Salvaging Max

by SH Richardson

  “Hmm,” was Buck’s only response, which I figured was his go-to when he was upset about something.

  “Get over here.” The boy toddled over with his plate in his hand.

  “This here is Range, helps out in the yard after school. This is Maxie. Gonna be staying here for a while.”

  “Maxie? Like in maxi pad? No way, dude, I can’t call you that. Max sounds way cooler, like Mad Max.” Range laughed at his silly joke, and Buck swung his fist at his head and just missed it. Range stepped out of the way without spilling a drop of food and laughed harder. Buck growled in his direction but didn’t try to swing again. He wasn’t really trying anyway. The two talked about the work they had to finish after Range was back from school. Buck told him not to fuck around with getting his ass back here, and Range agreed. I wondered about their relationship, if perhaps they were related in some way. They didn’t look alike, and it was highly unlikely that Buck would allow a relative to walk around in too small clothes and broken-down shoes. Range looked at Buck with stars in his eyes, like he was some kind of superhero. He worshiped him. Whatever their relationship was, I wanted it, too. The perpetual scowl on Buck’s brow didn’t hide the fact that he loved this boy and would die before he let anything bad happen to him.

  “Hurry up, boy, or you’ll be late for school. Don’t forget to bring that little asshole back with you.”

  “Which asshole, Buck? I know so many.” Their banter was intoxicating, different from anything I’d ever experienced in my life, and I laughed easily listening to those two go at it.

  “You know what asshole I’m talking about! Sebastian. Bring his little narrow ass back with you.”

  “Sure thing, Buck, one asshole coming up. Catch you later, guys.” Range left for school, and I waited for Buck to tell me what I should do. He told me he had to close the junkyard today and was going to be gone for a few hours. He told me to wait at the house and not to open the door or answer the phone. That was fine by me. I didn’t want to see any more visitors today, especially the police, so I agreed. I was afraid for him to leave, but he told me everything was going to be okay as long as I did what I was told. I trusted him. I spent my day with a pen and a pad, writing his name over and over until my fingers ached. This time, I didn’t have to burn it.

  Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck.

  HAVEN

  Thank God, it was quitting time. My entire body ached from head to toe. A hot bath filled with Epsom salts and a glass of wine was definitely my date for the night. I looked forward to having the next two days off all to myself, where I didn’t have to think about or see the handsome and seductive Max O’Neill. I wasn’t completely immune to his deep, gravelly voice or his boyish smile. It did things to me, things I thought had been obliterated long ago. He had a swagger about him that screamed bad boy, yet his eyes spoke of something totally different, a loneliness filled with pain. I recognized it the moment he bent at the waist and forced me to make eye contact with him after his visit with the senator. Everything about him caused a physical reaction within me: my heartbeat was faster, my breaths were a near pant, and let’s not forget about the peak of my nipples or that feeling of fullness as they ached to be squeezed. The titillation was so powerful, I’d never felt anything like it in my life, all without actually touching. How is that possible?

  My next assignment would definitely be devoid of long-lost relatives, especially mysterious, handsome ones; I’d make sure of that. Max wasn’t something I’d anticipated as a problem when I first accepted the job. Bad enough I had to deal with Jeremy every other day. His showing up out of the blue placed a big giant monkey wrench in my plans to remain unemotional about the people I served as caregiver. Granted, Max wasn’t my patient, and from what I could tell, wasn’t in jeopardy of dying, but he was a distraction to all five of my senses. The three I grudgingly used—sight, smell, and hearing—were fighting with my womanhood to complete the circle with the other two—touch and taste. I just had to find a way to remain impassive and not give in to those feelings of wantonness. Yes, that’s it! Deny, deny, deny.

  I made it to my car in record time. I just hoped the thing started up without its usual theatrics. The duct tape holding the tailpipe in place was barely hanging on; if it wasn’t for the wire hanger attached, it surely would have fallen off by now. I reached the hood, stroked it lightly, and gave it a little pep talk before climbing in.

