by Minard, Tori
I leaned into him and lifted my face for a kiss on the mouth. “I’ll be fine.”
“He didn’t threaten you, did he?”
“No. I’ll tell you in a minute.”
We ordered sandwiches and took them to a booth at the edge of the commons, where we had at least a smidgen of privacy. The place hummed with the voices of all the students who came here for lunch or snacks between classes, not to mention the people who conducted their study groups here. In a way, the noise level was a good thing, because it made it difficult to pick out any single conversation, so it was unlikely anyone would be listening to what we said.
We sat down next to each other, shoulders touching, and ate quietly for a few minutes. Then Max put his sandwich down and took my hand. “So what did he say?”
“Tiffani broke up with him. He wants me to come back.”
“Are you going to do it?” he said quietly.
I turned to him as my mouth fell open. “Of course not. How could you think that?”
He studied me soberly. “You went out with him for a whole year. I figured you might still be attached.”
“No. Not like that.”
“So you are attached in some way?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not attached to him. I’m attached to you.”
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Max, I have no romantic interest in Trent. I’m not sure I ever did.”
His black brows descended. “Why did you go out with him, then?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that question over and over. I guess he just seemed like the kind of guy I should be dating, you know? The kind of guy my parents would approve of.”
“And I’m not,” he said dryly.
“They don’t know you very well yet. Once they do, they’ll love you just like I do.”
He leaned close, a smile beginning to light his eyes. “I hope not just like you do,” he murmured in my ear before biting my earlobe.
I yelped, then laughed. “Stop that.”
“I can’t help myself. Every time I see you, I want to take a bite.”
People were looking at us because of the noise I’d made. I felt my whole body heating with embarrassment as Max continued to nuzzle me behind my ear and along the length of my neck.
“I love it when you wear your hair up like this,” he murmured. “With all the little curls escaping.”
He really did seem to like my hair, a concept I found amazing. His lips made a warm, erotic trail along my neck and I found myself beginning to ache and sigh in spite of our audience. Everything he did, every touch, felt like heaven to me. I lifted my hand and buried my fingers in the silk of his hair.
My gaze lifted and met Trent’s as he stalked through the commons toward us. His blue eyes were narrowed and even from several yards away, I could see his jaw clenching rhythmically. My fingers tensed in Max’s hair.
“Ow,” he said, lifting his head.
He saw Trent and went still, his hand tightening around mine. The blond slid into the booth across from us and leaned back, folding his hands on the table top as if it belonged to him. He smiled unpleasantly.
“What do you want, Trent?” I said.
“It just occurred to me that you probably don’t know,” he said.
“Know what?”
“Why Max went after you.”
“Don’t do this,” I said.
“He did it to get to me.”
“Knock it off, Trent,” I said uneasily. “You know that isn’t true.”
My stomach churned and my head began to ache. This was the same story he’d told me when he’d first explained Max’s relationship to him and it pissed me off he was dragging it out again.
“Tell her, Max.” Trent’s smile turned mocking. “I know it’s true, so you might as well confess.”
“Tell him he’s full of shit,” I said, turning to Max.
Something in his face made me pause. It looked like...guilt. My mouth opened as my body flushed hot, and then icy cold.
“Max?”
He gazed at me, his beautiful ocean-dark eyes full of regret. “I wanted you, Caro. From the first minute I saw you.”
“But...why are you looking at me like that?”
Trent snorted, an ugly sound. “Because he doesn’t want to admit the truth. That he pursued you to get revenge on me.”
I was staring at Max and I knew my face was full of doubt and mistrust, because that’s how I felt. The morning after our first night together came back to me, the way he’d tried to break things off before they’d really gotten started. He’d sounded kind of guilty then and I hadn’t been able to make sense of it. In light of Trent’s accusation and the expression currently on Max’s face, it was beginning to make sense after all.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I said in a choked voice. I felt sick.
Max closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, I knew Trent was right.
“I wanted to be near you,” he said. “No matter what it took.”
“But you wanted to hurt Trent, didn’t you?” I edged away from him until I was sitting on the very limit of the bench seat.
Max swallowed. His eyes were so sad. I don’t think I’d ever seen him sadder. “Yes.”
I stood up, hoisting my backpack to my shoulder. My hands shook. “You lied to me. All that garbage about love. It was a lie.”
“No. That was never a lie.” His voice sounded dead. “I love you.”
Even now, he wouldn’t admit the truth. How could he look at me and say those words after what he’d done?
“Bullshit, Max.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Trent smirking. I hated him as much as I now despised his stepbrother.
“It’s true,” Max said. “I love you. I’ll always love you.”
“Don’t. Say. That.” I took a step backward. “I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to speak to you or hear your voice. Don’t come near me.” I spun on my heel and walked away.
My throat hurt. My heart hurt. My eyes stung, but for some reason I wasn’t crying. That seemed wrong. I should be crying. I’d just lost the love of my life.
