chucking it at him. “I’m not making out with you.”
“Does that mean sex without kissing is off the table?”
“Definitely. So far off, it’s out the door, chained up in the backyard.”
He let out a mock-wistful sigh. “Poor coitus. What did it ever do to you?”
“It was the best of sex, it was the worst of sex...”
Max laughed, and it felt fairly glorious to bring him to this point so soon, relatively speaking, after he’d told me about the accident. “Are you butchering Dickens in a subtextual pun or am I reaching?”
“That depends,” I said.
“On what?”
“If you thought it was funny.”
“Definitely.” He shot me the lazy grin that crinkled his eyes and displayed a dimple.
Okay, stop being adorable, Max. It’s bothersome.
“Then it was definitely on purpose. But why do you recognize a misquote of A Tale of Two Cities, science-engineering person?”
“I read.”
“Dickens? Really? I disbelieve.” I pretended to roll some dice. “Natural twenty! Now tell me the truth or I’ll resort to drastic measures.”
“Okay, Dickens was compulsory. It’s not on my summer fun list.”
“And what is?” I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen him with a book, but he did fiddle with phone and tablet a lot, so he might be reading that way. “Fictionwise, I mean.”
“Oh, and here I planned to share all the freaky places I did it in August.”
“Max.” I infused his name with a warning tone, so that I sounded uncannily like the rabbi’s wife, back when I still went to synagogue.
“Fine. My favorite genre is horror, but I also like sci-fi, fresh and edgy stuff, not boring white guys saving the universe and banging space hotties.”
Surprise popped up like a weasel. Great, now I had that kids’ song stuck in my head. “Wait. You read mostly genre fiction? Max Cooper. You’re a secret geek.”
“Don’t tell anyone, ’kay? Not that they’d believe you.” He flipped up his shirt to reveal tasty abs. Not mega ripped but taut and fine with delicious V-lines revealed by loose sweats. “I mean, just look at this package.”
Fortunately, my brain had never let me down, no matter how much sexy, muscled, yummy tan bod was on display. “If you have to ask a girl to inspect your package, you work for UPS or you’re trying too hard, bro.”
He smirked. “I don’t like how you call yourself a girl. It’s demeaning.”
“Hey, I’m allowed to say it. Dudes aren’t.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
We stopped talking after that, but the silence didn’t thrum with badness. Max seemed as okay as he could be, considering he was on his way to bury his grandfather and see his brother for the first time in five years. And that didn’t take into account his asshole dad or the extended family, who might make his life hell for the next two days. Though we had another long day of riding ahead of us, I was looking forward to sitting behind him on the bike more than our arrival. The shi
t might really hit the fan then.
Before ten, I passed out on top of the covers and didn’t know anything until a pained sound roused me, however many hours later. Shoving up on an elbow, I glanced around in confusion. This isn’t my room, that isn’t Nadia... What—oh. Max. He writhed in the bed next to mine, an arm lashing at the mattress, and he was bathed in sweat.
That’s definitely a bad dream.
This was so far outside my jurisdiction—then again, maybe not. He’d invited me along, knowing we’d be in close quarters for the duration of the trip. So possibly he’d foreseen this development and didn’t entirely mind? Whatever. When he snarled an unintelligible curse, I rolled out of bed and crossed to his, perching on the edge.
“Max. Wake up. You’re bothering me.” That was the first thing that popped into my head, but it didn’t rouse him.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
The pure anguish in his voice told me he was reliving the accident. There was no way to know if talking about it summoned the dream or if this happened fairly often. For as much as we hung out at home, I’d never slept in the same room with him. Sucking in a breath, I rested my hand on his head, brushing the damp strands away from his brow. With the light from the sign outside illuminating his face, I saw a tear trickle from the corner of his eye, something I never imagined, ever.
Fuck me. Max cries in his sleep.
My heart twisted in my chest, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down, touching my forehead to his. That was enough to rouse him, thank God. He blinked up at me blearily, his hands unclenching. “You okay?”
“Bad dream. Scoot over.” Since he wasn’t even fully awake, he mumbled as he did. I fell asleep with my back against his.
Hours later, I stirred in increments, then snapped alert when I realized Max was spooning me. His arm was strong and warm across my waist, hips snug against my ass, and I felt each slow breath into my hair. Well, crap. No good deed, and so on. It seemed unlikely that I could get away without disturbing him. The bedside clock read 5:45 a.m., so it was still mostly dark. As I shifted, he tightened his hold and nuzzled my neck. Obviously, it felt incredible, but it had been eight months. These days it didn’t take much to turn me on. But I wasn’t a shy virgin trembling with fear that he’d ravish me. So I lifted his arm and crawled out of bed. Max was rubbing his eyes when I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed.
“Okay, did I imagine—”
“Nothing happened.” I wasn’t about to tell him that he was crying in his sleep so I figured I better go on the offensive. “My bed had janky springs, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. Anyone ever tell you your hair smells like lemons?”
“That’s the top-notch motel shampoo.”
“Couldn’t resist me, huh? This always happens, sooner or later. Should we just do it already, defuse the sexual tension?”
“As if. You were on my side of the bed. There are Russian hitmen who would pay big money to spoon this.” I slapped my ass with a teasing grin and yanked the covers off him. “Come on, get up.”
He immediately grabbed a pillow, going for basic crotch camo. “Are you kidding?”
“Oh. You already are. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I have to pee,” he mumbled.
“Take your time. If you need me to step out, so you can—”
“So help me, Kaufman, if you don’t stop talking, right now, I’ll make you.”