  “Be a good little boy and start up like you’re supposed to, and I’ll make sure when the times comes to give you a proper burial.” Hey, it’s worked before.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me. You talk to your car, Heaven?”

  “Jesus, Max, you scared the crap outta me. Stop sneaking up on me like that.”

  “I was here first, so technically, you snuck up on me, woman.” I was still breathing heavily and holding my chest when I took in his worn features. I’d just seen him an hour ago, and he looked worse than before, if that were possible. His hair was sticking up all over the place, as if he had been pulling on it, his face was red, especially around the eyes, as if he had been crying, and his clothes, well, they were just a complete mess of wrinkles and dirt. What the hell happened in the last hour? He was frazzled, bone-weary, and ready to drop. He refused to look at me directly, concentrating on the ground in front of him. I was instantly concerned with his mental health and well-being. Call it medical intuition; years of training had taught me how to spot a person on the edge, and Max was definitely straddling the line.

  “Max? What’s happened?” I stepped toward him standing on the other side of the car.

  “Nothing…I just…My mother…I need to get the fuck outta here.” He turned to leave, but I couldn’t let him go, not like that. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “You can’t drive, Max. Just wait a minute, let’s talk.” He was already shaking his head no before I’d asked him the question. His entire body was twitching, like a drug addict looking for his next fix. He was losing it right in front of my eyes.

  “No. No. No. I need to go. This place…I can’t stay here.” He tried to leave again, so I stood in front of him and blocked his path. If I let him go now, he could seriously hurt someone driving erratically, especially in this frame of mind. I had to do something.

  “Ok, get in and I’ll take you. Wherever you want to go, I’ll take you.” I thought he would protest. Instead, he jumped into the passenger seat of my piece-of-shit car and waited. I had no idea where he wanted to go, but anywhere was better than here. Luckily for us, my shitty car decided to play nice and crank up on the first try. Thank you, pep talk. I set off in no particular direction just fast enough to clear us from the gated community and away from the senator’s mansion. Max’s fidgeting was starting to freak me out. The silence in the car wasn’t helping either. How the hell did I get myself into this situation? I had to do something to snap him out of the funk he was in, and I had to do it fast.

  “Do you believe in vampires, Max?” It was so off the wall it just might work.

  “What?”

  “Vampires? Do you believe in them?” I half smiled in his direction, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was looking out of the window completely lost inside himself. I tried harder.

  “When I was a little girl, we had this big giant oak tree in the front of my parents’ house that was spooky as hell at night. The limbs were all over the place, some large, some small, most of which looked like large creepy arms ready to reach out and grab you.” I let go of the steering wheel and waived my arms around like an idiot. It gave him the full effect. Still no response.

  “Anyway. My brother and I would race past that tree to get to the front door every time our parents took us out at night. We’d cross our arms in front of us like this.” I let go of the wheel and demonstrated the sign of the cross using both arms, then continued.

  “We hauled ass after the count of three. My brother would try his hardest to keep up on his littl
e legs. I had to pick him up and drag him along with me. Do you know how hard it is to run and look up at the same time? I just knew a vampire was waiting for us in that tree, perched on one of those limbs, just waiting for the right time to strike. To this day, whenever I pass a tree at night, I look up and search for the vampire before I pass by. I just know one day I’ll spot him.”

  The fidgeting finally stopped, and Max turned in his seat and gave me his full attention. It was a stupid story but a real one. Grown woman or not, fuck those vampires. He took a few deep breaths, which was a good sign. He was calming himself down, exactly the desired effect I had been going for. He spoke for the first time since we’d started driving, and I was relieved to see him finally breaking through.

  “That’s the dumbest shit I’d ever heard in my life, Heaven.”

  “Oh yeah? Don’t say I didn’t warn you, buddy. They’re out there, mark my words.” I looked toward him and tried to make my teeth look like those of a vampire. He shook his head and rolled his eyes at my stupidity. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a ghost of a smile on his handsome face. Take that, Dr. Phil.