It had all been an elaborate game to him, a game he was apparently still playing. All of the tenderness, the passion, the declarations of love, all lies. The knowledge tore me apart inside. I moved blindly through the commons, bumping my hip into a table without stopping, slamming through the door and into the rain outside.
Cold water fell relentlessly on my bare head. I ignored it. The icy pinpricks of the raindrops perfectly matched my mood, although I wasn’t even sure how to define that mood.
Anger. Rage. Grief. Despair. I seemed to be drowning in so many emotions I couldn’t make sense of any of them. Razor-like claws were ripping a hole inside me. I couldn’t imagine anything ever filling that hole, ever making me well again. It was like my world had been destroyed in one little conversation.
“Caroline, wait!”
God, not Trent. I kept on walking.
“Wait a minute. Are you all right?”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
“I didn’t do that to hurt you.” He caught my arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarled at him. “You hear me? Never touch me again.”
He recoiled, dropping my arm. “Caroline, I just thought you should know.”
“You did it for revenge. Well, you got what you wanted. I hope you’re happy now.”
“No. I want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” I sped up, hoping he’d get the message.
“I need to make sure you’re all right.”
“If you think this will make me go back to you, you’re deeply confused.”
“I know you,” he said in a reasonable tone that reminded me of his stepfather. “You need a guy in your life. You hate to be alone.”
“Fuck off, Trent.”
“What did you say to me?”
“You heard me. I don’t want you, now or ever. Leave me alone or I’ll call campus security.”
“Jesus.” He stopped walking to gape at me.
I just kept on going. At the moment, I didn’t know who to despise more, him or Max. They were both bastards. Lying, cheating bastards.
Max had manipulated me after all. He’d cozied up to me, pretended to be my friend, pretended to care about me, all so he could steal me away from Trent. All so he could hurt his stepbrother’s ego, embarrass him, humiliate him. He’d used me and I couldn’t forgive that.
I was better off alone than with one of them.
I made it to my room without breaking down. As I inserted the key in my lock, a terrible feeling came over me, worse even than the despair that had hit me in the commons. This was like a weighted blanket settling over me, hopelessness woven into its fabric and sealed in with every stitch.
My hand hesitated on the knob. I was trembling. The key didn’t want to go into the lock. My legs didn’t want to hold me up. Somehow I managed to get the door open. I went inside and shut it behind me and sank to the floor, staring at the contents of my room without seeing.
The sadness felt so big I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Max and I hadn’t even been together that long. Six weeks? Not long at all, yet it felt like forever. It had felt eternal.
What a sick joke that was. We hadn’t even made it two months.
I’d told him I loved him. And it was true. I had loved him. I still loved him. My body craved him.
Slowly, I curled up on my side. The hole in my insides kept widening, deepening, yet tears refused to come. All I could do was stare at my carpet, my mind a blank desert of pain.
Chapter 24
Max
The brewpub had sent me a sharply worded email asking me why I hadn’t submitted the final on their logo design yet, and I couldn’t focus. If I didn’t get my act together, I was going to lose their business. Yet I sat at my desk and stared blankly at my monitor, which was the same thing I’d been doing all afternoon.
It had been two weeks since Caroline had left me. I hadn’t seen her at all in that time. I’d gone to her dorm room and knocked, but either she wasn’t home or she refused to answer. I’d called. Texted. No response.
I couldn’t sleep or eat. I’d lost her. From the beginning, I’d known it would happen sooner or later, but stupidly I’d hoped for later. Much later.
I hadn’t talked to Brad and Marie. If I went there or even called, they’d know instantly something was wrong. And I didn’t want to tell them. How could I explain what I’d done? How could I look in their eyes and admit how I’d used Caroline and how I was now paying?
It served me right, of course. What I’d done was indefensible. That fact did nothing to ease the pain of her loss.
Someone knocked on my door. Caroline? I jumped up so fast my chair went zooming across the floor, my heart pounding in sudden, stupid hope.
I opened the door and it was only Paige. My shoulders fell about a foot.
“I’m here for her things,” she said, giving me an appraising glance. “Wow, you look terrible.”
“Thank you. Come in and I’ll get them.” I felt like howling.
Not only had Caroline not come, she was taking away her things. She’d sent Paige for them so she wouldn’t have to speak to me or look at me. I felt like a piece of shit she’d scraped off her shoe.
Paige stood tensely in the center of my living room while I went into the bedroom to get Caro’s stuff. She’d left a tote bag with some overnight things in my room.
The bag was on my mattress, where it had been when she’d gotten up that morning. I hadn’t moved it. I picked it up and looked inside.
A small cosmetic bag with some make-up, a toothbrush and toothpaste, her panties, a camisole, a pair of socks. I pulled out the camisole and held it to my nose, inhaling her scent with closed eyes. It made me ache.
I threw the camisole onto my pillow and carried the bag out to Paige. She was standing in front of my computer and staring at my monitor. As I came near, she looked up at me.
“Is this your design?” She pointed at the logo.
“Yes.”
“You’re really good,” she said in a somewhat grudging tone, like she hated to admit it.