Smirking, I did a taunting little dance, hip swivel and half turn. “Sure you will. What, you gonna kiss me? Now, that’s original. Besides, I’m way too good at it, remember? Pretty soon you’ll be dry humping me and then come all over yourself. Let’s not go down that road.”
He scrubbed a palm across his face. “It’s too early for this.”
“Exactly my point.”
Max slammed the bathroom door after stomping past me. He was in there long enough with the water running for me to consider teasing him, but honestly, what a guy did in the shower stall of a crappy motel bathroom was between him and the tiny soap. So I didn’t say anything as we packed up and headed out to the bike. But I was thinking about it, wondering a little, when I swung on behind him and nestled close.
I could get used to this.
Of course, introducing my mother to Max might trigger the coronary she was always threatening to have, whenever I did something worthy of parental disapproval. Which was pretty much my entire life to date. She claimed she was in danger of a stroke when I came out as bisexual. In fact, my dad argued with me on the subject; he said that wasn’t even a thing and that I probably just wasn’t ready to admit I was gay yet—not that he wanted me to. So if I could just go quietly back into the closet and confine my sexual identity questions to watching interesting internet porn, that would be great. He didn’t say that, of course, but over the years, I’d gotten great at reading between the lines. Conversations with my family were pretty much always frustrating for various reasons.
“You good to go?” Max asked, starting the engine.
“Yep, let’s do this.”
Like the previous day, we rode in two-hour increments, stopping to rest so my muscles didn’t lock up. Max grew progressively tenser the closer we got to Rhode Island, and when we crossed the state line, his back felt like a brick beneath my cheek. Since I could only touch his abs, it seemed weird to rub his belly as if he was a spaniel and I was trying to make his back leg kick. As we rolled into Providence, he pulled into a gas station parking lot. The area didn’t look awesome, but I didn’t protest. I figured he needed a minute. Max disappeared inside for over ten minutes, and when he came out, he had on dress slacks, a wrinkled button-up and the ugliest tie I’d ever seen in my life.
“The wake’s already started,” he said.
“Then I should go change.” I hadn’t realized we were going straight to the funeral home.
Without another word, I took my backpack and did my best to look respectable in my black dress and ballet flats. Short of dyeing my hair and removing all my piercings, I figured I’d done the best I could, then I had to get back on the bike in a skirt. I hadn’t thought of that when I was packing. There was no way to ride sidesaddle, so I tucked the fabric.
Max took off, gunning the throttle, and I could practically sense his tension. Fifteen minutes later, we stopped outside a run-down-looking funeral parlor called Cavanaugh and Sons. The building had clearly seen better days, pitted with wind and rain, and grass grew up through cracks in the sidewalk. Most of the businesses nearby had bars across the windows; the rest were vacant buildings.
“It’s worse than I remembered,” he said, pulling off his helmet.
Max took a couple of deep breaths, and I put my hand over his heart, feeling the way it raced at the idea of facing his family. As I stared up at him, his gaze locked on my face. I metered my breathing to his, willing him to calm down. You can’t start this way. It’ll go up in flames sooner rather than later.
“Whatever happens in there, I’m on your side. You know that, right?”
“My dad would punch me in the face for bringing you to fight my battles.”
“He sounds like a catch. Has he remarried? I’m thinking I might have a shot.”
“Don’t even joke,” he snapped.
“Sorry. The more nervous I get, the closer I come to doing standup. You should’ve been at my bat mitzvah.”
“Did you wear a frilly dress?”
“And combat boots.”
Smiling, Max pulled my hand off his chest and pressed it to his cheek for one beat, two. “You make me feel like this might be okay. Somehow. Come on. Let’s go meet the family.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Inside, the funeral home was cramped.
We stepped first into a small foyer with worn red carpeting, dusty silk floral arrangements set on tables to either side. I fought a sneeze as Max took my hand and led me into the chapel. A few white folding chairs were set up, but not too many, as most people were stan
ding around in clusters, wearing their Sunday best and talking in low voices. Before, I’d only attended Jewish services, so this should be interesting from a cultural perspective.
There was a clear pathway with a runner leading up to the casket, arrayed with pictures, flowers and mementos to one side. Wearing a determined look, Max pulled me along, not stopping until we reached the coffin with the old man inside. From the look of him, he’d definitely lived a full life, complete with alcohol abuse, judging by the veins in his nose, poorly covered by the morbid makeup artist who worked for Cavanaugh and Sons. There were also plenty of wrinkles and liver spots. Reflexively, I took a step back, ostensibly to give Max room, but really I was getting away from the weirdness of staring at a dead person I’d never met.
Granting him some privacy, I turned away, taking stock of the crowd. There were middle-aged women in polyester dresses, bored men talking sports in low tones. Nobody seemed particularly broken up; I didn’t see an elderly woman weeping like a bereaved widow. But across the room, I spotted a young man in a wheelchair, and he looked uncannily like Max, except for the upper-body strength. Max was lean, and he definitely wouldn’t win at a gun show. This guy might compete in the Paralympics or something.
I put a hand on Max’s shoulder. “I think your brother’s watching us.”
He whirled, scanning the room with hungry, worried eyes. Then his gaze locked onto Mickey—I was that sure of his identity—and the guy wheeled toward us. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah. How’ve you been?” From the flash in Max’s dark eyes, he thought it was a stupid fucking thing to say, and he was already kicking himself, but it wasn’t like these occasions came with a manual.
Before Mickey could answer, a man shouldered through the crowd toward us. He was maybe an inch shorter than Max with hard eyes and cuts on his jaw that suggested he’d shaved with an unsteady hand. I might be jumping to conclusions, but they looked like the result of sobering up suddenly, after a long bender. I put his age around fifty, so he might be Max’s dad.