  “If one of those fuckers decides to jump out while you’re with me, I’ll beat his ass and steal his teeth as a souvenir.”

  “Are you sure about that? They can be pretty tough to take down if you’re not prepared. Think you can handle it?”

  “Woman. There ain’t a tough time invented that I can’t handle, including some asshole jumping out of trees dragging his teeth behind him. Trust me.”

  Max might have been talking about killing vampires when he mentioned the word ‘trust,’ but the idea of placing my trust in anyone, for any reason, was a foreign concept. The last time I’d trusted someone to do the right thing, it turned out to be the worst mistake of my life, one I was still paying for. As a child, you trust the adults in your life to protect you from harm, guide you in the right direction, and care about your welfare. I’d placed my trust in my cousins to take care of us when my parents died, and they failed, miserably. Sure, we had a roof over our heads and avoided the pitfalls of foster care life, but our lives hadn’t been better, far from it.

  At least you still have your life. What about Landon?

  Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my brother and the circumstances surrounding his death. If only I had tried harder, been better at what cousin Richard wanted me to do, my brother would still be alive. He didn’t deserve the hand he was dealt, neither one of us did. He had been sweet and too kindhearted for this cruel world, the worst traits to have as a naïve child. Whenever I was sad, he would hold me tightly around my neck and stroke my hair for hours until I felt better. He didn’t know that my sadness never stemmed from the loss of our parents but from something else, something more heinous. I tried to protect him the best way I knew how, by doing exactly what Richard wanted. But it hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough.

  No. Trust would never be a part of this temporary relation between Max and me. He was one of them, the entitled rich. It was just a matter of time before he tried to take what he wanted with total disregard for my feelings. I wouldn’t risk getting close to him for any reason; it was just not worth the letdown when I was proven right. Wise choice, Haven.

  “How about we stop and grab a coffee?” It was the friendly thing to do. One quick cup should buy me enough time to make sure he wasn’t a danger to himself and others.

  “Sure, why not. But you’re buying, vampire slayer.”

  MAXWELL

  That shit my mother pulled in her office had my mind completely fucked up. It was like being hypnotized at a carnival side show and being forced to bark like a dog. I couldn’t fight that intense pull to feel her touch me like she did when I was a boy. I was a fucking slave to her will, and she owned me without even trying. It was sick and twisted. She was my mother, for fuck’s sake. What the hell was wrong with me that I allowed her to do that without pulling away, or at the very least, put up a protest of some kind? I never wanted her to touch me again, not after everything she’d put me through, but there was nothing I could do. I was fucked. If she just gave me what I came for, cut the head games, and let me leave, I could return to the junkyard and be with my brothers. I had to show them that I’d changed, that I wasn’t the same selfish sonofabitch who deserved to be turned away from our family. I was doing it for them as much as myself, to prove once and for all that I wasn’t some sort of freak.

  When I ran from the mansion, I had one thing on my mind: finding a way to make the darkness go away. The last thing I expected was to run into Heaven leaving for the day. One look in my direction, and she knew something was wrong. The only reason I agreed to leave with her was because I was too upset to remember where I left the fucking keys to my car. I was surprised we didn’t end up having to push that piece of shit she drove to the nearest scrapyard before we made it down the street. That thing should have been retired years ago and banned from every street in the country. Heaven didn’t seem to mind the smoky exhaust, the squeaky brakes, or the strange rumble coming from the engine. She drove it like a brand-new Mercedes, not caring a fuck what anyone thought. We made it all the way to one of those swanky bistros popping up on every corner and were just being seated by the hostess.

  “Your server will be right with you. In the meantime, if you need anything, I’m Carol.”

  She emphasized the anything as she handed us our menus then sashayed back to the front of the coffee house. I immediately picked up on the fact that she was not talking to Heaven and her “anything” had fuck all to do with coffee.