“Thank you.”
She held out her hand for the bag.
“How is she?” I said, almost fearing the answer.
“How do you think? She’s terrible. You broke her heart.” Paige glared at me as she took the bag from me.
“I—tell her I miss her. And I love her.”
“No way. I’m not telling her anything.”
“She won’t talk to me.”
“Hm. I guess you have a problem, then.” She gave me her back as she walked to my door.
“I want to explain. I need to explain,” I said, following her.
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“Is she—” My throat closed down painfully. “Is she seeing Trent?”
Paige shot me a disbelieving glance. “No, she is not. She won’t talk to him either.”
That gave me a spurious sense of relief. At least she hadn’t gone back to my prick of a stepbrother.
“Please tell her I need to see her.”
Paige opened my door, shaking her head. “I’m not getting involved in this. Picking up her stuff is as far as I go. If you want to talk to her, you make it happen.”
She walked through my door and shut it behind her. I shouldn’t have asked her to be my go-between. She was Caroline’s friend, not mine, so of course she’d be loyal to Caroline. And that was good. I was glad Caroline had a friend on her side. I just wished I had someone on mine, but everyone had deserted me. Even Fred hadn’t come around.
I went back to my computer and emailed the logo to my client. It was good enough, and if they didn’t like it they’d let me know. Better to send them something imperfect than nothing at all.
That chore done, I went to my refrigerator and got myself a beer. Gods, I’d sunk low, drinking by myself. I hadn’t done anything like this in years, but what the hell? I flopped onto the hard wood floor, perversely enjoying my own discomfort, and downed the contents of the bottle as quickly as I could.
“You need to fight for her.” Fred’s voice came from behind me.
I turned my head lazily. “Surprised to see you. Thought you’d lost my address.”
“I had some matters to attend to.”
“Oh. I see.” I got up and went back to the fridge for a second beer.
Fred waited for me in the living room. He was back to wearing the sack suit and derby, but the moustache was still missing. Without it, he looked like me in historical costume. I settled back on the floor and swallowed a good slug of beer.
“She doesn’t want me to fight for her,” I said.
Fred scoffed. “Of course she does.”
“She said she didn’t want to see my face or hear my voice.” Another slug of beer.
“Spoken in the heat of the moment,” he said.
“Yeah, well, she seemed pretty sincere at that moment.”
“Max, she loves you.”
I tilted the beer again and let it run down my throat. This shit wasn’t doing the job. I wished I had some whiskey or vodka.
“She tell you that?” I said without looking at him.
“I haven’t spoken to her, but I have observed. She seems as miserable as you are.”
“Then why won’t she answer my calls or texts?”
“Pride, I suppose.” He sighed. “Women are very proud creatures in their way.”
“Fight for her,” I said, and took another swallow of beer.
“She wants you to.”
“That’s an assumption, Fred. Never assume.”
“She’s not eating.”
I set the bottle on the floor and looked at him. “Not at all?”
He shook his head. His eyes were serious, almost mournful. He was worried about her.
“Not as far as I could see. She just drinks coffee.”
My stomach gave a nauseous lurch. “She’ll make herself sick.”
“She very well might.”
“I’m going over there.” I got up, leaving the beer on the floor.
“Good.” Fred disappeared.
***
I ran almost all the way to Caroline’s dorm. My hair and jacket and shoes were soaked with rain by the time I got there, but I barely felt the cold wet of my clothes. Fred’s words had fired me up, given me a reason to move beyond my work desk and bed. They’d given me a reason to hope.
I can’t explain why the knowledge that Caroline wasn’t eating gave me hope. Except maybe that she was suffering, too. Maybe she missed me. Maybe she still needed me.
The gods knew I needed her.
As usual, I got no answer when I knocked on her door. She could be anywhere—out with Paige, at a class, at the student union, the library, a movie. And if I called or texted her, she’d know I was trying to find her and then she’d go out of her way to avoid me.
Instead, I sat down on the floor next to her room and settled in to wait as long as it took. In mid-afternoon, the hall was lively with students going to and from their rooms. They all gave me curious looks, but no-one said anything.
I don’t know how long I sat there. My bladder filled because of all the beer I’d had. It was starting to hurt. Damn it. I didn’t want to leave, not even to go take a piss, in case she showed up while I was gone.
Eventually, though, I had to give in or wet my pants. I hustled down the hall to the male side of the floor and used their bathroom. It reminded me of the locker room in my high school—not a place filled with good memories. Finishing up as quickly as possible, I hurried back to Caroline’s side in time to see her putting her key in her lock.
I strode toward her, determined to catch her before she could lock me out. I’d almost reached her when she glanced up and saw me. Her face lost what little color it had.
She looked ill. Dark smudges shadowed her eyes. There were hollows beneath her cheekbones and her hair was dull and tangled-looking. She stared at me with a mixture of dread and fascination—at least, that’s what her expression looked like to me.
“Caro,” I said, my voice coming out all hoarse and stupid-sounding.