  “Looks like you made a new friend,” Heaven commented, her eyes narrowed in disgust as we sat down in a booth near the window.

  “Aww, are you jealous, baby?” I ran my finger down her soft cheek. It felt like cotton. “Don’t be. You’re much prettier than she is, all clean and white in your sexy nurse uniform.” Shit. Why did I say that? Get your shit together, Max.

  “Humph…she probably has coffee grounds stuck up her vagina.”

  The woman was a pistol, all sass and attitude. Listening to her bristle at the comment made by the waitress made my dick hard. She really was a sight to behold; her sandy blond hair tied back and out of her face gave me the perfect view of her flawless beauty. Her eyes were the color of ash, grey with a tint of blue, like the burnt pieces of papers that blew away with Buck’s name written on them. She had the prefect button nose that made me want to kiss the tip of it just to watch her smile. Everything about this woman was prefect, right down to her pouty little mouth that begged for my cock to slide inside of it and choke her as she swallowed me whole. She also had a big heart. Being a nurse required it, but there was more than just her chosen profession; she cared about me driving around erratically and causing harm to an innocent bystander. I was a stranger to her, yet she gave me something few had in the past: she gave me her time.

  “How long have you worked for the senator?” While we waited for the coffee to arrive, I decided to make small talk. No harm in having a conversation, right?

  “A little over six months now. He’s my second private duty assignment since graduation.” Her eyes lit up when she talked about her job. She loved it.

  “You’re pretty young to have completed a nursing degree already. Your family must be very proud of you.” She turned to the window and stared off into the parking lot at nothing. Her smile disappeared, but I didn’t know why.

  “I lost my family long ago, Max.”

  She said it so low I barely heard it. Fuck. Watching her beautiful face cloud with sudden sadness did something to me. My chest ached to take away her pain and bring back her lovely smile. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually enjoyed having a conversation with someone that didn’t involve fucking. The coffee arrived and I thanked the waitress absently as I reached for the cream and sugar. Heaven’s concentration was somewhere else, a place she didn’t belong, and I wanted her back with me.

  “My brother Sebastian thinks coffee is bad for you
, along with just about everything else. If he saw me drinking this shit, he would bitch a fit and flood my inbox with text messages for weeks with statistics on caffeine consumption.” That bought her attention back to me.

  “Brother? I don’t understand. How many children does the senator have?”

  “Fuck if I know. I left when I was twelve and haven’t been back since.” She tilted her head to the side like puppy. My answer didn’t make any sense. How could it?

  “We both know I wasn’t away at some fucking boarding school, and I sure as shit wasn’t in rehab or jail, if that’s what you’re thinking. I grew up in a junkyard with my three brothers and a man I consider my real father.” Curiosity was kicking her ass; the questions were written all over her beautiful face.

  “A junkyard? Well, that must have been different. Not exactly how I pictured a rich boy like you spending his formative years. Must have been a serious culture shock for you, considering your family lives in a mansion with maids and servants,” she joked lightly.

  “Yes, it was different, but not the way you think. The junkyard is my home, the only one I’ve ever known. I plan to return as soon as I’m done here, unless…” Shit. I couldn’t tell her what was really going on, the shit my mother had planned for me.

  “I’m going back as soon as I can.” I left it at that.

  Her smile was back where it belonged, and we finished drinking our coffee in comfortable silence. We were both caught up in our own thoughts, but neither one of us was willing to share with the other. I had so much shit floating around in my head. The main topic was that party my mother was having tomorrow evening. The parties at the mansion weren’t the typical light hors d’oeuvres, elegant dancing, and flowing champagne. The political elite were treated to special entertainment. Hidden down in that dark basement was a hedonist’s wet dream. Balding impotent men would watch while their wives lived out their sexual fantasies and their peers joined in on the fun. They were useless when it came to the actual fucking, but that didn’t stop them from having their own brand of entertainment. The evening I’d fled from that place, I vowed never to take part in any of that shit again. The blood I’d spilled ensured that.